Stephen Brookfield on Creative & Critical Thinking



After the presentation of professor Stephen Brookfield,  he mentions some features of people who think critically and creatively, some of them were: identify assumptions behind thinking and action, check assumptions for accuracy and validity and take informed action. Moreover, he says that a person who thinks critically is able to view ideas and practices from multiple perspectives or viewpoints, that person can move outside from his or her habitual mental framework and is able to communicate those thoughts through a variety of different ways.

 In regard to informed action, professor Stephen says it is based on evidence or experience that can be justified, it has its assumptions known and checked, it stands a chance of achieving its intended consequence, it has been viewed from multiple perspectives and is enacted via multiple modalities. 

He also says that when he is introducing his students to the idea of critical thinking, he uses a lot the word assumption and they can encounter different kinds of assumptions: Causal assumptions purport to explain a sequence of events, prescriptive assumptions are about how things should happen, or we should behave and paradigmatic assumptions are viewed as obvious, common sense taken from granted. 

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