Online Professional Learning

Teaching for Thinking: Developing Student Cognition is a suite of online professional learning modules for teachers and school leaders designed in collaboration with the University of California - Los Angeles, Pepperdine University, and the IMPACT Centre. The program introduces the principles of critical thinking education, exploring their implications on educational equity, media literacy, and educational institutions at large.

Program rationale

The development of critical and creative thinking in students is widely recognised as a primary educational goal, both because of its intrinsic value, of the cognitive demands of an increasingly interconnected society, and of its key role in supporting deep learning across a wide range of curricular areas. On the other hand, promoting critical and creative thinking is neither a curricular task, nor is it reducible to the transmission of disciplinary knowledge. Rather, it is a specific pedagogical enterprise, which obeys autonomous pedagogical principles and which is transversal to all disciplines.

Teaching for Thinking: Developing Student Cognition introduces teachers to a pedagogical approach that is specifically designed to promote student self-regulated inquiry, and thereby encourages the development of critical and creative thinking. It does so by providing them with both a solid theoretical understanding of the nature of critical and creative thinking and of the values associated with its correct application, and with practical resources to help them apply that understanding in the construction of a shared language and culture of inquiry.

Program structure

Teaching for Thinking: Developing Student Cognition is articulated into two itroductory modules and six specialised modules, each comprising a live webinar and a range of asynchronous learning resources. Each module can be taken independently. Participation in the two introductory modules, although not mandatory, is strongly recommended. 

 

Teaching for Thinking: Developing Student Cognition is an initiative of the Pacific Partnership in Critical Thinking.