LEARNING TO THINK WHILE THINKING TO LEARN: PROMOTING THE INFUSION OF CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING IN TODAY'S ICT CLASSROOMS

摘要

Traditional IT courses usually require enormous student motivation and perseverance with varying results. IT lecturers at UAE University's University General Requirements Program tackled these problems by promoting a natural way of infusing creative and critical thinking in the classroom by structuring lessons where students manage their own thinking. Three main critical and creative thinking methodologies (Open Compare and Contrast, Focused Compare and Contrast, and Determining Parts-Whole Relationships) were used with five ICT sections (about 100 students). This paper describes the new lesson plans, their overall effectiveness, and future plans. It also discusses the impact of these lessons on student learning and also in terms of educational goals, contents, and assessment (periodic and terminal). The outcome of this research indicates that changes in ICT classroom teaching methods can help students become critical thinkers, able to search out, understand, analyze, and synthesize information.