Reinvigorating today’s schools with quality thinking
Critical, creative and collaborative thinking should be at the center of all 21st century teaching and learning. Creating Thinking Classrooms is loaded with examples, stories and strategies for reinvigorating schools through quality thinking and reasoning. Written for leaders who support teachers, this guide treats educational change as a process of renovation, rather than revolution, and emphasizes building upon, refining and sustaining the many good things happening in today’s schools. Practical and user-friendly, it emphasizes five key principles for learning and teaching:
- Engaging students
- Sustaining inquiry
- Nurturing self-regulated learners
- Creating assessment-rich learning
- Enhancing learning through digital technology
Garfield Gini-Newman blends humor with a deep understanding of effective curriculum design centered on the infusion of critical thinking for all. As an associate professor at OISE/University of Toronto and a senior national consultant with The Critical Thinking Consortium, Garfield has worked with thousands of teachers across grades and subjects, helping them to frame learning around engaging and provocative activities and authentic assessments. Requests for Garfield’s services have taken him from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, and across North America. His interest in effective teaching and learning has led him to actively explore the challenges and opportunities presented by teaching and learning in the digital age. Garfield has spoken across Canada and internationally on critical thinking, brain compatible classrooms, curriculum design and effective assessment practice, and nurturing 21st century skills in a digital world. In addition to his work at the University of Toronto and delivering workshops, Garfield has also authored several articles, chapters in books, and seven textbooks and has taught in the faculties of education at York University and the University of British Columbia. His most recent book co-authored with Roland Case,
Creating Thinking Classrooms has received widespread praise from leading educators across Canada and internationally.
Roland Case is currently on leave from his position of Professor of Curriculum and Social Studies at Simon Fraser University. He is a co-founder of TC2-The Critical Thinking Consortium―an association of 35 school districts, post-secondary institutions, and teacher organizations working to support critical thinking from kindergarten to graduate school. Over the last ten years, Roland has worked with over 15,000 educators to embed critical thinking into their teaching practices. Roland is co-editor of the Canadian Anthology of Social Studies and of the Critical Challenges Across the Curriculum, an award winning series of 20 teaching resources for critical thinking.
