We know that critical thinkingThe ability to reason, ask questions, debate and challenge what is presented to you. is essential to the development of creativityCreativity is a characteristic of someone or some process that forms something new and valuable. The created item may be intangible or a physical object.... and that they are both distinct but closely related higher-order cognitive skillsTechniques and attributes acquired through learning, engagement and practice, sharing similar cognitive challenge. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), recognise their importance to the study of science, mathematics, music and the visual arts, acknowledging that in worldwide education cultures, they are seen as helping to make students more ‘independent thinkers’. This guidance paper, authored by Ged Gast, creativity and artArt refers to a diverse range of human intellectual and expressive activities and the outcomes of those activities. Within this context art is further defined... and designDesign shapes ideas to become practical solutions and propositions for customers and users. Design is all around us, everything man made has been designed. The... education consultant, sets out the case for how critical thinking might be taught in the visual arts, to enhance teachers’ existing creativeBeing creative or 'creativity' relates to or involves the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something. learning strategies. It offers some approaches and promotes a simple three domain model of effective critical thinking, summarising each as a group of dispositions or behaviours (in preference to skills), from which teachers can select and group these to model and direct the cognitive processes which underpin each learners’ creative actions.
Critical and creative thinking can be placed and considered alongside each other. They essentially overlap, and necessity for art and design learning to acknowledge and embrace these characteristics.
Read more and download the guidance here