1. Critical and Creative Thinking Assessment Tool
Session 1: What is the tool?
18 February 2015

2. Welcome - Victoria Hall, Department of Education and Training
Outline of the session
Welcome - Victoria Hall, Department of Education and Training
The Critical and Creative Thinking Assessment Tool
- ACER Julian Fraillon and Ray Philpot
Questions and discussion
Next steps
Welcome
In this session participants will be given a background on the Critical and Creating Thinking assessment tool
Topics covered in the session include:
research underpinning the tool
the quality to use the tool
assurance process, benefits for teachers and schools
Throughout the session there are opportunities to ask questions and share ideas
Additional online sessions will be held in March 4 and 18

3. Accessing the Tool
The tool is available from the Insight Assessment Portal and includes:
Teacher Site, where teachers can preview and assign tasks to students and mark student responses
Student Site, where students can complete their assigned task.
To access the tool, schools will first need to and request log in details be created for all teachers and students in their school. 

4. Valuing Critical and Creative Thinking
Thinking that is productive, purposeful and intentional is fundamental to students becoming effective and successful learners. (MCEETYA, 1999, 2008)
Critical and Creative Thinking is necessary ‘to compete in a global economy that demands innovation’ (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2013).
Responding to the challenges of the C21st – with its complex environmental, social and economic pressures – requires CCT (ACARA 2012)

5. Valuing Critical and Creative Thinking
When information is readily accessible from a hand-held device, recall of knowledge is less important than the ability to critically analyse masses of data and come up with innovative, open-ended solutions to problems. (McCurry, 2013).

6. Purpose of the Critical and Creative Thinking Assessment Tool
Provide support for the assessment of Critical and Creative Thinking by teachers (formative/summative assessment for/as learning)
Assess Critical and Creative Thinking using a standardised, trialled and quality assured set of tasks
Support assessment of Critical and Creative Thinking across the years of schooling AND in contexts across the curriculum
Provide a model to support teachers to create their own assessments of Critical and Creative Thinking

7. Developing the Tool

8. The Critical and Creative Thinking Construct
What is critical and creative thinking?
Critical and Creative Thinking involves the ability to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. (ACARA, 2013).
The tool was developed with reference to the ACARA Critical and Creative Thinking general capability

9. The Critical and Creative Thinking Construct
Critical and Creative Thinking can be thought of as:
dispositions (Tishman, Perkins and Jay; Ritchhart, Church and Morrison)
taxonomies of skills (Bloom; Anderson, Krathwohl et al.)
habits and frames of mind (Costa and Kallick; Gardner; de Bono)
thinking strategies (Marzano, Pickering and Pollock)
philosophical inquiry (Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan).

10. The Critical and Creative Thinking Construct
Critical thinking is at the core of most intellectual activity that involves students in learning to recognise or develop an argument, use evidence in support of that argument, draw reasoned conclusions, and use information to solve problems.
Creative thinking involves students in learning to generate and apply new ideas in specific contexts, seeing existing situations in a new way, identifying alternative explanations, and seeing or making new links that generate a positive outcome.
(ACARA CCT General Capability)

11. The Critical and Creative Thinking Continuum
The Critical and Creative Thinking learning continuum includes four strands:
Inquiring
Generating
Reflecting
Analysing

12. The Critical and Creative Thinking Continuum
Inquiring
Identifying, exploring and clarifying questions and issues
Gathering, organising and processing information
Transferring knowledge into new contexts
Generating
Imagining possibilities and considering alternatives
Seeking and creating innovative pathways and solutions
Suspending judgment to visualise possibilities

13. The Critical and Creative Thinking Continuum
Reflecting
Reflecting on thinking
Reflecting on procedures and products
Analysing
Applying logical and inventive reasoning
Drawing conclusions and designing a course of action

14. Sample Tasks/Items
Examples from the Critical and Creative Thinking Assessment Tool

15. Sample Task: Year 5/6 Playground
The slide in a playground is broken. Who broke it, what should replace it and how can the playground be made safe?

16. Sample Item: Year 5/6 (Inquiring)
Prioritise ideas and select information to form a considered and/or creative response to an issue

17. Sample Task: Year 3/4 In the cave
An antelope becomes trapped in a cave with a lion. What strategies will help the antelope escape?

18. Sample Item: Year 3/4 (Inquiring)
Apply knowledge gained from one context to another unrelated context and apply new meaning

19. Sample Item: Year 3/4 (Generating)
Recognise there are multiple choices for solving a problem and imagine outcomes of these possibilities

20. Sample Task: Year 1/2 Possum
Information about a possum and its predators is provided. Keep Possum safe from the predators!

21. Sample Item: Year 1/2 (Reflecting)
Reflect on whether they have accomplished what they set out to do

22. Sample Task: Secondary – Maths/Science
Detective
Assist an on-screen detective identify a mystery liquid.

23. Sample Items: Secondary – Maths/Science (6-Generating; 7-Analysing)
6. Draw parallels between known and new scenarios, and use ideas, patterns and trends to consider new possibilities
7. Analyse the means and resources available for finding solutions

24. Sample Task: Secondary – Humanities/Social Studies
Movie Star
Critically examine source material, evidence and arguments in the context of a (fictitious) movie star.

25. Sample items: Secondary – Humanities/Social Studies (Inquiring)
Prioritise ideas and select information to form a considered and/or creative response to an issue
Pose questions to test possibilities and examine independently sourced data for bias and reliability

26. Sample Task: Secondary – Art
Sheep Stealer
Compare and contrast two visual representations of James McKenzie, a sheep-stealer from New Zealand.

27. Sample item: Secondary – Art (Generating)
Represent explanations and ideas by using imagery and symbolism to communicate creative ideas to others

28. Next steps
Session 2: How do I use the tool? 4 March 2015, 4:00 – 5:00pm
Session 3: How could schools use the tool? 18 March 2015, 4:00-5:00pm
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