Creative Thinking, Problem Solving + Critical Exploration: A Workshop

"Real learning, attentive, real learning, deep learning, is playful and frustrating and joyful and discouraging and exciting and sociable and private all the time, which is what makes it great." — Eleanor Duckworth, renowned Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

This week, six year round Explo staffers attended the workshop Creative Thinking, Problem Solving and Critical Exploration, which was run by noted cognitive psychologist and educational theorist Dr. Eleanor Duckworth. 

A former student, colleague, and leading translator of Jean Piaget, Dr. Duckworth focused the workshop on what she calls critical exploration: the development of creative thinking and problem solving in the context of real life situations. It's an approach that encompasses, teaching, learning, and curriculum deveopment, and it helps teachers reframe the way they teach to better help their students become critical thinkers and creative learners.

"Dr. Duckworth is an extraordinary thinker and teacher," Moira Kelly, Explo's Executive Director and President, said of the workshop. "It's obvious that she has thought deeply about making learning joyful, engaging, and substantive. She eschews easy answers. She wants students to grapple with ideas. She questions what it means to have the 'right' answer. She's quite inspirational and I am thrilled that so many people from Explo could attend the workshop. She gave us new ways of thinking and at the same time validated for all of us at Explo that our approach to teaching is something that serves our students well."

To learn more about inquiry-based curricula and teaching approaches that support critical exploration, visit: www.criticalexplorers.org

Image of Dr. Duckworth via http://constructingmodernknowledge.com/