Postgraduate Module Descriptor

EFPM916: Thinking Skills and Creativity in the Internet Age

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Aims

This module will enable you to develop your own understanding of what thinking skills and creative thinking are, whether and how we can teach for thinking and creativity and how teaching thinking relates to dialogue and networked technologies. You will also learn about the implications of the Internet Age for teaching and learning. The module will equip you with knowledge and understanding of a range of different theories and contemporary approaches to thinking skills. It will also introduce you to research on teaching thinking and creativity within the context of the internet age. It will be an excellent preparation for either developing and applying your own approach to teaching thinking in your own educational context or for continuing to further research and you will gain a good understanding of issues around thinking skills and creativity. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here - you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Demonstrate the ability to reflect on and critically evaluate claims that have been made about teaching thinking, and creativity;
2. Demonstrate the ability to examine and critically evaluate various accounts of the relationship between cognition, networked communication technologies and social context;
3. Demonstrate a systematic conceptual understanding of theories of social and meditational aspects of learning;
4. Demonstrate the ability to relate this knowledge in a critical and self-aware way to the practice of teaching and learning and furthermore of thinking as a subject in its own right;
5. Demonstrate the ability to evaluate and critique the arguments and the ideas around the development of dispositions, habits, skills and strategies in the context of the Internet Age (or 21st Century skills) in order to form your own original synthesis;
6. Demonstrate your originality and self-direction in dealing with complex issues by identifying dispositions, habits, skills and strategies for the Internet Age and applying these to other curriculum areas and to 'real-world' problems;
7. Demonstrate your originality and self-direction in dealing with complex issues by identifying dispositions, habits, skills and strategies for the Internet Age and applying these to other curriculum areas and to 'real-world' problems;
Discipline-Specific Skills8. Demonstrate the ability to review and evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship relevant to the module content through close analysis of practice and theory;
9. Demonstrate awareness of ethical issues in relevant areas of the study and be able to discuss these in relation to personal beliefs and values;
10. Demonstrate the ability to critique theory, policy and research orally and in writing, drawing on relevant reading and research;
11. Demonstrate the ability to apply research-informed knowledge to evaluate ongoing school-based programmes;
Personal and Key Skills12. Demonstrate the ability to make sound judgements in the absence of complete data based upon critical reflection; and
13. Demonstrate the independent learning ability required for continuing professional development.

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Banaji, S. & Burn, A. (2010) (2ndedition) The Rhetorics of Creativity: A Review of the Literature, London, Arts CouncilEngland. http://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/research-impact/exploreresearch/the-rhetorics-of-creativity-a-literature-review,58,RAR.html

Beghetto, R. A., & Kaufman, J. C. (2007). Toward a broader conception of creativity: A case for 'mini-c' creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 1(2), 73-79

Boden, M. (2004) The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms, (2nded) London: Routledge

Brown, John Seely and Douglas Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.

Craft, A. (2005).  Creativity in Education:  tensions and dilemmas. Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer

Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential. London: Constable & Robinson Limited.

Flynn, J. R. (2009). What Is Intelligence: Beyond the Flynn Effect(expanded paperback ed.). Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Larkin, S. (2010). Metacognitionin Young Children. London: Routledge

Lucas, B. and Claxton, G. (2010) New Kinds of Smart; How the science of learnable intelligence if changing education. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Littleton, K. and Mercer, N. (2013). Interthinking: Putting talk to work. Abingdon: Routledge.

Perkins, D. N. (1995). Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence. New York: Free Press.

Salomon, Gavriel (1997). Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations. Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg (ed). Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press.

Trilling, B & P. Hood, (2001) “Learning, Technology and Education Reform in the Knowledge Age, or ‘We’re Wired, Webbed and Windowed, Now What?’”, in C.  Paechter, R. Edwards, R. Harrison, & P. Twining, (Eds.), Learning, Space and Identity, Paul Chapman Publishing & The Open University, London, UK, 2001. Also at: http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/rs/654

UNESCO (2005). Towards Knowledge Societies: Unesco World Report. [www.unesco.org/en/worldreport]

Wegerif, R.B. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), 179-190.

Wegerif, R. (2013). Dialogic: Education for the Internet Age. London and New York: Routledge.

Wegerif, R, Kaufman, J. C. & Li , L., (2015) Routledge International Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking. Routledge.