Critical and Creative Thinking

By the end of Level 2, students construct and use questions with a range of stems. They generate ideas and possibilities that are new to them and identify the strategy used. They describe personal responses to ideas and possibilities and identify how these influenced their thinking.

Students identify and use words that show reasons and conclusions and identify suitable examples to support claims when reasoning. They practise and use a range of simple general learning strategies and express and describe their thinking processes. Students propose a solution to a problem, describing how the solution was selected.

By the end of Level 4, students identify, construct and use open and closed questions for different purposes. They describe and use simple strategies to generate and evaluate new ideas and possibilities, reflecting on the effect of pre-established preferences.

Students identify a conclusion justified by a range of reasons, and structure and communicate a conclusion justified by a range of reasons. They use evidence, values, criteria and ‘if-then’ thinking to support their reasoning and identify errors in examples of ‘if-then’ thinking.

Students practise and use an extended range of general learning strategies. They represent and use thinking...

By the end of Level 6, students identify, construct and use questions to focus or expand their thinking. They explain and use a range of strategies to generate and evaluate new ideas and possibilities, reflecting on the importance of setting aside preconceptions.

Students identify an argument that uses sub-arguments that lead to a main conclusion. They structure and communicate an argument that uses sub-arguments that lead to a main conclusion. They use criteria and consider competing values and the strength of evidence when supporting, analysing and evaluating reasoning. They identify and describe simple reasoning errors and improve...

By the end of Level 8, students construct and use main questions and sub-questions for different purposes. They select, use and reflect on a range of strategies to generate new ideas and possibilities, they suspend judgement to support generating and evaluating alternative ideas and possibilities and they reflect on the importance of suspending judgement.

Students identify, structure and communicate a conclusion and a justification for the conclusion that involves analysis and evaluation of competing claims and grounds for these claims. They identify and use criteria to support, analyse, evaluate and improve reasoning. They identify and explain a...

By the end of Level 10, students construct, use and adapt questions to support thinking in different contexts. They select, justify, use and reflect on a range of strategies to generate new ideas and possibilities and critically reflect on suspension of judgement when generating and evaluating alternative ideas and possibilities from different perspectives.

Students analyse and critically reflect on the structure, clarity, consistency and coherence of a conclusion and its justification in different contexts. They identify the qualities required when communicating a claim and grounds for a claim in different contexts and they analyse, evaluate and refine...