Generative Critical Thinking
Generative Critical Thinking Programs
Our pilot program ran online early in 2022, with participants joining us in real time via Zoom. From that we have produced edited videos and some ebooks.
Initial Full Public Launch
Our first fully available public program offers:
• the edited videos of the full three live sessions
• eBooks
• the full participant guide.
The videos, in conjunction with the participant guide take you through learning the six stages of the Generative Critical Thinking heuristic. Exercises are included to help you develop your skills.
As well as finding more information, you can enrol at Generative Critical Thinking Foundations.
A taste of GCT ...
To get an idea of the core process in GCT see Applying GCT.
What do we mean by Generative Critical Thinking?
In simple terms, Generative Critical Thinking is a set of thinking skills that opens the way to:
• wiser decision making
• improving relationships
• evolving oneself
• better living.
You could ask: doesn't "standard" critical thinking do that? It could and can, if and only if it is applied self-reflectively. However, as you'll see in our discussion below, we claim that that is not a common application of critical thinking.
Generative Critical Thinking uses the knowledge and skills of standard critical thinking, but goes beyond that and embeds them in a heuristic that evokes self-reflective stages. It develops our metacognitive skills and, through that, the ability to make our thinking truly generative. In that, it then delivers the promise listed above.
How did Generative Critical Thinking come about?
Generative Critical Thinking is the result of discussions between Peter Thompson (Apt Ventures) and Marvin Oka (Behavioural Modelling Research).
Our interest was aroused by the amount of discussion about critical thinking. It is said to be important in nearly all levels of education; but especially in higher education. A glance at the student attributes, course and subject learning outcomes in any degree will reveal myriad references to "critical thinking". Yet we find, as we expect you do, that despite all this focus many graduates do not appear as shining examples of critical thinkers.
Management and leadership literature, too, stresses the need for critical thinking as an aid to making wise and effective decisions. And here, as well, we find untold examples of poor decisions and thinking that can be described as poor and even, in some circumstances, dangerous.
We reflected on something that Peter used to tell his Higher Education students when teaching critical thinking. It went something like this: If you really learn, appreciate and use critical thinking not only in your work but in your life outside work, you will have a quality of life that most people only dream of having.
A bold claim … and we stand by it.
An appreciation and application of critical thinking to oneself – to one’s own thinking – can be truly generative. By that we mean, we can change limiting beliefs; we can truly learn from others who have different views from ours; we can evolve our way of perceiving the world and our stories about how life works. Then, and only then, critical thinking becomes generative.