Critical and Creative Thinking in the RE Curriculum – What does this look like at St Monica’s?

Last week I explained how, at St Monica’s, we facilitate critical and creative thinking in Religious Education through careful planning using the Australian Curriculum and the Brisbane Curriculum. It is important to show you how it can look in our classrooms.

This week, Year 4 began organising their thoughts around the concept of ‘REVELATION’. Instead of telling students what the concept means and how it relates to religious education, we carefully designed a learning experience called a ‘provocation’. A provocation can be a hands-on experience that provokes student’s prior knowledge and to engage their critical and creative thinking to imagine and wonder about the concept in relation to their own lives.

Year 4 used the thinking routine ‘See, Think, Wonder’ to engage with images, QR codes, words and scripture that were related to the concept, ‘Revelation’. They documented what they could SEE, what they THOUGHT and what their WONDERINGS were in a Google Doc. There was much discussion between students in each group as they shared what they noticed. As I walked around, my job was to question to help deepen their connections or wonderings. Using the question, ‘tell me more about that’ or ‘why do you think that?’ or ‘what makes you say that?’ helps students to explain and justify their thinking.