This presentation was given by Andreas Schleicher at the conference “Creativity and Critical Thinking Skills in School: Moving a shared agenda forward” on 24-25 September 2019, London, UK.

1. Creativity and critical thinking in schools
CCT conference, London, 24 September 2019
Andreas Schleicher

2. Routine cognitive skills Complex ways of thinking, complex ways of
doing, collective capacity
Some students learn at high levels (sorting) All students need to learn at high levels
Student inclusion
Curriculum, instruction and assessment
Standardisation and compliance High-level professional knowledge workers
Teacher education
‘Tayloristic’, hierarchical Flat, collegial
Work organisation
Primarily to authorities Primarily to peers and stakeholders
Accountability
Industrial systems World class systems
When fast gets really fast, being slow to adapt
makes education really slow

3. Access to Access
Number of mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, OECD average, 2009-2017
Source: OECD (2018), "Mobile broadband subscriptions" (indicator), https://doi.org/10.1787/1277ddc6-en.
Figure 5.1
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Numberofsubscriptions

4. The growth in AI technologies…
0
2 000
4 000
6 000
8 000
10 000
12 000
14 000
16 000
18 000
20 000
1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015
Numberofpatents
Number of patents in artificial intelligence technologies, 1991-2015
Source: OECD (2017), OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2017: The digital transformation, htt
p://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264268821-en.
Figure 1.10
…pushes us to think harder about what makes us truly human

5. 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
ChineseTaipei-2
Sweden-9
France-5
Portugal
Greece
Singapore-2
Thailand
Macao(China)-7
Brazil-2
Spain
UnitedKingdom
Bulgaria
HongKong(China)
Korea-7
Belgium-4
Denmark-4
Croatia-5
Israel-10
NewZealand-4
Netherlands-3
Uruguay
Hungary4
Australia
OECDaverage-3
DominicanRepublic
Ireland-7
Poland-3
CostaRica3
Lithuania
Japan-5
Mexico
Russia-8
CzechRepublic
Italy
Peru
Colombia4
Finland-6
Chile
Latvia
SlovakRepublic
B-S-J-G(China)11
Switzerland
Austria-3
Luxembourg
Iceland
Germany
Estonia
Slovenia
%
Boys Girls
15-year-olds feeling bad if not connected to the Internet (PISA)

6. 6
Digitalisation
Democratizing
Concentrating
Particularizing
Homogenizing
Empowering
Disempowering

7. Tasks
without
use of ICT
Tasks with
use of ICT
Non routine tasks
Routine tasks
Non routine tasks
Routine tasks
Tasks
without
use of ICT
Tasks with
use of ICT
TWO EFFECTS OF DIGITALISATION

8. Non routine tasks,
Low use of ICT
Non routine tasks,
High use of ICT
Routine tasks,
Low use of ICT
Routine tasks,
High use of ICT
Non routine tasks,
Low use of ICT
Non routine tasks,
High use of ICT
Routine tasks,
Low use of ICT
Routine tasks,
High use of ICT
TWO EFFECTS OF DIGITALISATION
(

9. The kind of things that are
easy to teach are now easy
to automate, digitize or
outsource
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2006 2009
Routine manual
Nonroutine manual
Routine cognitive
Nonroutine analytic
Nonroutine interpersonal
Mean task input in percentiles of 1960 task distribution

10. The biggest risk to education today isn’t its inefficiency,
but that our way of education is losing its purpose and relevance
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Proficiency
Adult Literacy Skills in OECD Countries (PIAAC)
Level 4-5
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1 and Below
Near-term
computer
capabilities

11. 11
Digitalisation
Democratizing
Concentrating
Particularizing
Homogenizing
Empowering
Disempowering
The post-truth world where reality becomes fungible
• Virality seems privileged over quality
in the distribution of information
• Truth and fact are losing currency
Scarcity of attention and abundance of information
• Algorithms sort us into groups of like-minded
individuals create echo chambers that amplify our
views, leave us uninformed of opposing arguments,
and polarise our societies

12. Education won the race with technology throughout history,
but there is no automaticity it will do so in the future
Inspired by “The race between te
chnology and education”
Pr. Goldin & Katz (Harvard)
Industrial revolution
Digital revolution
Social pain
Universal
public schooling
Technology
Education
Prosperity
Social pain
Prosperity

13. The multi-faceted world of knowledge

14. The human world of knowledge

15. The small world of the curriculum

16. The small world of the curriculum

17. The small world of the curriculum

18. The small world of the curriculum

19. The small world of the curriculum

20. The small world of the curriculum

21. The True
The realm of human knowledge The Good
The realm of ethics and judgement
The Just and Well-Ordered
The realm of political and civic life,
binding social capital The Beautiful
The realm of creativity,
esthetics and designThe Sustainable
The realm of natural
and physical health The Prosperous
The realm of economic life
The big world of learning

22. Competencies
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Attitudes
and values
22

23. Knowledge
• Disciplinary
• Interdisciplinary
• Epistemic
• Procedural
23

24. What teachers say
and what teachers do

25. What knowledge, skills
and character qualities do
successful teachers require?
96% of teachers: My role as a teacher
is to facilitate students own inquiry

26. What knowledge, skills
and character qualities do
successful teachers require?
86%: Students learn best
by findings solutions on their own

27. What knowledge, skills
and character qualities do
successful teachers require?
74%: Thinking and reasoning is more
important than curriculum content

28. -1.60 -1.40 -1.20 -1.00 -0.80 -0.60 -0.40 -0.20 0.00
Prevalence of memorisation
rehearsal, routine exercises, drill and
practice and/or repetition
0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60 1.80 2.00
Switzerland
Poland
Germany
Japan
Korea
France
Sweden
Shanghai-China
Canada
Singapore
United States
Norway
Spain
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Prevalence of elaboration
reasoning, deep learning, intrinsic
motivation, critical thinking,
creativity, non-routine problems
High Low Low High

29. Memorisation is less useful as problems become more difficult
(OECD average)
R² = 0.81
0.70
1.00
300 400 500 600 700 800
Difficulty of mathematics item on the PISA scale
Source: Figure 4.3
Difficult problem
Easy problem
Greater
success
Less
success
Odds ratio

30. Elaboration strategies are more useful as problems become
more difficult (OECD average)
R² = 0.82
0.80
1.50
300 400 500 600 700 800
Difficulty of mathematics item on the PISA scale
Source: Figure 6.2
Difficult
problem
Greater
success
Less
success
Easy problem
Odds ratio

31. Skills
• Cognitive & meta-
cognitive
• Social & emotional
• Physical & practical
31

32. Influence of students’ environment – Classroom climate
-0.05
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
0.40
Standardizedregressioncoefficients
Cooperative classroom climate is positively related to SE skills
Cooperative climate 10 yo Cooperative climate 15 yo

33. Influence of students’ environment – School bullying
-0.25
-0.20
-0.15
-0.10
-0.05
0.00
0.05
0.10
Standardizedregressioncoefficients
School bullying is negatively related to students’ SE skills
Bullying 10 yo Bullying 15 yo

34. Importance of SE skills – Closer social networks
-0.10
-0.05
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.35
Standardizedregressioncoefficients
SE skills are positively associated with students’ feeling of closeness to their family
Closeness family 10 yo Closeness family 15 yo

35. Importance of SE skills – Higher academic aspirations
0.00
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.20
Standardizedregressioncoefficients
Students’ SE skills are positively related to their academic aspiration
Academic aspiration 10 yo Academic aspiration 15 yo

36. Attitudes and values
• Personal
• Local
• Societal
• Global
36

37. Transformative competencies
• Creating new value
• Taking responsibility
• Reconciling
tensions &
dilemmas
37

38. Implications for pedagogy
• Anticipation
• Action
• Reflection
38

39. Some lessons
• Rigor, focus and coherence
• Remain true to the disciplines
– but aim at interdisciplinary learning and the capacity of students to see
problems through multiple lenses
– Balance knowledge of disciplines and knowledge about disciplines
• Focus on areas with the highest transfer value
– Requiring a theory of action for how this transfer value occurs
• Authenticity
– Thematic, problem-based, project-based, co-creation in conversation
• Some things are caught not taught
– Immersive learning propositions

40. Find out more about our work at www.oecd.org/pisa
– All publications
– The complete micro-level database
Email: Andreas.Schleicher@OECD.org
Twitter: SchleicherOECD
Wechat: AndreasSchleicher
Thank you