Teaching students to think is what education is about. Students need to think critically and with imagination and creativity. Critical thinking in the classroom includes convergent, divergent, visual-spatial, and judgement thinking. These are essential for guiding students into the future. However, they are not skills that develop together; they are developed through different means. These skills must be explicitly practiced separately.
Students must learn content. As they learn the content, they should take it to the next level and understand that divergent and convergent thinking are part of critical thinking.
Teaching Students Convergent Thinking
Convergent thinking requires examining clues to arrive at a specific answer. It develops deductive reading by analysis and logic.
Students use convergent thinking in all subjects. They use this in reading when they look up new vocabulary words. They use it in math class to solve word problems. In science, they use it to make observations and develop conclusions.
There are some drawbacks of convergent thinkers. They may overlook a better solution to a problem, and they are less adaptable to change their thoughts.
Divergent Thinking
Divergent thinking is the opposite of convergent thinking. Divergent thinkers find many possible solutions to a problem. They often brainstorm their solutions. With brainstorming, new ideas are created. This often leads to new thoughts in fields such as marketing, art, design, and law.
Convergent thinking focuses on finding one well-defined solution, while divergent thinking generates multiple creative possibilities. A study from the National Library of Medicine states that younger students have stronger divergent thinking skills than older students. Young students can visualize ideas better.
Strategies for Critical Thinkers
Practice use of divergent and convergent ideas in the classroom through activities.
- Brainstorming ideas lets students practice divergent thinking.
- Writing or discussion of open-ended prompts and questions gives students impromptu situations to solve.
- In a list of ideas, use convergent thinking to decide on one solution.
