| Course Title | Critical Thinking and Innovation |
| Course Code | M-340-01 |
| Level | Master |
| ECTS Credits | 6.00 |
| Faculty/unit | Engineering Faculty |
| Field | Interdisciplinary course |
| Course Type | Standard |
| Course Leader | Kabaškins Igors - Dr. habil. sc. ing. professor |
| Annotation | Responding to the modern challenges – with its complex environmental, social and economic pressures – requires young people to be creative, innovative, enterprising and adaptable, with the motivation, confidence and skills to use critical and creative thinking purposefully.
This capability combines two types of thinking: critical thinking and creative thinking. Though the two are not interchangeable, they are strongly linked, bringing complementary dimensions to thinking and learning.
Critical thinking is at the core of most intellectual activity that involves students learning to recognise or develop an argument, use evidence in support of that argument, draw reasoned conclusions, and use information to solve problems.
Creative thinking involves students learning to generate and apply new ideas in specific contexts, seeing existing situations in a new way, identifying alternative explanations, and seeing or making new links that generate a positive outcome. |
| Aim | The aim of this course is to equip students with the basic skills of exercising critical thought to develop and support their views and evaluate arguments in academic debate and practical affairs of everyday life. |
| LO1 | Know and explain the key attitudes and skills in critical thinking |
| LO2 | Apply critical thinking skills to examine arguments in debates and texts |
| LO3 | Identify fallacious reasoning in everyday life and correct the fallacies identified |
| LO4 | Formulate the problem and actualize setting goals and objectives of the research in terms of systems theory |
| LO5 | Apply a systematic approach to the analysis and synthesis of complex systems for problem solutions |
| Required Literature | - Vaughn, L., The Power of Critical Thinking, [PCT] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), ISBN: 978-0-19-085271-9 (paperback)/978-0-19-085273-3 (e-book). https://b-ok.xyz/book/5956946/a831c5
- Bruce N. Waller, Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict, (Latest Edition), Pearson, New Jersey, USA. https://pdfmania.com/education/567-critical-thinking-consider-the-verdict-6th-edition.html
- Gregory Bassham and etc. Critical thinking: a student’s introduction. McGraw-Hill. https://dimparato.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/critical-thinking.pdf
- Leicester, Mal. Teaching Critical Thinking Skills, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/tsilv/detail.action?docID=601834.
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| Assessment Method | The assessment strategy is build around the portfolio item, which includes set of the exercises related with one-two specific topics of the course. The portfolio contains different deliverables, like discussion of case studies, delivery of mini-projects etc. A part of the exercises would be completed individually by the students, to develop student personal skills, while some part would be completed in the frame of the team works. Such combination would allow to assess gained individual skills and assess soft skills ( as example in frame of discussion and debates)
A resit would include rework of the submissions. |
| Independent study | Independent work is organized on the principles of interactivity and development of the research intellectual potential of the student. |
| Full-time |
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| First Sit Elements | Element Weighting, % | Group Work | Links to Results |
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| Reports | 100 | | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO5 |
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