The WHAT of 'Inventive Thinking'

'Inventive Thinking', one of the four priority emerging 21st Century Competencies, is a part of Creativity. While creativity involves generating original ideas or concepts, 'Inventive Thinking' focuses on developing practical, innovative solutions or new ways of doing things.

'Inventive Thinking' is closely linked to Critical Thinking and Adaptive Thinking (CAIT) - also included in the 21CC framework. These are cognitive competencies relating to one’s reasoning and thinking. They enable students to use sound reasoning and metacognitive skills to inform decision-making, generate novel and useful ideas to address issues, and manage complexities and ambiguities to adapt to changing contexts with agility (MOE, 2023).

When integrating 'Inventive Thinking' in our lessons, we would often be developing our students' critical thinking and adaptive thinking as well. For practical reasons, this Google site will be focusing on 'Inventive Thinking'.

'Inventive Thinking' refers to the ability to frame, investigate and explore issues, generate innovative ideas and evaluate them to form novel and useful responses.

The WHY of 'Inventive Thinking' in Aesthetics Subjects

The Aesthetics subjects of Art and Music lend themselves well to the development of ‘Inventive Thinking’ in our students. They encourage students to create new and novel ideas and to expand upon traditional and ‘tried and tested’ ways of doing things.

Art and Music are also suitable subjects to address areas of growth in 'Inventive Thinking' in our students, as identified by MOE through internal and external scans (MOE, 2024), our students:

lack confidence in thinking they were creative, despite having demonstrated their competencies otherwise compared to their international peers (PISA 2022)
experience more anxiety, while having lower self-esteem and self-concept when given structured tasks
tend to view challenges negatively, rather than opportunities for growth (LifeSkills Survey, 2021)
could be more curious about learning new things and taking charge of their own learning
need to have the courage to take risks responsibly, think inventively and explore novel ideas and perspectives

Competencies & Learning Goals

Developmental Milestones

The Learning Goals (CAIT 5 & CAIT 6) are aspirational statements that describe what students should know and be able to do in terms of 'Inventive Thinking'.

Competencies comprise the knowledge, skills, dispositions and values that contribute to one’s ability to thrive in different situations.

The examples of supportive Socio-Emotional (SE) Skills are also included - they highlight the inter-dependence of social-emotional learning and 'Inventive Thinking'.

The Developmental Milestones clarify and specify possible indicators of development for each Learning Goal.

They describe the behaviours for each Learning Goal progressively across four levels to facilitate the planning, design and observation of students’ development of each Emerging 21CC.

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