Chung‐Ang University’s <Creative Thinking and Communication> aims to strengthen abilities to read critically, think creatively and communicate actively, and thus, to think, emphasize and converge the relevant subjects. Since the spring of 2015, the program has been available to college freshmen in 66 units, designed to give a sense of feeling in the face with intellectual heritage from above, and a capacity with respect to self‐identity building, critical thinking, empathetic feeling, reasonable decision‐making and claiming civic responsibility in our everyday life.
The course first starts with a individual, and then expands to general human and human society as a whole. In the meantime, students read, think, and debate on issues, which help them look into their minds, contemplate on human nature and conditions of life, and look over realties they face in making a choice everyday.
Convergent imagination provides a kind of base for in‐depth study of subject and its expansion and networking, and search for creative solution to a problem we face. It enables us to open our minds and to adopt the outside world within ourselves, further helping us recognize the unseen relationships among the subjects, connect them by thinking over and conferring the meanings to them. In <Creative Thinking and Communication>, you could find a gradual convergence and expansion of a subject while handling just one issue, or you may find it unfolding during the whole period of the course, transcending issues and chapters in the program.
After the first semester, the students overall gave positive feedback on the program. The students responded favorably that it helped to enhance creative thinking(76%) and communication skills(82%). On the other hand, they said that they had some difficulties in critical and expansive thinking beyond the mere understanding of the text. The instructors surveyed responded accordingly that they felt the same trouble in their teaching to help students think critically and expansively, and that there were some cases where the students did not read and understand the text well enough to go further, leading to a superficial discussion and arbitrary conclusion in the end. But, they said that they believed the course facilitated participation from the students, resulting in fruitful interpretation, creation of sympathy and critical activity on the subjects.
For a better <Creative thinking and communication>, I would like to recommend creating a text full of detailed and various contents, facilitating the process “text ‐ expansion of viewpoints and issue raising ‐ search for a solution”. I also believe we should build a better circumstance surrounding the course, by downsizing the number of students in each class, providing a better classroom facility suitable for discussion and debate, and allotting more in‐class hours to the course.