Teaching Creative and Critical Thinking: An Interactive Workbook is a must-have guide for any teacher who strives to instill creativity in his/her students. The author clearly shows how students "learn through one's creativity" by constructing meaningful activities based on a piece of literature or a unit of study. This workbook focuses on creating fun activities through which students become engaged in the thinking process.

By designing meaningful activities, the student "creator" often increases his/her comprehension and retention of information gained through reading. Because these activities encourage social interaction, they provide a powerful force for encouraging memory acquisition. This book contains many hands-on activities using different mediums that is sure to spark the interest of even reluctant and non-proficient readers.

Marie Calder, principal (Retired), East Rockaway School District, NY

Dr. Schiering has taken the guesswork about understanding creativity and critical thinking with her exciting new workbook, Teaching Creativity and Critical Thinking: An Interactive Workbook. She strives, and succeeds, in demonstrating how learning can be a memorable, long lasting experience, that leads to lifelong learning. As educators know lifelong learning is the basis of all education.Dr. Schiering's workbook is divided into four sections. In the first section the definitions of creativity and its link to critical thinking are given in conjunction with the Interactive Method (IM). Then, the previously mentioned are linked to the Interactive Book Report (IBR). These are the threads that tie the activities of the workbook together. Section Two offers detailed information and templates to use for performance-based assignments with photographs to clarify "how to" activities. Section Three, the largest section by far, outlines interactive activities with directions as to how to construct them. All the activities an be made from things readily found in homes or work, or can be purchased at reasonable costs. Example: Recycling clothes-dryer lint. Or the mathematics flash cards which require a deck of cards, construction paper, markers, glue and scissors. Other activities are too numerous to cite! Section Four summarizes how the IM and IBR develop leadership skills in addition to offering activities which lead to mastery in educational curricula, no matter what the subject. Creativity and critical thinking are at the core of these activities. It is my belief that every school, and home should have a copy of this exciting workbook. Parents would love it too! Thank you Dr. Schiering for showing us how enthralling and interesting education can be for all student regardless of age or ability.

Barbara Hayes, EdD, Molloy College, former dean of undergraduate education studies and present field supervisor

In Teaching Creative and Critical Thinking, Master Teacher, Dr. Marjorie Schiering, provides a wealth of practical and effective teaching techniques that are sure to fire the imagination of learners. It is a tour de force that will impact, in a profound way, both the novice and experienced teacher.

Drew Bogner, PhD, president of Molloy College

This is truly an Interactive Workbook. You cannot possibly read this book and not want to try to either play or create one of these amazing activities. Dr. Schiering has elegantly woven theory into practice as she discusses the meaning of creativity in conjunction with the development of the processes of creative thinking through her awe-inspiring, interactive activities and use of the Reciprocal Thinking Phases chart. Whether you are a teacher, student, parent or just someone interested in playing and learning and having fun, this book is for you!

You certainly should read this book from cover-to-cover to hear Dr. Schiering explain the advantages of the IM(Interactive Method), but you might simply choose to open to any page of this interactive workbook and try creating one of the activities either by following the template given or creating a new template on your own. Dr. Schiering inspires all of us to look at teaching and learning through a new lens as she bases her ideas on the philosophy of experiential learning and constructivism. She is asking teachers to create memorable events for their students by using the IM as often as possible and with all of the suggestions in this book a teacher could easily incorporate an exciting, new, memorable event every day. The activities may be used for any classroom, including special needs ones.

The students at Molloy College have collaborated to add something special to this interactive workbook. Their own creative ideas are presented in a user-friendly way throughout this book. Their creativity inspires readers to do the same.

Learning-through-play is a concept that encompasses many different grade levels as evidence by the section on how to “kick your teaching up a notch” where Josh Schiering describes how to create a Toilet Paper Party Machine to demonstrate Bernoulli’s Principle. Interactive, fun and educational, too!

At the end of the book Dr. Laura Shea Doolan reiterates the need to change the way students are taught. Students learn in different ways and this book is a step-by-step guide to address the needs of many different learning styles including, but not limited to the tactile/kinesthetic learner. Dr. Schiering has given educators, students, and parents a guide to develop critical thinking skills by using the IM and the creativity that is in all of us. She has not only discussed the benefits of the IM but has presented practical strategies for its implementation.

Francine Wisnewski, MS, assistant professor, Division of Education, Molloy College

Learning-through-play is the central idea of this book. Overall, it’s motivating, inventive, and an alternative approach to differentiated instruction for successful learning. All of the interactive methods and strategies are clearly outlined and explained and can be utilized in any general or special education setting!
Schiering provides teachers with the ability to teach students to take ownership of their own thinking and learning, as they actively engage in highly effective creative play and critical thinking.
Neatly woven into this tapestry of resources is Schiering’s own unique philosophy of teaching and learning, as it relates to academic and social cognition, to which all components of the interactive instructional resources apply. This book is both reader and user friendly and reads like an easy conversation with your favorite teacher! It is an essential for every teacher’s best practices toolbox for making learning memorable and FUN!

Kathleen Carter, First-grade Teacher, Robert W. Carbonaro School, Valley Stream, NY

As a veteran teacher I have seen the inevitable, necessary changes that education, like everything else in life, must endure. More important, however, I have witnessed, educated and am still teaching the changing student. In today’s highly technological world, we as teachers need to engage our students in a way that will sustain their attention. Video games, social media and immediate gratification are our competition. The activities in this book are the answer. Not only are they highly engaging and interactive, but the user is provided with step-by-step guidelines that can be easily followed, affording him or her less time preparing and more time engaging the learner. Additionally, because they have been created by a cross-section of educators, teacher candidates, and students, there is something for everyone, across all levels.

Rita Taylor, EdD, Speech and Language Therapist/Teacher of the Deaf, Ramapo Central School District