“Forming the Habit of Critical and Creative Thinking” was the title of the lecture delivered by Professor Jeff Yang (Yang Junfeng) on October 26th, 2016. This was one of the series of lectures organized by the Scientific Research Office.
Professor Jeff Yang, Vice President of the University, started his talk by explaining the definition and significance of critical and creative thinking. He then outlined the basic features, theoretical framework, standard and qualities of critical thinking from two dimensions: emotional attitude and cognition. He also illustrated systematically the ways to think critically creatively and the specific methods for learners to improve the capability.
In the second part of lecture, he expounded on the inseparable relationship between critical thinking and creative thinking and put forward the hallmarks for high-quality thinking and three prerequisites for high-level creative thinking.
The Professor then cited such vivid examples as Aristotle, Beethoven, Da Vinci, Galileo, Newton and other prominent historical figures in both Chinese and English languages in order to go into detail of the philosophical connotation of critical thinking, and to clarify concrete ways to the realization of critical thinking.
At the end of his lecture, he pointed out that critical thinking, a necessity for innovation, is essential for students in acquiring knowledge through analysis, induction, classification and summarization not only in their college life but also in their later lifelong learning.
