Reference no: EM133169845

Assessment Task - Develop critical thinking in others

Establish a critical thinking environment

You have been engaged as a consultant by MMI Professional Education to support the development of critical thinking skills in departmental managers.

You are required to:

1. Analyse and evaluate critical and creative thinking in the organisation

2. Establish an environment that encourages critical and creative thinking in the organisation

3. Monitor and improve thinking practices

It has been designed to evaluate your ability to/competency in:

• Research models of critical and creative thinking
• Develop questions to identify individual and team knowledge gaps
• Facilitate formal and informal learning opportunities for addressing identified gaps
• Articulate key features of critical and creative thinking concepts to relevant personnel
• Analyse current organisational systems to identify gaps or barriers to critical thinking
• Develop processes that create a safe environment for critical and creative thinking approaches
• Facilitate opportunities for team members to apply critical thinking skills to workplace problems
• Provide feedback to team members on performance of tasks

Your assessor will be looking for demonstrated evidence of your competency in the above.

You are required to address the following:
• Task 2.1 Establish an environment that encourages the application of critical and creative thinking
o Analise and evaluate the current organisational environment in relation to critical thinking
o Address identified needs
• Task 2.2 Facilitate critical and creative thinking opportunities
o Facilitate a brainstorming session (Role-Play)

Task 2.1 Establish an environment that encourages the application of critical and creative thinking

You have been engaged as a consultant by MMI Professional Education to support the development of critical thinking skills in departmental managers.

A. Analysis and evaluation of the current organisational environment

Your first step is to review and evaluate the following:

• Current organisational procedures: review current organisational policies and procedures that may be used to maximise individual and team access to learning opportunities.
o What are they?
o How are they applied to the organisation?
o Is there any data on their effectiveness? If not, what should be done?
o Do they maximise individual and team access to learning opportunities? If not, what could be improved?
Please note: policies and procedures are provided in a separate folder.
• Current organisational systems: analyse the current organisational systems by reading Appendix 1 and identifying gaps or critical thinking barriers.

Although the existing organisational culture and systems may affect the workplace, you wish to establish a strong organisational culture that values learning and critical thinking.
o Describe the organisational culture.
o Is critical thinking applied to decision-making?
o Do you think that critical thinking is encouraged in the organisation?
o Can you determine any gap between what the organisation wants to be and what the organisation is when it comes to critical thinking?
o Can you identify any barrier to critical thinking in the organisation? What are they? Why are they there?
o What could be improved?
• Benchmarking: research, analyse, and report information about the learning organisation and models of critical and creative thinking. Consider:
o Models
o Best practice
o Innovative approaches
o Current trends
• Barriers and Gaps: identify current gaps or barriers to critical thinking in the organisation.
• Consultation: determine what consultation initiatives should be planned and implemented to identify individual and knowledge gaps in critical and creative thinking in the management team. Additionally, develop a ten (10) question survey to identify individual and team knowledge gaps (Template 2).

Create a ‘survey form' to identify individual and team knowledge gaps regarding critical thinking and learning opportunities.
Develop ten (10) questions (a mix of closed and open-ended questions).
Record the questions in the template provided below.
Please note that under ‘Answer' you can add a rating scale (example: very satisfied, satisfied...)

B. Addressing identified needs

Assume that you received the following summary feedback report after delivering a survey to all staff:
• Most respondents felt unheard by their direct managers when proposing improvements.
• Staff believes that managers are very busy with their work, and they do not have time to consult with their team members.
• Most respondents could not articulate exactly what other teams in the organisation do and felt their team worked more than others.
• Most respondents did not know the difference between creativity and innovation.
• Staff believes that there is not a culture of problem-solving in the organisation.
• Staff felt that decision making is slow and, often, not as effective as it should be.
• Staff identified the following areas as learning priorities: effective communication, data analysis and evaluation, problem-solving,innovative and creative thinking.

1. Based on your report and the summary of feedback outlined above, determine six (6) key initiatives (including 2-3 learning opportunities) to create a work environment that encourages critical and creative thinking in the organisation.
Record the selected initiatives in the action plan provided in Template 3. Complete all parts of the action plan.

2. Write a social media post to promote one of the learning opportunities identified in your action plan to departmental managers. The post can be as simple as the content + picture.

3. Write a newsletter article for the monthly newsletter to articulate the key features of critical and creative thinking.

Content:
• Benefits of critical and creative thinking and why they matter
• Key features of critical and creative thinking
• Example of critical and creative thinking
The article must be:
• Informative
• Engaging
• Creative
(150-250 words)

4. Develop a feedback or consultation process that managers can use to gather feedback and inputs from their team members.

5. Develop a strategy to encourage the cross-pollination of ideas between different teams in the organisation.

Task 2.2 Facilitate critical and creative thinking opportunities

Schedule a time with the trainer and assessor in week 4 of class and conduct a brainstorming session using critical and creative thinking techniques to address a challenge in the organisation. This is a Role-Play.
A group of classmates will play the role of departmental managers, and you will be the external consultant engaged by MMI to support the development of critical thinking in the management team.
This will be an opportunity to support the departmental managers to apply critical thinking skills in the workplace.

Before the session
• Choose one of the following topics to address during the session:
o How to introduce recycling in the workplace
o How to reduce waste in the workplace by reusing (example: paper, food containers etc..)
o Choose a staff wellbeing practice to implement in the workplace (example: exercise, healthy eating, support others) and explain why that practice is a priority
o How to improve cultural intelligence in the workplace
o Develop a new product idea by associating a random brand with a product (the product must reflect the brand). Examples to choose from: Rolex and mushrooms; Ferrari and a mop; Chanel and pasta.
o How to eliminate gossiping in the workplace
• Prepare for the session by planning how to facilitate it, choosing the most suitable critical and creative thinking technique/s, andresearching the topics to support an informed discussion.

• Provide feedback to the managers about their performance during the session and their use of creative and critical thinking.
• Advise the managers on how to improve critical and creative thinking.
• Summarise the advice and feedback provided to each manager (participant) in the table provided below (add additional rows if needed).

• Reflect on the session and address the points below:
o What topic did you choose?
o What creative and/or critical thinking technique/s did you use during the session? Why?
o What was the outcome of the session? What decisions were made at the end of the brainstorming session?
o How did the participants perform during the session?
o How did you ensure that all managers participated in the session? How did you engage them?
o What did you do well?
o What could you improve?

Attachment:- Critical thinking environment.rar