Nurturing The World’s Top 2 In-Demand Skills

Fergal Brophy, Entrepreneurial Specialist at UCD Innovation Academy & Co-Founder Anytime Creativity

Creative & Critical Thinking

In it’s biennial Future of Jobs report, the World Economic Forum (WEF) consistently identify Creative Thinking and Critical / Analytic Thinking as the top two in-demand workplace skills. These skills are essential for adapting to the rapidly changing business environment.

Furthermore, the International Association of Universities (IAU) has highlighted problem-solving, communication, teamwork and adaptability as the soft skills that are most conducive to deep subject matter learning.

My Most Profound Insight

I have spent the last 10 years at UCD Innovation Academy supporting thousands of undergrads, postgrads/postdocs and the professional community to foster these very skills. I also help corporates, SMEs and the public sector to habitually create new products, services, ways of working and business models. The most profound insight I have gained during this time is that everyone is creative and everyone wants to be more creative. It’s just that some of us don’t practice our creativity. And experience tells me that when we practice and engage in reflective activities it is not that difficult to foster the mindset and equip learners with the tools to be amazing collaborative, creative problem-solvers. It just requires practice and reflection.

How Educators Can Nurture Creative & Critical Thinking Skills

Educators need a way to engage students in these so-called ‘power’ skills without having to significantly adapt their module descriptor, module syllabus or module delivery style. One answer is to combine the module assessment process with collaborative learning opportunities in a way that nurtures a strong learning culture.

This is the magic of challenge-based learning (CBL). It naturally invites students to flex their creativity, think critically, and collaborate meaningfully—all while working on real-world problems that matter to them.

However, traditionally, the difficulty of CBL has been two-fold:

1. It requires skilled facilitators to effectively apply this pedagogy.
2. Even those with these expertise, they find it to be a messy, disjointed experience.

A Solution

This is what we’re solving for at Anytime Creativity – a way to seamlessly integrate CBL and the application of these power skills into AnyTopic or AnyModule.

Explore our use cases here or book a demo to see how Anytime Creativity can help you integrate CBL effortlessly into your teaching.