“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” -- H.G. Wells.

Difficult, abstract concepts often do not pose their meaning on the basis of repeated reading. In many situations of university learning, students are encouraged to often debunk individualistic explanations of observed phenomenon or behavior, and identify patterns and warranted arguments. Indeed, one of the most challenging tasks in today’s classroom teaching is to help students expedite the process of conquering difficult concepts and perspectives, while also achieving high levels of understanding in their learning process. This often involves a departure from passive to active learning which generates teaching strategies that focus on challenging students’ presumed knowledge, beliefs and expectations. This is an endeavor of sharing and discussing classroom experiences in fostering students' creative and critical thinking including topics such as creating a learning environment, locating assumptions, recognizing ambiguities, debating controversial issues, and evaluating opinions versus arguments.