Characteristics of critical thinking and creative thinking are described along with methods by which educators can encourage students in the development of these cognitive strategies. Intellectual standards applied to the critical thought process include accuracy, precision, depth, breadth, logic, and significance. Effective educators adhere to these standards, modeling the critical thinking process they expect from the student and assessing the student's thinking process accordingly. Teachers can facilitate students in learning to engage in independent and diligent thought and to come to their own understanding of complex issues. By contrast, creative thinking is characterized by a personal aesthetic with a powerful drive to wrest order from chaos and to explore original options for solving problems. Creative thinkers value and seek new approaches which include opposition and synthesis, and exhibit an inner motivation not dependent on extrinsic factors. Risk-taking and failure are accepted as part of the creative quest and seen as an opportunity to learn. Creative thinking is original, adaptive, flexible, sensitive to problems, and able to integrate complexity. It is enhanced by mental imaging and pattern recognition exercises. Cooperative learning enhances both types of thinking by encouraging tolerance of other views and reciprocity in intellectual exchange. (PRW)