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Not only is critical thinking an essential job skill but it forms the basis of our democracies. In this section, we'll look at how one can encourage critical thinking in learners, and how to structure teaching and training to build critical thinking skills.
The Role of Questions in Teaching, Thinking and Le
By na - One of the reasons that instructors tend to overemphasize "coverage" over "engaged thinking" is that they assume that answers can be taught separate from questions. Indeed, so buried are questions in established instruction that the fact that all assertions — all statements that this or that is so — are implicit answers to questions is virtually never recognized. For example, the statement that water boils at 100 degrees centigrade is an answer to the question "At what temperature centigrade does water boil?" Hence every declarative statement in the textbook is an answer to a question. Hence, every textbook could be rewritten in the interrogative mode by translating every statement into a question. To my knowledge this has never been done. That it has not is testimony to the privileged status of answers over questions in instruction and the misunderstanding of teachers about the significance of questions in the learning process. Instruction at all levels now keeps most questions buried in a torrent of obscured "answers." new (Added: 5-Dec-2011 Hits: 0 )Content Is Thinking, Thinking is Content
By na - The first and most important insight necessary for the appropriate design of instruction and curriculum is that content is, in the last analysis, nothing more nor less than a mode of thinking. Let me explain. There are many ways to begin to grasp the profound truth that all content is nothing more nor less than a mode of thinking (about something), a way of figuring something out, a way of understanding something through thought. Here are just three ways of beginning to grasp this truth: new (Added: 5-Dec-2011 Hits: 0 )Using Intellectual Standards to Assess Student Rea
By na - To assess student reasoning requires that we focus our attention as teachers on two inter-related dimensions of reasoning. The first dimension consists of the elements of reasoning; the second dimension consists of the universal intellectual standards by which we measure student ability to use, in a skillful way, each of those elements of reasoning new (Added: 5-Dec-2011 Hits: 0 )Distinguishing Between Inert Information, Activate
By na - It is impossible to reason without using some set of facts, data, or experiences as a constituent part of one’s thinking. Finding trustworthy sources of information and refining one’s own experience critically are important goals of critical thinkers. We must be vigilant about the sources of information we use. We must be analytically critical of the use we make of our own experience. Experience may be the best teacher, but biased experience supports bias, distorted experience supports distortion, self-deluded experience supports self-delusion. We, therefore, must not think of our experience as sacred in any way but, instead, as one important dimension of thought that must, like all others, be critically analyzed and assessed. The mind can take in information in three distinctive ways: (1) by internalizing inert information, (2) by forming activated ignorance, and (3) by achieving activated knowledge. new (Added: 5-Dec-2011 Hits: 0 )An Overview of How to Design Instruction Using Critical Thinking Concepts
By n a - This article suggests that for every course taught, five defining dimensions should be carefully thought through. Learn what they are. (Added: 9-Jul-2007 Hits: 178 )Pseudo Critical Thinking in the Educational Establishment
By n a - Here are three of the common ways, that the assessment of thinking or, any approach to the teaching of thinking might be flawed. These are very common, very basic, and very important. (Added: 9-Jul-2007 Hits: 123 )
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