Memo 1: Professional Body of Knowledge/Critical Thinking

Well, while completing my research as for what professionals have to say about promoting critical thinking in the classroom , I was pleasantly surprised to see the abundance of professional knowledge devoted to the above-mentioned matter. My I-search has confirmed that term "critical thinking" has indeed become a buzzword in education and there are more than enough strategies to try out in the classroom or at home with your own child, if you have one. Also, one of my takeaways is that before teaching anything to the students, teacher is expected not only to test out the particular strategy him/herself, but also - demonstrate how it works to the students.

To my question about "What is critical thinking?", I discovered a great online source (Journal of Athletic Training) that offers a rather comprehensive definition of CT:

Table 1

Various Definitions of Critical Thinking

The author, then, elaborates: "All of these definitions describe an individual who is actively engaged in the thought process. Not only is this person evaluating, analyzing, and interpreting the information, he or she is also analyzing inferences and assumptions made regarding that information. The use of CT skills such as analysis of inferences and assumptions shows involvement in the CT process. These cognitive skills are employed to form a judgment. Reflective thinking, defined by Dewey8 as the type of thinking that consists of turning a subject over in the mind and giving it serious and consecutive consideration, can be used to evaluate the quality of judgment(s) made.9 Unfortunately, not everyone uses CT when solving problems. Therefore, in order to think critically, there must be a certain amount of self-awareness and other characteristics present to enable a person to explain the analysis and interpretation and to evaluate any inferences made." (Walker)

So, in other words, in order to think critically, according to Walker, one should be skeptical about any judgement and possess certain meta-cognitive qualities, as self-awareness, for instance, - which she calls "dispositions" and provides a table of the latter's kinds:

Table 2

Dispositions to Think Critically12

To cope it with, a critical thinker is the person is the one who is a self-confident, analytic, systematic, open-minded and constantly searching for truth individual. It is also a person who is motivated to learn and takes other people's views into perspective and is tolerant, however, is skeptic about them.

Works Cited:

Walker, Stacy E. "Active Learning Strategies to Promote Critical Thinking." n.d.: n. pag.NCBI. U.S. National Library of Medicine, July-Aug. 2003. Web. 27 Oct. 2013.

Narrowing it Down and Committing...

Ok... to start with, I haven't really had many options for I-Search project to pick from; the idea about "critical thinking" in the classroom and the ways we, as potential English teachers, can promote it to our potential students came up to me, and, since, it has been always of an interest to me, I have made a determination to commit to it. And, of course, our Professor has strongly encouraged my choice, so here I am...
The questions that I have for I-Search project:
                                                                     1) What IS critical thinking? What makes us think critically? How can we reinforce/encourage it? How can we make sure that we write critically? What does it mean? Is there a way to do a self-check?
                                                                       2) What IS NOT critical thinking? What are the mistakes that students usually make when they fail to write critically? Is there a "meter"? How can we avoid writing unbiased?

Now, speaking of my personal experience with "critical thinking" (CT) and "writing critically". Personally, the term "CT" itself, I think, produces a lot of misunderstanding. I really think that this concept is not taught enough in schools, and is sadly somewhat only touched upon - in college. When I was in the 10th grade I had a great teacher on Russian literature, a university professor, in fact; she was very experienced and very knowledgeable about her subject; BUT (I apologize for all CAPs) she would demand a great composition from every one of us and would be very hard on grading and very demanding. The only problem here was that she would provide a minimum feedback on our essays, leave it alone, explaining to us how we should have written it. The concept of "critical thinking" became familiar, and then - somewhat understood to  me -upon my second and third years of university, and finally - after completion of my diploma project on Linguistics. This was some 7 years ago... In the recent years the concept of "critical thinking" has been debated and thought over. However, there is still a lot of room for exploration and questions.

How do we engage our students and make them write critically?

One of the biggest challenges that our students face when completing a writing assignment tends to be their lack of critical reasoning and problem solving skills, as well as creativity. There are many reasons why it is so. While the lack of free time that our students have available to ponder and reflect on the problem they are solving seems to be one of the culprits, biased thinking, the Web, or simply - lack of interest, and, therefore, zero creativity, add to the list. However, we keep hearing the word "critical thinking" without giving it, I think, a special attention. What is it, critical thinking, anyway?


Why is Critical Thinking so important?