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 Critically
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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.
Nadya,
ReplyDeleteCritical thinking reminds me of reflective journaling. Through this process we are able to do exactly what your article states: "evaluating, analyzing, and interpreting the information, he or she is also analyzing inferences and assumptions made regarding that information." For these reasons, I feel that critical thinking is one of the most important aspects of learning. I really like you topic. Can't wait to learn more!
Nadya: This is fantastic! It is always good practice, when beginning an inquiry project, to start at the word-level of ideas. What does "critical thinking" mean and how do we understand it in society and in American culture and American schools? I wonder if and how this concept is considered differently in Russia or in other countries or in the EU or in Australia or Finland or Singapore. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to encourage you, now that you have a firm foundation underneath, to branch out to explore ways that critical thinking is related to writing. There's been a lot of research on this in the past 20 years or so, and teachers are bringing the research into their classrooms, using real-world projects, facing real-world problems and designing real-world solutions. Folks are also working hard to put the discourse of critical thinking--often large words and even larger concepts, like "analysis"--into plain language that students and others can understand and put into practice in their own writing and work.
Here's an example: http://public.wsu.edu/~kimander/criticalthinking.htm
Perhaps for your next Memo, you could explore this--evidence, either through webpages or scholarly articles or something in between--how writing and critical thinking are related. Thank you! Keep going!