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Integrating Critical Thinking Skills Into the
Classroom
WARNING: Use links with *** at your own risk. They take you to web pages OFF this site which crash some machines.
By Anne Buchanan
Introduction
"WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING?" The term "Critical
Thinking" is intimidating! It is often perceived as an
esoteric exercise of the mind, an intangible pursuit, reserved
for the likes of Socrates, Aristotle and Einstein. However, for
me, critical thinking is best defined simply as "what you
generate, you know." Only those who can reconceptualize content
for themselves have truly learned it.
Critical thinking*** is not just one more thing
you tack on to your Science curriculum. It is the fundamental
approach you use to address that curriculum. Critical thinking
is disciplined, self-directed thinking. It requires thinking
about your thinking while you are thinking in order to make your
thinking more clear, more accurate and more defensible. Indeed,
scientists do this already every time they use the scientific
method. They ask questions, gather and assess relevant information,
come to well-reasoned conclusions/solutions, and they communicate
effectively when they write up results.
The traits***
of a good scientist ARE the traits of a well-cultivated critical
thinker. The ultimate goal of using critical thinking instruction
in a science course is to get students to think like a scientist
thinks.
Getting started in Critical Thinking
Early in my teaching career, I happened upon a magazine in the
teachers lounge entitled "Critical Thinking: Shaping
the Mind of the 21st Century". The first article I encountered
addressed the fundamental need for more critical thinking in the
classroom. The issues raised by the article were the very same
issues I was dealing with in my own classroom. This piqued my
interest, so I immediately signed up for a workshop***
which was advertised in the magazine. At the workshop, I learned
how to redesign
my existing lessons in order to incorporate critical
thinking strategies.
The workshop also taught me how to:
Critical Thinking in the Classroom
Upon my return home, I used the strategies I had learned at the
workshop to restructure everything I did in the classroom. I
learned that three things must come together in the classroom:
One, students must reason (a bridge from their present thinking
to the new thinking you are looking for); Two, students must reason
about the content (the new way you want them to think); and Three,
there must be a "hook" (recognition of studentsí
present thinking) so that students will be willing to do the first
two. In Richard Paulís words, "When your students
are learning well, they are employing the logic of their own thinking
as a tool in learning. They are reasoning their way into the
logic of the content. They are getting their minds into the logic
of a somewhat new system, a somewhat new way of thinking, so you
need to give them assignments and design activities that help
them to bridge between these two, their old thinking and the new."
My first post-workshop lesson redesign
was about bacteria. Instead of the didactic approach I had previously
used, I "hooked" the studentsí interest by posing
shocking questions that addressed the major concepts I wished
to cover such as:
- "Is it better to kiss your girlfriend on the lips
or lick her armpit?" (pathogenicity)
- "Why don't you have to plow your way through
road kill to get to school?" (decomposition)
- "Where does your breakfast come from?" (nitrogen
cycle/primary producers)
- "What do a bottle of wine, cheese and a compost
heap have in common?" (fermentation)
- "Bacteria live WHERE?!" (digestion & symbiosis)
- "What do diabetics and bacteria have in common?"
(genetic engineering)
I put the students into six groups and assigned each group one
of these questions. The group researched their question and presented
the answer to the rest of the class. I also taught the students
how to reason by using the
"Elements of Reason"*** as a structure for
examining the content. I had the students go through each of
the elements, determining how that element applied to the situation
they had been given. Since the questions they had been asked
had already piqued their interest, they were engaged enough to
go to some effort to find out the answers. Because they had learned
a process for reasoning, they were able to analyze the questions
just as a scientist would, and to determine a conclusion based
on information, rather than just their first impression. They
discovered it WAS better to lick their girlfriend's armpit,
and in the process retained the reason why.
In Summary
Over the years, I have refined this embryonic notion to create
a more complete
approach that was more suited to ME. I found that I,
like the students, do much better when I personally generate the
techniques. This clearly is not the only way to do critical thinking,
it is simply one of my approaches.
Critical thinking has become an integral
part of my teaching. I infuse it on three levels: to
plan daily lessons and course-wide objectives, by modeling good
critical thinking practices in front of my students and by creating
activities that foster critical thinking in the students themselves.
I make it become second nature.
Online References and Books
1. Teaching students how
to read for themselves***
2. Socratic
questioning***
Article Highlights
Engaging students to think deeply about content
Five Aspects used to Assess Results
How to teach students to read actively and analytically
Critical thinking as an integral part of teaching
Lesson Plan Redesign Format
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Teaching & Learning Index
