Using educational
technology is vital to the development of critical thinking for 21st
century students!
What is critical
thinking and why is it so important?
Critical thinking is the process of examining, analyzing,
questioning, and challenging situations, issues, and information of all kinds.
We use it when we raise questions about:
- Survey results
- Theories
- Personal comments
- Media stories
- Our own personal relationships
- History
- Scientific research
- Political statements
- And (especially) conventional wisdom, general assumptions, and the pronouncements of authority
The ability to think
critically is one skill separating innovators from followers. Critical thinking
involves being thrown into the questioning mode by an event or idea that
conflicts with your understanding of the world and makes you uncomfortable. If
you allow yourself to respond to the discomfort -- that's partially an issue of
personal development -- you'll try to figure out where it comes from, and to
come up with other ways to understand the situation. Ultimately, if you
persist, you'll have a new perspective on the event itself, and will have
broken through to a more critical understanding.
How can technology
be used to enhance critical thinking development?
In order for students to affectively learn critical thinking
skills the instruction must be:
·
Motivated – the student should be deliberately
practising in order to improve skills
· Guided – the student should have some way of knowing what to do next
· Scaffolded – particularly in early stages, there should be structures preventing inappropriate
activity
· Graduated – tasks should gradually increase in complexity
· Feedback – the student should have some way of telling whether a particular activity was
successful or appropriate
· Guided – the student should have some way of knowing what to do next
· Scaffolded – particularly in early stages, there should be structures preventing inappropriate
activity
· Graduated – tasks should gradually increase in complexity
· Feedback – the student should have some way of telling whether a particular activity was
successful or appropriate
Modern computers and handheld devices can assume some of the
burden of guidance, scaffolding and feedback, so that student practice
activities are better quality and the teacher’s input has greater effect.
Here you will find an annotated list of key online resources
about technologies that can be used to facilitate and develop critical thinking
skills in students.
How can we assess
the development of critical thinking in our students?
The purpose of assessment in instruction is improvement. The
purpose of assessing instruction for critical thinking is improving the
teaching of discipline based thinking (historical, biological, sociological,
mathematical thinking…). It is to improve students’ abilities to think their
way through content, using disciplined skill in reasoning. The more particular
we can be about what we want students to learn about critical thinking, the
better can we devise instruction with that particular end in view.
The following
instruments are available to generate evidence relevant to critical thinking
teaching and learning:
1. Course
Evaluation Form: provides evidence of whether, and to what
extent, students perceive faculty as fostering critical thinking in instruction
(course by course). Machine scoreable.
2. Critical Thinking Subtest: Analytic
Reasoning: provides
evidence of whether, and to what extent, students are able to reason
analytically. Machine scoreable (currently being developed).
3. Critical
Thinking: Concepts and Understandings: provides evidence of
whether, and to what extent, students understand the fundamental concepts
embedded in critical thinking (and hence tests student readiness to think
critically). Machine scoreable
4. Fair-mindedness Test: provides evidence of whether, and
to what extent, students can reason effectively between conflicting view points
(and hence tests student ability to identify strong and weak arguments for
conflicting positions in reasoning). Machine scoreable. (currently being
developed).
5. Critical
Thinking Reading and Writing Test: Provides evidence of
whether, and to what extent, students can read closely and write substantively
(and hence tests student ability to read and write critically). Short
Answer.
6.
International
Critical Thinking Test: provides evidence of whether, and
to what extent, students are able to analyze and assess excerpts from textbooks
or professional writing. Short Answer.
7.
Commission Study
Protocol for Interviewing Faculty Regarding Critical Thinking: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, critical
thinking is being taught at a college or university (Can be adapted for High
School). Based on the California
Commission Study. Short Answer.
8.
Foundation for Critical Thinking Protocol for
Interviewing Faculty Regarding Critical Thinking: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, critical
thinking is being taught at a college or university (Can be adapted for High
School). Short Answer
9.
Foundation for Critical Thinking Protocol for
Interviewing Students Regarding Critical Thinking: provides evidence of whether, and to what extent, students
are learning to think critical thinking at a college or university (Can be
adapted for High School). Short Answer. To view a sample
student interview, please register to become a member of the critical thinking
community.
10.
Criteria for
critical thinking assignments. Can be used by faculty in
designing classroom assignments or by administrators in assessing the extent to
which faculty are fostering critical thinking.
11.
Rubrics for
assessing student reasoning abilities. A useful tool in assessing
the extent to which students are reasoning well through course content.
All of the above assessment instruments can be used as part of
pre- and post- assessment strategies to gauge development over various time
periods.
I would love to hear
your perspective on the importance of using technology to enhance critical
thinking development in education.
Dr. Lance Brand
Delta High School
Sources:
Including the links below really helps us out, Lance! Thanks! Paul and Elder's criticalthinking.org site is a valuable resource, too! : >
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