One of the best graduate school midterms I ever took was given by my mentor and dissertation advisor, Dr. Vera John-Steiner. She is one of four Vygotskian scholars who edited Mind in Society* (1978) and has written extensively about his sociocultural approach to education.
In keeping with his philosophy – that acquiring knowledge is acquired through shared activities – she asked for pairs of students to develop a question for each other about anything they might have about Vygotsky’s work. We would then research our question and report the findings orally to each other and written (two pages max) for her perusal. It’s been 25 years since I took that exam, and I still remember my question and the answer. But that exam also taught me how powerful posing one’s own questions can be.
And even though I have superciliously tagged by blog the who, what, where, when, and why of critical thinking, I mean that I intend to seek answers to all those questions about critical thinking. So in that spirit, here are a few questions that have been rattling around in my brain:
- How do the Common Core standards promote CT?
- How soon is too soon to start teaching CT and how should we do it?
- Do people from various educational traditions think critically in the same way?
- Why can’t we agree on a definition of CT?
- Do I have to accumulate a certain number of facts about a topic before I can critically think about it and if so, what is the tipping point?
- How can two intelligent people both be critical thinkers and yet come to different conclusions?
- Can everyone be a critical thinker regardless of IQ?
- Why is CT such a vague concept (“I think I know what it is, but I’m not sure”) and is there a better way or term we could use to explain and clarify its meaning?
- What are the best practices for teaching CT?
- Is there a textbook that teaches CT?
- What is Design Thinking and how does it comport with CT?
If you would like to add your own questions—and I hope you do!—or suggest resources to help answer them, I would be so grateful and will try my best to formulate a reply. Please post them on this blog or contact me at nancy . burkhalter @ live.com.
*Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, and E. Souberman (Eds.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Critical Thinking Now! 