The New York Times’ Warren Berger suggests that critical thinking can get a boost if you ask the powerful questions “why” and “what if.” As questions proliferate, you are likely to get some good answers. Asking ‘why’ and ‘what if’.
Michael Shermer tries to sort out what happens when people turn a deaf ear to the facts we know to be “true.”
When Facts Fail.
In the January issue of Scientific American, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, wrote “When Facts Backfire.”
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Today’s curricula can (and should) incorporate critical thinking methods because they are the means by which people best understand, learn, and retain higher level concepts. Contrary to what many professional trainers assume, teaching critical thinking is not achieved by shoveling facts at an audience through lecturing or multiple choice testing. It requires sustained, finely tuned teaching and assessment methods. This book lays out a blueprint to do just that. Specifically, it outlines the necessary components of a critical thinking classroom and provides assessment techniques and ample exercises adaptable to any student’s field, age, or level of education.
Often not considered are those learners schooled in a non-Western culture and not proficient in the presenter’s language. These audiences can create invisible barriers to instruction. Without understanding these pitfalls, trainers invite frustration and failure, and risk wasting everyone’s time and money because they were unaware any problem existed. The book addresses these linguistic, cultural, and cognitive obstacles and suggests several solutions, whether you teach these students on your home turf or theirs.
Click Rowman & Littlefield for more information. Happy critical thinking!
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Ask questions you don’t know the answer to so you can find out what they know.
Quizzes and tests are time-honored methods of finding out about student learning beyond what you think they know. But there is a quicker, informal, non-graded way to do that by asking them. Although it could be done every class session, I do it after I teach a certain skill and always at midterm so I can refine my teaching. I give them half sheets of paper and ask to tell me: Continue reading
A wonderful article about questions: what to ask and why they’re important. No one mentions critical thinking. That’s OK. You and I still know asking why is the engine behind most of it.
The Foundation for Critical Thinking is offering certification in its method for understanding and teaching critical thinking. I’ve attended and presented at several of its conferences and think it’s really necessary to see how the method in action to really understand how to do it. It’s billed as an approach to reason through a problem or issue, applicable to any field–business, academia, life, etc. (as any method should be). Continue reading
For all my research and reading and writing about critical thinking, I was surprised I hadn’t heard about the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT). It works in conjunction with the American Psychological Association and at times the Canadian Philosophical Association. It’s a very low-key group but recently put out a plan to ramp up their profile and extend their audience. The proposal is very comprehensive and, to me, exciting, since they deserve more attention by the field. Most members approach the academic end of critical thinking and research areas such as the theory of fallacies, argument diagramming, and the meaning and nature of critical thinking. Some are more practically bent toward curriculum development and the teaching. All good stuff. They offer information about textbooks, teaching, and meetings, even consultants who will help develop curricula and business plans. Go to https://ailact.wordpress.com/ for more info and to pay your $10 for access to the members’ area and other goodies.
I may have mentioned The Consortium for Critical Thinking (https://tc2.ca/) on this site before, but it bears repeating. It’s a Canadian outfit and is going through a few leadership changes, but is one of the best sites I know of for practical information on teaching critical thinking. You can join, but there is still a generous amount of information accessible for free. The resources are skewed a bit toward elementary and middle and even high school students. But it’s easily adaptable for other types of students and situations. Worth a look-see to freshen your ideas about teaching and topics.
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