Nancy Burkhalter

Critical Thinking and Active Learning–A Happy Marriage!

I said to a colleague the other day that teachers should know more about active learning since that approach is integral to teaching critical thinking. He just looked at me, incredulous that this information would be news to any teacher. Well, just click on Stanford Physicist Embarks On Mission To Improve Undergraduate Teaching (All ThingsContinue reading “Critical Thinking and Active Learning–A Happy Marriage!”

Now Back to Blogging

My long absence from this blog can be blamed 100% on the book I am writing about critical thinking titled Critical Thinking Now: Practical Teaching Methods for Classrooms around the World. It will be published by Rowan & Littlefield later this year. I don’t want to talk about what’s in it so much (I willContinue reading “Now Back to Blogging”

The Dialectics of Writing: How the Magic Arrives

Gail Godwin justifies her struggle with the demons of writing by stating, “What is produced is a little bit different from anything I planned. There is always a surprise, a revelation. During the act of writing I have told myself something that I didn’t know I know I knew.”

Critical Thinking on the Hoof

This posting is a bit tongue in cheek, but it’s an issue that’s been on my mind lately. The more I write about critical thinking, the more I think it needs rebranding. Here are three reasons for my call to action.

Common Core Standards – Bad Policy or Scapegoat?

One can hardly read a paper or click a link without seeing something about the Common Core Standards (CCS) and the standardized tests aligned with them. Many are usually quite negative. Some positive comments sneak in there, too, but those favoring the standards don’t seem to counteract the juggernaut of bad press: Schools want toContinue reading “Common Core Standards – Bad Policy or Scapegoat?”

Combatting assumptions

We all make assumptions. Life wouldn’t go very smoothly if we didn’t. But we get in trouble when our assumptions lead us to incorrect conclusions, i.e., females cannot do hard, physical labor, or that guy is a dullard just because his expression is lifeless. But when my husband is watching a football game, I knowContinue reading “Combatting assumptions”

Watch What You’re Thinking, or Others Will Do It for You

Worried that your government might be controlling your thoughts? News flash: it already is. Schooling affects cognition. We all learn various ways of thinking no matter what kind of classroom we are in. The final product, that is, what cognitive skills we acquire, can vary widely depending on the classroom, state, even country—and (and hereContinue reading “Watch What You’re Thinking, or Others Will Do It for You”

Tilling Our Children’s Mental Soil

One of the most mind-blowing ideas I learned in grad school was in a seminar on anthropology and education. We read about how societies educate their children in order to replicate their society, not to change it. Status quo, baby. This cultural tendency means we teach our children how we were taught.

Getting in the Mood to Critically Think: The Seven Dispositions of a Critical Thinker

I just finished reading a very important article about critical thinking. It’s titled “Teaching thinking dispositions: from transmission to enculturation” by Shari Tishman, Eileen Jay and D.N. Perkins, a 1993 article still relevant today (Theory into Practice, 32(3), pp.147-53). I found an excerpt on Yahoo! Finance (Thinking Dispositions, published Oct. 10, 2014).

Questioning Oneself

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.