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 “Foundation for Critical Thinking Offers Certification in Paul-Elder Method”
Site Sightings
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.
Again with the MOOCs!
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 Things Considered 4/13/16) to hear/read Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman’s interview about how active learning “can dramatically boost learning” and why so many teachers still cling to lecturing. Why do you think they do?
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 will later on) as the process of writing it. I’ve thought about critical thinking for over 25 years, and, because of that immersion in the field, I didn’t think it would take too much heavy lifting. Boy, was I wrong. I ran into two problems: Organizing my thoughts and massive self-doubt.
I don’t care how practiced you are at writing, organizing your thoughts is a tough slog, . But a book especially unwieldy. It demands layer upon layer of organization that sews all the paragraphs, sections, chapters, theme, and title together. It’s a hearty exercise in critical thinking if you are going to be precise, logical, and clear throughout. It took constant vigilance and frequent reconsideration of what I was trying to say at every step. This challenge, I expected.
The other problem came out of left field: imaginary people who came in, uninvited and unannounced, and taunted me with comments such as, “Who do you think you are to write a book about critical thinking?” “Stop this! You’re embarrassing yourself.” “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” I almost bought their siren’s song and dumped the project. Self-doubt is a powerful deterrent to us writers.
I decided to handle those voices with a two-pronged approach. First, I wrote down everything they “said” so I could get some distance from them and not feel as if I were going crazy. And second, I kept saying to myself, Who else is going to write this book if I don’t? After all, the main reason I wrote it was to provide a new perspective on the issues that I hadn’t read anywhere else.
In the end, I succeeded in slaying those two evil dragons and finished the manuscript. The voices are gone, but what lingers is a lot greater appreciation of the amount of critical thinking and fortitude it takes to write a book about critical thinking.
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.”
Continue reading “The Dialectics of Writing: How the Magic Arrives”
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.Continue reading “Critical Thinking on the Hoof”
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 to opt out of testing, teachers rebel against the curriculum, parents complain the tests are too hard and use vocabulary way above grade level, and on and on. There are myriad issues tangled together here, not the least of which is the complaint that students are tested too often to the exclusion of solid teaching time. These complaints all deserve attention, but I want in this posting to look at the standards themselves and see how they intersect with critical thinking.Continue 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 know from the School of Hard Knocks that he will not hear what I am saying. Making this assumption saves me time, frustration, and our marriage.Continue 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 here is my point) who is running the joint.Continue reading “Watch What You’re Thinking, or Others Will Do It for You”
Critical Thinking Now! 
Froma Harrop wrote an article in her syndicated column about how Massive Open Online Courses are the answer to the high cost of higher education (http://www.seattletimes.com/author/froma-harrop/ – Apr 18, 2016, Higher education needs major disruption ).
Here is my comment.
While I cannot argue that pay for university administrators is way out of kilter, I think you are using that as an excuse to pawn off MOOCs onto poorer students as the solution. That to me is another rip off of that very population. MOOCs may provide opportunities for certifications, but they are the worst possible way to educate. A MOOC is NOT equivalent to learning in a brick and mortar classroom. It is lonely, reductive, narrow, and done by means of software that never allows for teachable moments or free-ranging discussions or Socratic questioning. And I’m just getting started. Would you ever hire, say, an accountant that had learned solely through online courses? MOOCs and all online courses are the worst idea to come along in education in many decades. You should be lobbying for a more equitable distribution of the wealth on campuses, not fobbing off crappy teaching methods onto the poor just because they’re cheap.