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Teaching Critical Thinking
(are we really doing it?!)
University of Louisville, Fall 2011
Tine Reimers, Ph.D.
University at Albany (SUNY)
Take a minute and write:
What words occur to you when
you hear “Critical Thinking”?



Share your list with others at your table.
Choose the 5 most important elements of CT
from those lists.
Be prepared to report on your choices.
Learning as information-reception
VS
Learning as problem-solving
(analyzing & using information)
“Critical Thinking is… self-directed, selfdisciplined, self-monitored, and selfcorrective thinking.”
(Richard Paul and Linda Elder)
It’s easy to change what people know.
It’s much harder to change how people
think.
Dimensions of Critical Thinking
(it’s more than just reasoning skills)


A self-awareness of your operating assumptions
and dominant values
A self-awareness of your thought process—of how
you came up with an answer

A self-awareness of change in your way of thinking

An attitude of inquiry (this can be learned!!!)
T
What are the conditions for teaching
critical thinking?
 Identify
and make explicit precisely how critical
thinking is manifested in your discipline (goals)
 Ensure
that your tests and graded assignments
actually address those same targeted dimensions.
 Ensure
that lesson and course design target those
same targeted dimensions (practice)
 Be
willing to change how you teach when students
fail to develop the targeted ways of thinking
The research problem:
Which student study and preparation practices
lead to highest performance on a simple test
of knowledge (understanding and recall)?
B
A formal study conducted by a professor of Psychology
(McKelvie) from U Michigan
….

Beginning psychology course

200 “normed” students

All students covered the exact same material

All students took identical exam

5 Groups of students; 5 different preps
The Experiment
_____Group A: Listened to the lecture, did not take notes, and
took the exam one week later.
_____Group B: Did not listen to the lecture, were given a copy of
professor’s lecture notes, reviewed notes before
taking exam one week later.
_____Group C: Listened to the lecture, took notes, reviewed notes
before taking exam one week later.
_____Group D: Listened to the lecture, took notes, but did not
review notes before taking the exam one week later.
_____Group E: Did not attend lecture, did not receive a copy of
the lecture notes, were not enrolled in the course, had
never taken the course, and took the exam cold.
(Adapted from the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, Vol. 18, no. 1)
B
Work alone:
Predict and rank the performance of the student
groups from best to worst:
1 = Best 5 = Worst
WRITE DOWN YOUR RANKINGS for each item
Work in groups at your table. As a group now
combine your thinking to reach consensus on
your prediction.
1 = Best 5 = Worst
Record your team’s final answers on the colored
sheet of paper (one set of answers only)
Based on your team’s answers, what are your
assumptions about what students need to do
to retain information?
B
Time out!!
Facilitating critical thinking
1.
Task (serious but playful): Ask for a decision requiring students to
work with incomplete information (e.g., interpretation; prediction;
assessment of new situations)
2.
Structure the decision as a “choice” among limited options
3.
Encourage an analysis of the decision (by asking for consensus).
4.
Make explicit the assumptions driving decisions.
5.
Provoke reflection: Compare thinking with actual results; look at
additional information
T
The Experiment
_____Group C: Listened to lecture, took notes,
reviewed notes before taking exam.
_____Group B: Did not listen to lecture, were given
professor’s notes, reviewed notes before taking
exam.
Differences between these groups were statistically insignificant:
Group A:
Group D:
Group E:
Attended lecture, did not take notes, and took
exam.
Attended lecture, took notes, did not review notes
before taking exam.
Were not in the course, had never taken course,
did not attend lecture, took the exam cold.
B
In light of this experiment, which of the following
practices proved more or less important for retaining
information and performing well on exams:
Listening to a lecture
Attending class
Taking notes
Taking time off to let memory do its work
Reviewing notes before an exam
Having accurate notes to study
B
Time out!!
Facilitating critical thinking
1.
Task (serious but playful): Ask for a decision requiring students to
work with incomplete information (e.g., interpretation; prediction;
assessment of new situations)
2.
Structure the decision as a “choice” among limited options
3.
Encourage an analysis of the decision (by asking for consensus).
4.
Make explicit the assumptions driving decisions.
5.
Provoke reflection: Compare thinking with actual results; look at
additional information
6.
Make explicit any changes in thinking
T
Attitude development is the goal
1.
Frequent experiences (practice) making decisions and
explaining/defending them. (This takes time—see
Mazur, Felder)
2.
Group/Team-based tasks that allow candid analysis
without the presence of an authority (see Michaelsen
and Fink)
3.
Public comparisons of group decisions to model critical
reflective process (see Michaelsen)
4.
Challenging tasks (and grading schemes) that do not
overly penalize failures for experimental thinking
Speculative inquiries that model and foster critical thinking
(“educated guess” BEFORE coverage)
Psychology: Which of these practices aids memory?
Art: Which of these 4 artists is mostly likely to have painted
this picture. Why?
Chemistry: If you add Ajax Detergent to this solution, which
of the following is most likely to happen? Why?
History: Which of the following persons is the most likely
author of this document? Or, When was this document
most likely to have been written?
Why?
Critical thinking questions raised by
McKelvie’s study
1.
What’s the real function of a lecture? A reading
assignment?
2.
If McKelvie’s data is valid, and it doesn’t matter much
whether students read or listen to a lecture on the same
content, what are the implications for the design of
learning activities?
3.
What’s the best use of class time?
4.
How do we ensure that students cover content on their
own before class, so class time can be used for more
ambitious goals?
5.
???
The Case of the Troublesome Pit
Work in groups at your table to answer the following
questions about the case.
1. Given the test question, what seem to be the professor’s
assumptions about what students should learn in this
course?
2. What is the student’s assumption about what she should
learn in this course?
The Case of the Troublesome Pit
3. As an instructor, what might you do to help change the
thought process and learning attitude of this student?
A Meta-cognitive moment:
Teaching with Mini-Cases: Every piece of writing is a
“problem” if we ask good questions about it…
Purpose: learn to “think like a _______” (attitudinal and
intellectual re-alignment)
Process: questions tease students to read like experts in your
discipline. For example…




imagine 3 different readers with different perspectives
identify the assumptions at work in the piece
imagine the precedents or causes of what is described
imagine the consequences of what is proposed
Source material: the texts of your discipline: paragraphs/images
graphs, tables, spreadsheets, data sets, etc. lifted from
textbooks, scholarly articles, newspapers
The Mini-Case Approach fosters effective assessment of critical
thinking, by allowing us to observe how students function
as independent thinkers in situations of complexity,
ambiguity and incompleteness.
T
The role of incomplete information


Gaps in information force judgments that uncover students’
assumptions.
Observing how students fill in gaps allows us to assess their
thinking process and not merely the accuracy of their
answer.
A mature thinker is not intimidated by ambiguity.
An immature thinker expects order and certainty.
So, how can we give help students become confident and
skillful in dealing with the ambiguity, chaos and
uncertainty of information?
B

By giving them practice in situations of
ambiguity and uncertainty
What’s a concept that these seven items have in common?

Adjust the temperature of your aquarium to where your
fish will survive

Play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata flawlessly from
memory

Underline all the adjectives in a sentence

Reconstruct a dinosaur skeleton

Knit the sweater on the cover of October’s issue of
Knitting Magazine

Invent a battery that can power a car for 200 miles

Shoot a 75 in golf
2 items that do not share the same concept

Write down your height and weight
B

Sell more raffle tickets than the other class members
What is the essential idea or concept
suggested by the foregoing examples?

What was the process you used to come
to a conclusion about the concept
governing these activities?
The role of “Productive Frustration”
Students will be frustrated…
– This can lead to some resistance from students
– This will also lead to wanting to know the
answer for itself!
Conceptual understanding in this case grows from
making sequential judgments that build one upon
the other.
Each example invites an attempt to project the
governing idea.
B
Two modes of learning concepts
1) Global conceptualization
(induction: experience and reflection accrues toward an
idea, sometimes suddenly)
– What’s the idea in this example?
– How do new examples alter my idea?
2) Analytic conceptualization
(deduction: idea is fixed, not initially in play)
– What ‘s the definition/idea?
– How do examples fit the definition/idea?
T
Making narratives that explain
Global-inductive tendency: projects an evolving,
open-ended narrative onto knowledge-making
Analytic-deductive tendency: restricts narrationbuilding to using prescribed schemas based on
established definitions
T
For faster cognitive engagement:
Teach to relations first, rather than definitions





Observe, map the relationships among ideas
Compare/Contrast
Draw org charts and flow charts
Create a physical sketch of a complex idea
Math: do estimations, conceptual solutions before
calculations
Beginning students need more, early and
frequent practice with the ambiguity and
uncertainty of situational data…
…not just better explanations of theories or
more complete information.
(A bad textbook can be a more effective
learning tool than a good textbook)
B
University teaching methods need to reflect…


Less “centrality of the expert”…
(…if YOU’re leading the parade, what are the
students doing?)
A systematic effort to change students’ view of
information:
--from sacred to secular
--from treasure to tool
B
The primary goal for teachers focused on critical thinking:
Students need to learn how to manage their
encounters with what is new, unfiltered,
unfamiliar, and untidy.
Note: this won’t happen through traditional readlecture-test practices.
1. The students’ experience of this struggle will need
to be carefully designed.
2. Students will need daily practice with this kind of
challenge.
So let’s practice…
Make a prediction: What sort of data will be
generated by a given study/experiment setup?
T
The case of the “neo-scientists”
(Inhelder & Karmiloff-Smith Cognition 3,3 195-212)
T
The case of the “neo-scientists”
60 Children: ages 6, 7, 8
Task: Children are asked to balance numerous wooden blocks
of various shapes on a fixed, narrow, horizontal bar set just
above the floor.
Special conditions: some of the blocks are just plain blocks;
others are conspicuously weighted off-center (i.e. with a
weight in one side); others are weighted off-center, but not
conspicuously (i.e. with a weight hidden inside the block)
T
What do you think will happen?
Work in groups.
1. Estimate success/failure rates for the children and be
prepared to justify your predictions. Indicate whether
your estimates apply to the entire group of children,
or to subsets.
T
2. Predict what you think the children’s “process” to balance
blocks will be. In your prediction draw a flow chart
showing the physical and/or mental steps of this process.
T
Meta-Cognitive Moment
Work in groups.
You are no longer the participants in the discussion of the
case. You are now observers visiting this workshop.
Describe what just happened:
 What did the facilitator ask participants to do?
 How did the participants respond?
 Describe and characterize the interaction among
participants in the groups.
The essential role of Incomplete Information




Missing information invites inquiry that simulates
disciplinary thinking
Gaps in information force judgments that reveal
students’ understanding and assumptions.
Observing how students fill in gaps allows us to
assess their thinking process and not merely the
accuracy of their answer.
Limiting information allows the activity to focus on
concepts, rather than on “answers” (i.e., determined
by algorithm, applied formula or by calculation)
B
An expert is…
…someone who attempts to give a complete
explanation of reality, but never has enough
information to do so.
B
Difficulty:
Teaching through “gaps” in information makes students
uncomfortable!!!
Students say,
“If the teacher does not tell me the answers, she’s not doing
her job!!!”
“I don’t like it when the teacher answers my question with
another question.”
B
Meta-cognitive moment:
What I did to “problematize” the psychological research



Removed the data:
(the results of the research were stripped from the
research question)
Asked participants to predict data
(success rates)
Asked participants to give reasons for their prediction
(flow chart)
B
Why flow charts?
Visual representations work best as
assignments, not simply as examples.





Graphs and charts
Illustrations, sketches
Tables
Equations
Diagrams
B
When students create visual representations…


They develop the ability to represent concretely
complex ideas and abstractions
It helps to link different parts of the brain
(visual, image-building/language, abstraction)

Instructors are able to measure student
comprehension and level of thinking
B
Results of the experiment (FINALLY!!!)
1.
Children all began by balancing blocks at their geometric
center
2.
When this failed, they placed blocks more and more
precisely and systematically at their geometric center
3.
They were surprised when this didn’t work
4.
Younger children (6yrs) continued the same pattern,
finally declaring the project impossible
T
Results (cont.)
Older children (7-8)
– Began to de-center the blocks, beginning with
conspicuously weighted blocks
– Gradually and reluctantly began to make corrections
on inconspicuously weighted blocks
– Took more time balancing the inconspicuously weighted
blocks
– Finally, started pausing before each item, roughly
assessing its weight distribution by lifting it, then placed
the block at the point of balance without attempting to
balance it at the geometric center at all
T
The Good News
Children naturally use the scientific method!
(Theories-in-action)
Trial = gather data to test hypothesis
Error or Success = data generated
New trial = statement of new or revised hypothesis
etc.
Surprises caused by unexpected data lead to revision of
theories, even at a very young age.
T
The Bad News


Complete beginners may lack perseverance and flexibility—
are easily frustrated.
New theories-in-action are only reluctantly adopted by
“future experts”
T
The Really Bad news
We don’t need to teach students scientific thinking (“reflection
in action”)…
…BUT…many common educational practices succeed in deactivating (de-motivating) this instinct.
T