Transcript Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking
Dr. John Eigenauer
Taft College
Taft, CA
‘I cannot teach anybody anything; I
can only make them think.’ Socrates
Critical Thinking
Too much information
“critical thinking”: 2.86 million
“Britney Spears”: 11.5 million
“global warming”: 74.2 million
“bad breath”: 2.89 million
The Parts of Critical Thinking
Interpretation
Analysis
Evaluation
Inference
Explanation
Self-regulation
The Parts of Critical Thinking
1. Interpretation: To correctly extract the intended and
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
essential meaning from information.
Analysis: To assess the parts and relationships of
communication.
Evaluation: To use intellectual standards to judge the truth,
credibility, or logical strength of a statement.
Inference: To draw reasonable meaning, conclusions, or
consequences from information, knowledge, or evidence.
Explanation: To “attempt to show why or how something
happens” (William Hughes).
Self-regulation: To consistently apply rules of intellectual
expertise to one's own arguments.
A question:
Answer
A Sample Passage
“Research suggests that forgiveness works in at least
two ways. One is by reducing the stress of the state
of unforgiveness…. The other benefit of forgiveness…
relates to research showing that people with strong
social networks… tend to be healthier…. Someone
who nurses grudges and keeps track of every slight is
obviously going to shed some relationships over the
course of a lifetime. Forgiveness, says Charlotte van
Oyen Witvliet… should be incorporated into one’s
personality, a way of life, not merely a response to
specific insults.”
A Sample Response
“She’s talking about how we should
forgive people and not hold grudges
and how people who forgive are like
healthier and live longer and stuff.”
A Better Answer
The author argues that “forgiveness
should be a way of life” because it is
good for your health. She supports her
claim by saying that forgiveness
reduces stress and gives people
stronger “social networks.”
Question:
Why can’t
student do this?
Fundamental Student Problems
Understanding an author’s main point.
Understanding an author’s argument.
Distinguishing between what an author
is trying to prove and the data he uses
to prove it.
Fundamental Student Problems
Creating reasonable objections to an
author’s argument.
Detecting faulty reasoning.
Detecting missing information.
Assessing the validity of an argument.
Fundamental Student Problems
Constructing an argument that is
logically and evidentially supported.
Clearly presenting and supporting ideas
in prose.
Research: The State of
Student CT Abilities
“Unfortunately, the results of any number of
national and international studies indicate that few
high school graduates (or entering college
students) are able to apply higher-order thinking
skills to problems faced in everyday life (see e.g.
NSF, 1996). Controlled studies in psychology and
education confirm this finding…. Post-primary
education appears to have little impact on
students' reasoning about everyday events,
and number of years of education is only a
borderline significant predictor of reasoning
ability.” (Current Issues in Education:
http://cie.asu.edu/volume2/number5/)
Because:
Forming arguments
Providing evidence
Conceiving of counterarguments
Recognizing bad reasoning
Understanding the role of reasoning in
belief formation
Rule #1
If you want your students to become
good critical thinkers you must first
eliminate all expectations.
Review
Your students arrive to college without
good reasoning skills.
They lack these skills because they are
human.
Extensive research supports this.
We have a good idea of what
constitutes good critical thinking and
reasoning skills.
Bad News
Fundamental Teacher Problems
89% of college instructors said that critical
thinking was “a primary object of their
instruction”.
19% “could give a clear explanation of what
critical thinking is.”
8% “could enumerate ANY intellectual criteria
or standards they required of students or
could give an intelligible explanation of what
those criteria and standards were.”
Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Busch
The Debate
Is it possible to teach students to think
critically?
Should colleges teach critical thinking?
How should critical thinking be taught?
Questions to be Answered
Why should CT be taught?
What will be accomplished by teaching
CT as a separate discipline?
How should CT be taught?
Why teach critical thinking?
Strong correlation between trained
critical thinking skills and GPA.
Critical thinking improves with correct
training.
One critical thinking course is roughly
equivalent to four years of
undergraduate education.
CT improves with training.
How Should CT Be Taught?
By Doing
What Works
What Works?
Effect
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.55
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.23
0.2
0.1
0
CT Instruction (Logic Course)
4 Years Undergrad
One semester Reason!
What Works?
Test Results Histogram
12
10
Frequency
8
Pre-2000
6
Post-2000
4
2
0
2-4
5-6
7-8
9-10 11-12 13-14 15-16 17-18 19-20 21-22 23-24 25-26 27-28 29-30 31-32 33-34
CCTST Score
The Doubter
“I’ve been skeptical about claims for various approaches
to critical thinking, including those for argument maps
coming from the University of Melbourne. Indeed,
confident in our skepticism, we at Monash Philosophy
accepted a challenge to compare our methods with theirs
on pre- and post-test gains on the California Critical
Thinking Skills Test developed by Peter Facione (1990,
1992). The Monash students did a bit better than theirs on
the pre-test, raising our hopes. But when Melbourne
University’s post-test results showed far higher
performance gains, I thought their method worth a closer
look.”
Charles Twardy, Monash University
Published in Teaching Philosophy
What is to be done? Dr. Tim van Gelder
Practice. Practice should be deliberate,
exercise-focused.
Guidance. Students need to know what to do
next.
Scaffolding. Structures in place to avoid
inappropriate or ineffective activity
(software).
Graduated tasks. A graduated increase in
complexity.
Feedback. Student should be able to tell
whether an activity is successful.
“The soul never thinks without a picture.”
--Aristotle
Introduction to Argument Mapping
Map of an Argument
The Yankees will win the pennant. After
all, they’re the best team in baseball.
Support Reasons with Evidence
Practice with Mapping
Map the following statement by
breaking it down into a conclusion and
a reason:
The US economy is going to continue
growing. Unemployment is down, the
stock market is up, and consumer
sentiment is high, all of which indicate
growth.
Map with Multiple Reasons
Map with Multiple Reasons
Practice with Mapping
“Proposition 200’s prescription is impractical on many points.
While aiming to reduce the cost of illegal immigrants to the
states, it unwisely punishes with fines or jail time state
employees who don’t report immigration violations, and burdens
them with ID verification, among other things. More important,
it probably won’t stem the flow of illegals. If the possibility of
dying in the desert won’t stop an alien, a bureaucrat or piece of
paper certainly won’t. Congress responded to a similar 1996
ballot initiative in California by restricting access to certain
federal help. That, too, has not stemmed the flow. The cry for
better border control as heard from Arizona (and other states),
as well as keeping out terrorists, requires more substantial
immigration reform.” From The Christian Science Monitor,
November 3, 2004.
Analysis
Analysis of an argument
Results of Argument Mapping
Students understand what they read.
Students know when they understand
and when they don’t understand.
Students analyze.
Students plan their writing.
Results of Argument Mapping
Students see what’s missing and what
is wrong with arguments.
Students work hard on problems.
Students are engaged in their work.
Students understand complex issues.
A Vote for Argument Mapping
“Toward Improving Intelligence Analysis” by Steven
Reiber.
The first element in improving the process of improving
analysis is to find out what the existing scientific research
says. Not all of the existing research on how to improve
human judgment is negative. Here are some promising
results from this research:
Argument mapping, a technique for visually displaying an
argument’s logical structure and evidence, substantially
enhances critical thinking abilities.”
Software
Rationale

www.austhink.com
CMap

Cmap.ihmc.us/download
Literature
“Enhancing and Augmenting Human
Reasoning” by Tim van Gelder.
The Skills of Argument by Deanna
Kuhn.
“Study of 38 Public Universities and 28
Private Universities to Determine
Faculty Emphasis on Critical Thinking In
Instruction” by Richard Paul.
Literature
“A look across Four Years at the
Disposition toward Critical Thinking
Among Undergraduate Students” by
Carol Ann Giancarlo and Peter Facione.
“Teaching Critical Thinking: Some
Lessons from Cognitive Science” by Tim
van Gelder.
This presentation and more information about
Critical Thinking can be found at:
http://www.eigenauer.com/
criticalthinking
Phone: 661.763.7722
Email: [email protected]
Dr. John Eigenauer