Teachers, I have a couple of questions for you

[NNN0LHI]

I have been doing some research and reading quite a bit about the subject of Critical Thinking Skills and I can't seem to find the answers to the questions I was looking for put into simple layman's terms which I am able to understand.

You guys are around students all the time so I thought you would be the ones to ask these questions to. So here they are.

Are Critical Thinking Skills something someone either has or does not have?

Are Critical Thinking Skills something that can be taught?

Well, those are the two questions I have.

Thanks in advance if anyone can answer them. And please put any answer that goes beyond beyond yes or no, into simple layman's terms which I can understand.

Don

[Electric Monk]

1. They can be taught, and they can be learned

http://academic.udayton.edu/legaled/ctskills/ctskills01.htm#strategies

[patrice]

2. I have seen lots of students just light up when they were first introduced to Psychology.

I taught Psychology as Science, though students enjoyed speculation and free-thinking they also tolerated the (critical thinking) disciplines of of science, because they enjoyed Psychology so much.

[Sancho]

3. Critical thinking....

Even though there is a lot of debate over exactly what you call "critical thinking", "creative thinking", and "higher-order thinking"; most evidence is that students of average intellectual abilities can improve "thinking" with practice and activities targeting those types of thinking. There is also good evidence that students who don't get a chance to practice do not use their heads as much as adults. It's better if the "critical thinking" that you're referring to is defined carefully, and you plan exactly the kinds of exercises that aim at that thinking. For example, a person may practice "elaboration exercises" as part of "creative thinking" or "problem solving strategies" as part of "critical thinking".

Some parts of a person's cognitive abilities (types of intelligence) seem to have a genetic component that is inherited, but exactly how much is debated.

There is a lot of poor research and political spin, but there are some pretty good researchers that appear to have demonstrated the benefits of specific educational practice on later thinking...

[JNelson6563]

13. I think of it as "disciplined" thinking

I think someone's ability to achieve it is as tied to their emotional IQ as the intellectual. But that's IMO.

Julie

[patrice]

4. I have seen LOW performing readers struggle with Edgar Allen Poe, because it was POE and they WANTED

to be able to read him.

Think about the critical abilities needed to get through Poe's monster-huge sentences, not to mention vocabulary.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Ever have any higher performing readers that Poe didn't result in the same success?

[FarCenter]

5. Laboratory work in the sciences helps

Especially if the students have to figure out and explain what went wrong with their experiments.

[readmoreoften]

7. Yes, it can be taught. Teaching students logical fallacies, particularly the formal fallacies

is a great way to get them to criticize their own arguments. Critical thinking is at its root self-criticism and the analysis of received ideas. Such independent thinking is the ground for creative thinking. I disagree with the idea that all teachers are responsible for critical thinking, at least at the college level. (At the elementary level, however, I see the point.) An anatomy and physiology teacher in a lecture course of 200 people is teaching subject matter. Hopefully, the critical thinking skills are already there. A chemistry professor at the college level is teaching his or her subject matter. Moreover, college profs get very little (if any) training to be teachers so burdening them with being the sole enhancers of "critical thinking" is just a bad idea.

At my university, students must take a separate course designed to enhance critical thinking skills. And believe me, they need it.

[immoderate]

9. College students should achieve a higher level of CT. And doctorals yet again.

But ultimately, does a person have the tools to determine truth?

College students may do well in class and be totally suckered by bullshit every day.

I taught math in every grade (mostly middle school, but included 9th and 10th grade math.) And I most enjoyed getting off the curriculum and into topics like Fermi math, chaos, complexity, etc. I directed students to create a display of instances where math is used to mislead or deceive people.

Some kids are natural, (born or whatever developmental reasons) and others, not so much, but can get better.

Some people are just blocked because they cannot confront their deep beliefs. But they can be real critical of everybody else. This is a matter of psychology. Some people work that way. change is possible, but unlikely without a "conversion" experience.


--imm

[glowing]

8. I think it may be easier for some students to grasp certain concepts a bit easier than others

However, it can be taught. When it was actually taught back in the 90's (I'm not sure it is taught anymore?), the entire class had to learn the different methods of reasoning and logic. AND analyzing was different than critical thinking. There was no one who was excluded from any of the exercises. And from what I remember, everyone was able to add to the discussions when it came to using these skills to interpret different subjects.... AND many kids, some who were normally in the "C" and "D" levels of many subjects, could offer some really neat insights and thoughtful discourse that even the teachers and the study guide material had not thought of. Some of the coolest subjects and discussions came about from those who were better at art... Perhaps the ability to look at different subjects and material with a different minds eye was the edge that they needed.

I think most people can be taught these logic/ reason skills. I wonder how many of the newer teachers have these skills anymore.. or the TfA programs?

[lsewpershad]

10. Guess the appropiate question

Why so many in our society lack critical thinking skills,

[mainstreetonce]

11. Curriculum materials need updating

Critical thinking skills can be developed from the primary grades right on up. Older teaching materials tended to have a fill in the blank concept with only one acceptable answer. Newer materials expect students to explain their answers and encourage critical thinking.






30 years in primary education

[Drew Richards]

12. Yes and yes it depends on the age and mental development of the child

If we are talking infant to K (6 months to 5 years old)

The training consists of repetitive tasks colors and word association.

grades 1-6 rep task, colors, words association and addition and subtraction.

grades 7-9 rep task, colors, words association addition subtraction division multiplication earth science and scientific procedure and linguistic meanings and syntax.

grades 10-12 all of the above with an introduction to symbolic logic, psychology,sociology, natural sciences and their scientific procedure.

What the ideal is, is to build a cognitive logical framework that the human mind can then analyze and extrapolate validity of true and false.

Advanced training which is not done today anywhere in the world that I know of is the old Diadatic cognitive method used by the original Celts and dare I say druids...which uses all of this and in addition...trains people to build a logical edifice of knowledge within their mind allowing for near perfect recall. I was given a little of this training in college in a Psych of Personality class and wish to GOD I was trained from birth with this method.

[The Straight Story]

14. Teaching it and measuring it are two different things

I work in the education industry and see each day (using our products) how people try to measure things using one set method - it just does not work that way.

You can teach students to critically think about things, but when you try to measure it you are boxing them in, in an effort to have them only think critically in your own ways. And those who do not do so in a set way 'fail'.

[handmade34]

15. one of my go to sites

http://www.criticalthinking.org/

The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.

~ William Graham Sumner, Folkways, 1906