TeaingCriticalThinkingEGAVision.pptVIP

* * Teaching Critical Thinking Emma Guion Akda? Outline: Critical thinking –what is it? Levels of complexity in critical thinking tasks The Smoking Twins (creating critical thinking tasks) Some characteristics of a critical thinker Further reading and references The meaning of ‘critical’ In everyday life, critical means: = finding fault, a negative comment such as ‘not good enough’, ‘sloppily done’, ‘could do better’, ‘why didn’t you…?’ = key, decisive, crucial – as in ‘a critical moment’, ‘critically ill’, a ‘critical decision’ Critical thinking at university is… Critical thinking at university... …is a term given to a wide range of ‘thinking’ activities but it is difficult to find a definition that includes all of them. …is highly valued by lectures but they tend to recognise it by its absence: ‘They don’t think for themselves’ ‘They never question what they read’ ‘They just regurgitate’ So what do lecturers want? ‘They should give their opinions more’ ‘They should be more critical’ ‘They should be more original’ Levels of complexity in four critical thinking tasks (Alexander et al, 2008) . TASK CRITICAL THINKING Knowledge telling Knowledge transforming Name the group that these items all belong to: Car bus airplane bicycle train simple 2. Find the odd one out Car bus airplane bicycle train simple 3. Explain why bicycle is the odd one out. more complex 4. Present an argument for the bicycle as a solution to the problem of climate change. most complex Key to Task 1 Simplest tasks are probably i), c) and b). Tasks a) and d) represent a level of thinking which goes much further than what is given. Defining a concept from a set of examples, g) is similarly creative thinking. The most difficult thinking tasks are f), h) and e) because essentially they are creative. Key to Task 2 One copy per table and see Vision! http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/critical-thinking/ To summarise, according to Alexander et al (2008)the