Back to the Basics with Critical Thinking

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Back to the Basics with Critical Thinking

• Faculty Workshop
• Fall 2006

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Why go back to the basics?

• We must do the intellectual work to take command
  of the foundational structures that underlie the
  very idea of critical thinking
• We must do the intellectual work to apply those
  foundational structures (to our lives and to
  academic or professional content)
• From Richard Pauls keynote address, 26th
  International Conference on Critical Thinking,
  2006

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Heres what were aiming for

• Placing the foundations of critical thinking at
  the heart of our professional development,
• Resulting in . . .
• A deepening understanding of the importance of
  foundational concepts and principles
• A systematic application of foundational concepts
  to classroom instruction, to student assessment,
  to disciplines, to life
• From Richard Pauls keynote address, 26th
  International Conference on Critical Thinking,
  2006

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What is critical thinking?

• Critical thinking is the art of thinking about
  thinking in an intellectually disciplined manner.
  Critical thinkers are explicitly focused on
  thinking, in three inter-related phases. They
  analyze thinking. They assess thinking. And they
  improve thinking (as a result).
• --Richard Paul, The Nature and Function of
  Critical and Creative Thinking

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Analyze Thinking The Elements of Thought

• Concepts
• Assumptions
• Inferences, Conclusions
• Implications, Consequences

• Purpose
• Key Question, Problem, or Issue
• Point of View
• Information

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Group Activity

• Use your mini-guide (pp. 5-8).
• For each of the elements of thought
• State a definition
• Elaborate on that definition
• Exemplify Specifically, how could this element
  be applied in the classroom?

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Assess Thinking The Intellectual Standards

• Clarity
• Accuracy
• Precision
• Relevance
• Depth

• Breadth
• Logic
• Significance
• Fairness

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Group Activity

• Use your mini-guide (pp. 10-12).
• For each of the standards
• State a definition
• Elaborate on that definition
• Exemplify Specifically, how could this standard
  be applied in the classroom?

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Improve Thinking The Intellectual Traits

• Intellectual Humility
• Intellectual Courage
• Intellectual Empathy
• Intellectual Autonomy

• Intellectual Integrity
• Intellectual Perseverance
• Confidence in Reason
• Fairmindedness

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Group Activity

• Use your mini-guide (pp. 15-17).
• For each of the traits
• State a definition
• Elaborate on that definition
• Exemplify Specifically, how could this trait be
  applied in the classroom?

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In Groups, Discuss

• When you were in school, did your teachers
  encourage you to think critically?
• Describe the methods used by those teachers who
  did and who did not encourage you to think
  critically.
• Give an example of how you came to learn about
  critical thinking.
• What kind of teaching methods should we be using
  at Surry?

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• Silently, read the following
• from Richard Paul and Linda Elder. . .

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• The only capacity we can use to learn is human
  thinking. If we think well while learning, we
  learn well. If we think poorly while learning, we
  learn poorly.
• To learn a body of content, say, an academic
  discipline, is equivalent to learning to think
  within the discipline.
• Without critical thinking guiding the process of
  learning, rote memorization becomes the primary
  recourse, with students forgetting at about the
  same rate they are learning and rarely, if ever,
  internalizing powerful ideas.

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• Through critical thinking, then, we are able to
  acquire knowledge, understanding, insights, and
  skills in any given body of content.
• To learn content we must think analytically and
  evaluatively within that content.
• Thus, critical thinking provides tools for both
  internalizing content (taking ownership of
  content) and assessing the quality of that
  internalization.
• Critical thinking enables us to construct the
  system (that underlies the content) in our minds,
  to internalize it, and to use it reasoning
  through problems and issues.

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• Education, properly so called, alters and reworks
  the mind of the student.
• Educated persons function differently from
  uneducated persons. They are able to enter and
  intellectually empathize with alternate ways of
  looking at things. They change their minds when
  evidence or reasoning require it. They are able
  to internalize important concepts within a
  discipline and inter-relate those concepts with
  other important concepts both within and among
  disciplines. They are able to reason well to
  think their way through complex problems.

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• If students are to become educated persons,
  teachers must place thinking at the heart of the
  curriculum they must require students to
  actively work ideas into their thinking using
  their thinking.
• Critical thinking is presupposed in understanding
  and thinking within every discipline. It is
  presupposed in the ability to read, write, speak,
  and listen effectively. And it is a broad set of
  competencies and traits that sustain and define
  lifelong learning.
• In short, the only way to learn any discipline is
  to learn to think critically within that
  discipline.
• --From Paul and Elders Critical Thinking
  Competency Standards (pp. 10-11, 15)

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So, what does this mean for us, right now?

• Discuss What are the implications of these
  statements for your teaching? For designing
  student assessment? For how you conduct your
  class on a daily basis?
• Have you made substantive changes in your
  instruction in the last four years? Explain,
  elaborate.

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Resources

• http//www.surry.edu/about/ct/index.html
• Or, from the SCC home page, click on About
  Surry and then Critical Thinking.
• cthelp_at_surry.edu
• Email account for instructors to submit critical
  thinking assignments for review by TACT