Critical thinking

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Critical thinking
Keele UniversityInternational Postgraduate
Students Induction

• Dr Stephen Bostock FSEDA

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Summary

• Postgraduate learning outcomes
• Critical reflection
• Different views of knowledge
• Learning styles

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Analyse, synthesize, evaluate

• According to Benjamin Bloom and his associates,
  in the cognitive domain there are 6 levels of
  learning outcomes
• Simple recall
• Comprehension, understanding
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

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Which do you think is most important at
postgraduate level?

• Simple recall
• Comprehension, understanding
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• EvaluationVote now

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Critical reflection/ evaluation/ argument

• Critical (Shorter OED)
• Fault-finding, censorious
• Exercising careful judgement or observation
• Constituting a crisis
• Decisive, crucial
• Which one is most relevant to postgraduate study?

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Criticism

• Criticism (Shorter OED)
• Passing unfavourable judgements
• The art of estimating the qualities and character
  of literary or artistic work
• A critical remark, a critique
• A nice (fine) point or distinction, a quibble
• Which one is most relevant to postgraduate study?

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What is critical reflection?

• (A special meaning in sociology for
  post-Post-modernism)6
• Not accepting the ideas of experts merely because
  they are an established authority
• Not accepting one view of a debate, however well
  argued, without considering alternative points of
  view realizing the contested nature of knowledge

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Different views of knowledge 3

• Knowledge is concrete and facts are absolute
• Knowledge is absolute and can be obtained from
  authorities, but may be temporarily uncertain
• Knowledge is uncertain knowledge claims are
  personal due to situations ambiguities in data
• Knowledge is contextual and subjective, filtered
  through a persons perceptions and criteria for
  judgement only interpretations are known
• Knowledge is individual interpretation from
  evaluation of what is most reasonable or probable
  on current evidence and methods

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Examples of views of knowledge

• I know what I have seen
• When there is evidence that people can give to
  convince everybody one way or another, then it
  will be knowledge until then, it is just a guess
• Id be more inclined to believe evaluation if
  they had proof. Its just like the pyramids I
  dont think well ever know. Who are we going to
  ask?
• People think differently and so they attack the
  problem differently. Other theories could be as
  true as my own, but based on different evidence
• One can judge an argument by how well thought-out
  the positions are, what kinds of reasoning and
  evidence are used to support it, and how
  consistent the way one argues on this topic is as
  compared with other topics

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Which is closest to your view of your knowledge
in your subject?

• Vote now

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A model of learningconstructivism

• Jean Piaget theorised that children learnt by
  constructing theories (cognitive models) about
  the world. Assimilating new perceptions into
  them, or occasionally having to revise models to
  accommodate perceptions that dont fit.
• We all construct and develop our personal
  cognitive models of the world to explain our
  perceptions. This is not reproducing external
  facts.

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Social constructivism

• Lev Vygotsky4 Learning, understanding or
  creating meaning is not done in isolation. It
  takes place in social contexts. Understandings
  are negotiated with others.
• Wenger5 Communities of practice develop shared
  meanings, values, rules and terms. Academics in a
  discipline are a community of practice, as is the
  cohort of students on a postgraduate programme.
• So discussion and other peer interactions are
  important in learning.

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References

• Riding, R. and Raynor, S.G. 1998 Cognitive styles
  and learning strategies understanding style
  differences in learning and behaviour London
  David Fulton
• Beetham, H. 2002 Skills for e-learning 1.
  Understanding e-learning, University of Ulster
• King, P. and Kitchener, K. Reflective Judgement,
  San Francisco Jossey Bass 1994
• Vygotsky, L.S. 1986 Thought and language,
  Cambridge, Mass.MIT Press
• Wenger, E. 1999 Communities of practice
  learning, meaning, and identity Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press
• Slide 14 is based on a conversation with Prof.
  Roger Seifert, HRM at Keele, Sept 2005