Criticalthinking d bradley
- 1. Encouraging Critical Thinking at any age… Dave C. Bradley 07/22/2012 EDTC 572 Dr. James Brown
- 2. Critical Thinking Defined • What is critical thinking? • critical thinking: noun disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence:The questions are intended to develop your critical thinking. - from Dictionary.com • Critical thinking: noundeep reasoning necessary for problem solving, “thinking outside the box” - My own personal definition • How do you define Critical Thinking?
- 3. Why you should care about Critical Thinking… • “Critical thinking helps a child formulate the right questions, assess possible answers, judge the credibility of information and sources, and make solid judgments based on the evidence.” - Linda Popolano • Critical thinking encourages creativity, invention, and inspiration. • We don’t want to create automatons that merely regurgitate facts & figures • If we only teach our learners to do well on standardized tests, we’re robbing them of a productive future. • Critical thinking is the one skill that is required for almost any profession, it is a skill that will never change; at least not in principle.
- 4. Examples of Critical Thinking • Scientific experimentation creates opportunities for critical thinking. • Role-playing can present unique opportunities to spark critical thinking. • Faced with a problem on the job you and your co-workers brainstorm, come up with 3 solutions, and then simulate possible outcomes to rank the solutions in order to determine which is the best. • Any type of repairman or tech support position requires critical thinking/problem solving abilities to troubleshoot customers’ issues. • Most any profession requires some degree of critical thinking what examples can you think of?
- 5. Involving the Learning Community • We need to do more than give learners the answers, we need to teach them how to find the answer for themselves. • Find and implement in-class activities that encourage critical thinking, brainstorming, and logic. Mix it up some and have both solo and group projects. • Send some of the activities home with your learners. Find exercises that the learners can do with the parents. • Getting the whole learning community involved ensures that your attempts won’t fall flat. • What ideas do you have to help inspire the community to get involved?
- 6. Proven Ways to Develop Critical Thinking • Here’s a critical thinking project that could be done at school or home and would really get people talking. • This site has a good selection of critical thinking exercises. • Here’s an opensource site with a great collection of critical thinking exercises, curriculum helps, etc. • This site isn’t opensource, but it too has a great selection of critical thinking tools. • Even something as simple as a world jumble app for your smartphone or a puzzle book can improve brain function. • One of the most important things to remember is that your mind is like a muscle, it requires daily exercise!
- 7. Critical Thinking: A Lifelong Learning/Thought Process • Cruciality of critical thinking 1. Critical thinking is a skill that is useful for life. 2. It is useful in almost any profession. 3. Critical thinking should be cultivated at any age. • Logic is the study of how to make inferences and reason out problems. There are many different types of logic you can learn about but a good place to start is logic concerned with learning, thinking, and argumentation. - Joseph Leon • This site has some simple animations concerning the importance of the relationship between logic & critical thinking.
- 8. Any questions? • Questions? • Any additional input? • Final tips 1. Don’t over-extend yourself, set short-term, realistic goals. 2. Find easy, repeatable critical thinking exercises to start with. 3. As you find yourself getting better move on to more challenging activities.