Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences, 2016

Contemporary discussions of critical thinking lack serious consideration of students’ thinking-processes as phenomena embedded within the contexts of psychological and interpersonal relationships. This paper departs from past and present approaches to critical thinking pedagogy by analogizing thinking and critical thinking with forms of relating: to self, to others, to objects of thought, and to what we describe as “thinking-relationships.” The analogy of thinking with relating permits us to examine more closely the connections between self, psyche, student, teacher, and learning institution, and to apply valuable insights from the fields of social philosophy and psychoanalytic theory to critical thinking pedagogy and practice. This paper introduces the metaphor of critical thinking as relating to one’s thinking-relationships, explores the contexts in which such critical thinking-relationships are embedded, identifies hidden desires, defenses, and fantasies that may hinder the development of critical thinking, and concludes by reflecting upon the link between the ethical development of the person and the ideal of critical thinking.

1997

practice” (1991, p. 354). Research in the U.S. supports these observations. For example, Su’s (1990) study, based on interviews with 112 educators, found that although teachers stated that they valued critical thinking they did not implement it in their classrooms. Similarly, in her study of a three-year project to foster critical thinking in social studies, McKee (1988) found that teachers spent only four percent of class time on reasoning activities.

Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Conference of Engineering and Implementation on Vocational Education (ACEIVE 2018), 3rd November 2018, North Sumatra, Indonesia, 2019

The quality of our life, including how we learn and how we adapt to the various situation and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on a quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in the quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated. This paper will review the critical thinking, about what is critical thinking skills? can it be trained through the learning process? Is gift contribution to critical thinking skills? What kind of learning process that can improve critical thinking skills? Through this paper, we can use some of the most important information to improve our critical thinking skills.

Education Sciences

Higher education institutions are responsible for preparing and equipping undergraduate students with the skills required by the labor market, such as critical thinking. However, academics should consider students’ pre-existing ideas before designing and implementing an instructional intervention regarding critical thinking. Drawing on the literature for conceptual change, the current study aimed to map students’ conceptualization of critical thinking and their ideas regarding the acquisition of critical thinking. In total, 243 first-year social sciences students participated in the study. To explore students’ ideas, the authors constructed an instrument with 20 scientific and non-scientific statements about critical thinking. The instrument was a two-tier questionnaire, and participants indicated their level of agreement with each statement using a 5-point Likert scale as well as their confidence in their answers. Students’ ideas were categorized into six groups depending on their ...

Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 2019

A rehearsal of a new way of teaching critical thinking by means of computer-aided argument mapping and a procedural method by which to do so.

Educational Theory, 1993

Seen from inside the critical thinking movement, things could not look better. Informal logic, the foundational discipline upon which recent conceptions of critical thinking rest, is a progressive research program. More philosophers and logicians are taking informal logic seriously. Its theory is getting both deeper and broader. More extensive and compelling analyses of basic concepts are increasingly available in the literature; new approaches, such as applied epistemology, are expanding the concepts available to members of the field. Informal logicians are moving away from a near exclusive focus on introductory college courses and text books, and are developing concepts and procedures that can support critical thinlung across the disciplines. There are deep continuities between critical thinlung and other theoretical approaches to argumentation theory and rhetoric, particularly with the work of Jurgen Habermas. Psychological grounding is available from psychologists such as Jerome Bruner and L. S. Vygotsky. There are many suggestive commonalities between critical thinking and social theories of reasoning and learning of all sorts, including trends in cognitive psychology. Critical thinking moves with a strong current in philosophy of education. It speaks to the educational goals associated with liberal education, and places the development of competent and reasonable learners and citizens at the center of its concern. It comports nicely with recent and credible pedagogical approaches such as cooperative and collaborative learning, problem solving, discovery methods in science, writing process, the use of schema in reading comprehension, and multiculturalism. Most important, perhaps, the integration of critical thinking into school practices, the vitality of in-service and pre-service efforts, a growing and influential professional literature, and well-attended conferences, all point to its attractiveness as a framework for progressive educational change. In the United States, national and regional reports identify critical thinking as a desired educational outcome, often citing the business community's belief that critical thinking is necessary within a modern workforce. Critical thinking has, however, been challenged at a deep theoretical level. In 1981, John McPeck published Critical Thinking and Education, which contained a sustained critique that had, at its core, an argument that denied the possibility of critical thinking, construed as striving to offer educationally relevant general procedures and concepts. The argument is both simple and profound:

Informal Logic, 2017

Cognitive bias presents as a pressing challenge to critical thinking education. While many have focused on how to eliminate or mitigate cognitive bias, others have argued that these biases are better understood as result from adaptive reasoning heuristics which are, in the right conditions, rational modes of reasoning about the world. This approach presents a new challenge to critical thinking education: if these heuristics are rational under the right conditions, does teaching critical thinking undermine student abilities to reason effectively in real life reasoning scenarios? I argue that this challenge calls for a reconception of the goals of critical thinking education to focus on how rational ideals are best achieved or approximated in human reasoners. Critical thinking educators should focus on developing the metacognitive skill to recognize when different cognitive strategies (including the heuristics) should be used.

1989

Mind, Brain, and Education

Naturalizing critical thinking. Naturalizing critical thinking. Consequences for education, blueprint for future research Abstract. While very popular in public discourse about education, critical thinking education is still a work in progress. Two key conditions for successfully addressing critical thinking education are lacking: a) the availability of a clear, specific, and operational definition, and b) a deeper understanding of the natural cognitive bases of critical thinking. We therefore propose a theoretical framework for critical thinking education, grounded on a cognitive approach. Starting from a restrictive characterization of critical thinking-defined as the capacity of evaluating the epistemic quality of information, and of calibrating one's confidence in relationship to it-we identify specific mechanisms subserving critical thinking that are present in early human development. We refer to these mechanisms as the natural building blocks of critical thinking. On this naturalistic ground, effective educational strategies can be envisaged that both harness the natural building blocks of critical thinking and help overcome its shortcomings.

The central purpose of this doctoral thesis has been to deepen our understanding of the nature of critical thinking by combining theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives. The concept of critical thinking has a central role both in research on the philosophy of education and in empirical research on learning and teaching in higher education. Although it is true that the philosophical and empirical analyses of critical thinking and knowledge differ fundamentally, the present thesis argues that there are shared concerns between these two scholarly traditions. The thesis consists of four studies, each of which approached this aim from different viewpoints. The methods involved both a philosophical approach and an empirical multi-method approach. The dialogue between the empirical and theoretical analyses offers new insights into conceptualising critical thinking and its prerequisites and extends our understanding of variations in critical thinking. Based on the theoretical...

2016

Contemporary discussions of critical thinking lack serious consideration of students’ thinking-processes as phenomena embedded within the contexts of psychological and interpersonal relationships. This paper departs from past and present approaches to critical thinking pedagogy by analogizing thinking and critical thinking with forms of relating: to self, to others, to objects of thought, and to what we describe as “thinkingrelationships.” The analogy of thinking with relating permits us to examine more closely the connections between self, psyche, student, teacher, and learning institution, and to apply valuable insights from the fields of social philosophy and psychoanalytic theory to critical thinking pedagogy and practice. This paper introduces the metaphor of critical thinking as relating to one’s thinking-relationships, explores the contexts in which such critical thinking-relationships are embedded, identifies hidden desires, defenses, and fantasies that may hinder the develo...

2014

Critical thinking in the classroom is a common term used by educators. Critical thinking has been called "the art of thinking about thinking" (Ruggiero, V.R., 2012) with the intent to improve one's thinking. The challenge, of course, is to create learning environments that promote critical thinking both in the classroom and beyond. Teaching and practicing critical thinking provides adults with the opportunity to embrace and take charge of their learning. Adults engaged in critical thinking approach the classroom experience differently. Typically, students who implement critical thinking skills approach the courseware in a more thoughtful and effective manner, ask more challenging questions and participate in the learning process more intensely. This critical thinking process endures beyond the classroom and into the workplace. This session examines the background of critical thinking, its role in the classroom and beyond that to the workplace.

Educational Theory, 1998

Readers of these two collections with interests in critical thinking and education will find much that is provocative and enjoyable here. The essays address issues that have been treated extensively, such as the definition of critical thinking (see Richard Paul's and Lenore Langsdorf's essays in Rethinking Reason and Sharon Bailin's essay on rationality and intuition in Reason and Values),' the proper approach to the teaching of critical thinking (for example, John McPeck's and Connie Missimer's essays in Rethinking Reason; Mark Selman's, Suzanne de Castell's, and Deanne Bogdan's essays in Reason and Values), the possibility of thinking objectively (Karl Hostetler's essay in Rethinking Reason), and the relation between thinking and feeling (see Peter Elbow's, Blythe McVicker Clinchy's, and Delores Gallo's essays in Rethinking Reason). In addition, some of the essays extend the discussion of critical thinking in new directions. So, for example, Eamonn Callan looks at reason in the context of religious upbringing (in Reason and Values), while Bailin, Debra Shogan, and Stuart Richmond consider the moral and aesthetic aspects of critical thinking (in Reason and Values), as does Karen J. Warren (in Rethinking Reason). The relation of critical thinking to freedom and empowerment is discussed by Henry Giroux and Laura Duhan Kaplan (in Rethinking Reason) and by Callan and Portelli [in Reason and Values), and feminist perspectives on critical thinking are explored by K. Warren and Ann Phelan and James Garrison (in Rethinking Reason). On the face of it, the topic of critical thinking seems to be controversial: many of these authors have engaged in vigorous debate with one another for years and seem to be in fundamental disagreement. My reading of the volumes suggests, however, that there is more convergence on the issues than might seem to be the case, even to the theorists themselves. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there is a fair amount of dead horse beating going on in the field, and more than one red herring can be found as well. In order to make the case, I focus upon four themes that arise repeatedly in the discussions. First is the place of logic in the teaching of critical thinking. Here, we find particularly strenuous dead horse beating, it seems to me, that so far as I can tell serves no purpose and may be dispensed with entirely. Second is the topic of critical thinking as a means of breaking down prejudice and misconception. Third is the theme of "connected knowing," that is, the relation between critical thinking and other activities, such as imagining, believing, questioning,

Where there is an emphasis on critical thinking being an essential component learning at University level education, there needs to be a clear focus upon integrating the development of these skills within the curriculum. This paper looks at the importance of critical thinking in higher education and the difficulties that students have in applying critical thinking. Results from a short study show students' understanding of what critical thinking actually means.

English Language Teaching , 2014

Developing critical thinking since the educational revolution gave rise to flourishing movements toward embedding critical thinking (CT henceforth) stimulating classroom activities in educational settings. Nevertheless the process faced with complications such as teachability potentiality, lack of practical frameworks concerning actualization of CT tasks, and transferability obstacles, as well as lack of a homogeneous model of conceptualization of CT among educators. The present study made an effort to represent a comprehensive model of CT for educators drawn on the contemporary literaturein order to indicate a uniform delineation of the construct and to offer a comprehensive model of CT for the intention of making boosting learners' capability of CT possible.