The definition of critical thinking provided in our reading states" Critical thinking skills refer to abilities to analyze, evaluate, infer, interpret, explain, and self-regulate (Facione, 1990; van Gelder, 2005)." As I read this definition through several times, all I could think about was that this is the primary goal of education. We send our kids to school to learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic with the primary goal being the ability to make good decisions in life and defend these decisions. Everything else in our curriculum is an embellishment or an extra. We teach our students skills that turn into tools to be used in their critical thinking process.
In my current teaching role, one of my goals is to teach my students "how" to think, not "what" to think. For example, I guide them in discoveries of mathematical principals, I give them procedures and rubrics to use when solving problems, and I allow them time to think of multiple solutions to a single problem. At times, they struggle to find solutions and that is permissible-in fact, in my opinion it is desirable.
The largest obstacle to developing critical thinking skills is time. Teachers often have a schedule that does not have time to simply allow students to struggle through a problem to arrive at a solution. It is often quicker to point out the way to the solution rather than allow the students to arrive there on their own. In my view, this is one of the major weaknesses of our current educational system. We are more concerned with how many facts a student can cram into their brains when we should be focused more on developing critical thinking skills. If a student knows how to think, they can learn the specifics of what to think. As a side note, most standardized tests do not test critical thinking skills; therefore, not much time is allocated to the development of critical thinking skills.
AMEN! I think the Time component is the key. It's much easier and faster to show them how to do it and have them repeat the steps. The problem becomes application. They can see what you did and "mimic" or "copy" the steps to come up with answers, however they don't really know why they are doing it or when to apply that in a different situation.
ReplyDeleteThe unfortunate thing is that a teacher can't fix this. They are so locked into what they need to do, they are very much stuck. I hope there is a realization that there needs to be a change so we can really help foster good critical thinking skills.
You go girl! I so agree with your thoughts. It seems that we have to move at such a pace that the effort to "leave no child behind" is leaving more children behind than ever before.
ReplyDeleteI hate to keep playing my one note over and over, but the answer to this, in many cases, is through elective courses. But, the problem with this is that not all elective courses, or teachers, emphasize the things that need to be emphasized to make the critical thinking impact needed to bridge the gap. However, sometimes it can be a real "Aha!" moment. For example, I am going to do a demonstration in a calculus class with a robot showing how different gearing ratios cause different speeds and torques of the robot. Students have to FIGURE IT OUT when they build the robot themselves, and live with the outcomes. But, not all students get to build a robot, and the calculus teacher doesn't have the time, space or tools to do it. The engineering teacher does.
Wow, what a powerful post. Yes, the definition of critical thinking should be the slogan to today's educational world. I don't have my own classroom yet, hopefully I'll have one next fall when I finish my degree. I have to say, after all the studying I've done for my masters degree in education, I'm feeling a little depressed about the current educational situation of our nation. We NEED to focus more on critical thinking, like you said "how to think", and not so much on teaching our students to pass a test ("what to think"). I have hope that one day things will change for the better!
ReplyDeleteCarla, I totally agree with your comment that critical thinking is what education is for! Unfortunately, our education system is not so supportive of this. As you said, time is definitely one of the barriers. Nevertheless, I see many great teachers like you are tackling to teach students to think critically!!
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