Fostering Critical Thinking in Students

This week’s article summary is “Misunderstanding Critical Thinking” (no hyperlink available). 

As teachers, we strive for our students "to think deeply, to be empowered in their learning, to be engaged in their learning now and in the future, and to be critical and creative thinkers.”

When I taught humanities, I kept on my desk a list of verbs that spanned the gamut of Bloom’s Taxonomy—knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation—and used them in class discussions and on test questions. My hope was that the higher-thinking verbs would guide students to become deep, critical, and creative thinkers.

As the article below attests, there is much more nuance to (and a lot of misperceptions about) facilitating deep and critical student thought. 

I didn’t fall prey to all five of the misperceptions below (I was never guilty of misperception 2), but this article is a reminder of how much work and planning it takes to guide students to move from being consumers to true creators of content and ideas.

Joe

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Below are five common conceptual errors about critical thinking:

1. Critical thinking is only for high-achieving and gifted students: All students are capable of higher-level thinking. Critical thinking should not be limited to one group or one age level of students.

2. It’s okay to have students review for a test by using the same critical-thinking questions that will appear on the test: With this approach, the test will assess only students’ ability to remember answers, not their ability to think through unfamiliar questions. Teachers need to integrate a variety of thinking questions throughout the curriculum (analyze scenarios, interpret graphics, evaluate quotes) and make sure students are seeing test questions for the first time.

3. Using higher-level verbs in assignments ensures that students will think critically: Unfortunately for novice teachers relying on commonly used critical thinking verb charts, things aren’t that simple. For example, in this task – Synthesize the passage and identify the main character – even though a higher-level verb is used, students won’t be doing any critical thinking. Another example of how explain can be used in a lower-level and higher-level task: (a) Explain who is the main character; (b) Explain what the main character fears the most and how he or she is resilient.

4. Higher-level thinking is best assessed through oral questioning: Students need time to process high-level questions. If students can produce a quick verbal answer when a question is fired at them in class, it’s probably a lower-level question. Better to let students ponder good questions and discuss them with a classmate before being asked to respond.

5. Any teacher can facilitate critical thinking: All teachers need PD on framing good critical thinking questions, modeling high-level thinking themselves, and revising their lesson tasks and assessments so they spur critical thinking. One of the best ways for teachers to improve their skills in this area is working with colleagues to create curriculum unit plans, assess student work, and focus on effective practices.