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A step towards critical thinking

A valid buzz surrounds the importance of teaching students to think critically when reading, looking at visual media or listening to arguments.  Many international 1st-year university students are products of a believe-what-you’re-told, there-is-a-right-answer educational system.  As a result, questioning does not come naturally. And so, I want to devote a couple posts to ways I try to instigate this new ability.

Idiom origins revealed.  Or not.

In an initial lesson, as my program is integrated with a 1st year History course, I suggest to students that they are going to write an informative paper on life during the 1500s.  I ask them to describe what they imagine life at the time to be like.  Not surprisingly, they mention the poverty, the dirt, the lack of technology, the kings and queens. With these preconceptions now in place, since the internet is the go-to for initial research on an unfamiliar topic, we Google “life in the 1500s”. What results at the top is this website, a section of which I refer to below.

As you read through, you see that these preconceptions are confirmed. For example:

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, — hence the saying “dirt poor.”

What’s clever is plausible ideas are reinforced by explanations and references to common idioms (my personal favourite is “saved by the bell” at the end of #11).  I ask students how they feel about the information they’ve learnt from this site, to which many are impressed with the recognised idioms and their apparent origins.  I ask them if they believe everything–mostly silence and sheepish glances at each other follow.  They know because I’ve asked the question, the answer should be no.  Why would the teacher give us wrong information? Why would someone lie about this information so that others would be misled? 

I introduce the idea of red flags: warning signs, in this case, that should ring a critical thinker’s alarm bells.  After taking a look at some of the ways to evaluate the reliability of a website (University of California, Berkeley) like motivation, authority, currency and type of site.

Eyes squint the so-called facts.
…….Eyebrows raise.
…………..Trust dissipates.
…………………Skepticism seeps in.

An (convincing) open letter to educators

Next up: an impassioned video blog about why university education is no longer valuable.

I leave it up to students to thinking about his message critically.  Beyond comprehension questions and some guided questions (on the handout below), I give few correct/incorrect clarifications.

Surviving Pandora’s box

This awakening to the idea that information needs to be evaluated before it can be trusted seems to leave a number of students unsettled.  This Pandora’s box opens up to questioning what they’ve always held true about their own countries and high school education.  But they recover and are better for it.  Their initiation into critical thought may be disconcerting at first, but over time and with practice, it proves to help students build more reliable arguments and make informed decisions.

Inspired by Shelly Terrell’s Goal 6: investigate and instigate, increasing student ability to ask questions without defining what those questions must be or what the answers absolutely are allows them to develop evaluative skills at their own pace. What delightful surprise comes is a critical eye demonstrated on not only what information they receive, but that that they produce.

A related post, A reflection on teaching critical thinking, can be read here.

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Brad Patterson

Nice to finally find time to come by the blog, and soak up a good Ty read.

Will be doing a workshop with Divya Brochier this summer on “6 hats thinking” and it’s been making me think critically about “critical thinking”.

You hip to this brainstorming technique?

Brad Patterson

That movement within thought is often only encouraged in a binary way— right wrong, positive, negative, whereas there is so much more room to move in thought, analysis

1) emotions
2) lateral thinking
3) constructive
4) objective
5) …

When I think thinking critically, I think of the word which means de-proving something, being critical of it.

Yeah… internet-less times are crucial every now and again though.

-b

Brad Patterson

you know i can’t help myself…

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=critical

Dan Ruelle

Wow, yet another fantastic post with impeccable timing, Tyson! In my university’s advanced EAP courses, critical thinking is a major component. In fact, the primary writing genre is a critical response essay to one or two articles.

Introducing the concept of critical thinking to students, and more importantly, debunking the common misconception that critical thinking is an abstract and daunting skill that students have no prior experience with, is a tough challenge for teachers.

Just yesterday I decided to get some student volunteers to record a few informal “chat at the cafe” videos to use for future classes, with each clip containing one student’s problematic argument / reasoning. We are hoping that by keeping it informal, (somewhat) real & authentic and down-to-earth, introducing the concept of critical thinking will be much less daunting.

Coincidentally, the theme for the week that we introduce critical thinking is “The Value of Education” so your video is absolutely perfect for an activity on basic critical thinking. Thanks for that and will let you know how it goes!

Carolyn

I love this post. I also love your lesson (which I will use in my own class this week)! I was having a discussion with a friend on this exact topic the other day, but it was about adults in a society simply accepting whatever is published in their newspaper of choice. This point is valid for us as teachers too! How often have we blindly used a ‘tactic’? I refer to Scott Thornbury’s blog ‘An A-Z of ELT’ and his recent post ‘I is for Imitation’ (http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/) I can honestly say that I had never critically thought about repetition in the classroom in any positive light. That blog post was like shining a light into the deep recesses of my brain to sweep out some of my cobwebs. Hopefully your exercise – with some of my own – bring a similar effect to my own students! Cheers!

Kevin Stein

Hey Tyson,

Another fantastic post and top-notch lesson materials as well. Hope to use some of this with my higher level students. But the post also got me thinking about how to bring these types of issues into my lower level English classes. Most of my level 1 students (trouble with basic English skills) are perfectly satisfied with simply understanding the input. I don’t want to overload them, but maybe having them use just a little energy to think about the contents valididty would also be worthwhile. Gonna give it a try and see how it goes.

Thanks again
Kevin

mura

i am reading the Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser which is a great source of critical thinking ideas related to net technologies. although only ran a trial with a small group of 5 (multi-media) students they were very surprised when they discovered that their searches on the same keyword resulted in very different results. this lead onto a good discussion of the deep consequences for society of such an information bubble.
ta for another great post tyson and enjoy end of semester!
mura

mura

they used google, it is because the drive with google since i think it was 2009 is towards ‘personalisation’ so depending on where you are, search history and other unknown (undisclosed) factors which google’s aglorithms use you will get different results.
i really recommend the book.

I think your suggestion to Kevin regarding a way to start with lower levels is absolutely correct. One needs to be learn the markers that differentiate between facts and opinions before you can question (or be wary) of what you are reading.
Regarding getting students to realize the importance of critical skills to their own lives – perhaps if we presented them with a situation very close to them. say, transferring to a different university. What does it mean if the ad says they are the best? in what way? etc.
Thanks for another thought provoking post!
Naomi

Brilliant idea to use the weather report! I’ll be quoting you on that one!

Cecilia Lemos

I really like how you approached critical thinking with your students – especially the introducing the idea of raising red flags and the activity with the video. (Funnily enough I did such a similar activity with the video of David Crystal talking about how internet has changed English with a B1 group I have. Great minds, eh?). I intend to introduce the concept of raising red flags to my students as well.

Like Naomi, I really liked the suggestion you gave Kevin – the second one, showing them how structures express things differently, opinions x facts, etc. Having a few beginner students myself I find the first one harder to put into practice because the students will not have enough language to express their thoughts accurately and (especially with adult students) not being able to do so it might be frustrating and demotivating for them.

Look forward to reading more of your experimenting with critical thinking with your students. That and more of the thread you and Brad got going on 😉

Doonan

I’m not sure if this will add a bit of spice to the converstion or fuel to the fire…

The concept of critical thinking reflects a concept derived from roots in ancient Greek.

The word ‘critical’ derives etymologically from two Greek roots: ‘kriticos’ (meaning discerning judgment) and ‘kriterion’ (meaning standards).

The word implies the development of ‘discerning judgment based on standards.’

Just my 2 cents worth.

AnnLoseva

I read the post the day you published it and it’s only now that I”ve got a spare minute to leave a comment, arr(
What I like best about the post is the four lines describing how skepticism seeps in. It’s getting visual! I”m a lot of a skeptic myself and I believe you must be one if you really want your students to find the way to question facts. Yet “question” does not imply “deny”, sound arguements are key. Yet even with arguements I”ve had shaky cases – what’s true for one, is so not true for another..
I really like how you’re dealing with the problem, please deal more and let us know how that affects your students!

[…] is based on “an Open Letter to Educators” by Dan Brown, which was first referenced in this post on critical thinking. The content of this post is a follow-up activity to this video we used in […]

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