Promoting Critical Thinking By Myrtis Mixon

Who Am I? Where am I from? What do I do there? About My family Why am I here? Who are you?

What is Critical Thinking? Critical Thinking is an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY for the 21 st century It makes one able to make decisions, evaluate, analyze, synthesize Thus… to choose, to be a life-long learner!

What is Critical Thinking? A distinct field of study Actively thinking about, engaging, and analyzing the topics you are learning about.. (handout)

Critical Thinking As teachers, we always help students develop thinking skills, but in this new field, we ask students to focus on thinking itself, on the process of developing metacognitive skills

Critical Thinking Adding Critical Thinking to your lessons will help motivate your students The first step in critical thinking is acknowledging/creating/declaring goals

Goal Setting increases student motivation What are your goals for this session? What are my goals? (index cards)

Critical Thinking Critical Thinking is being aware of thinking It’s concentrating on the development of the higher orders of thinking and promoting that in our lessons. What are the higher orders?

The Higher Orders Application Analysis Synthesis Evaluation

Creating Good Questions Good questions are a central skill of Critical Thinking (First use comprehension questions to be sure) Then, apply the “Higher Orders” Application; Analysis; Synthesis; Evaluation

New? The cognitive ( thinking) process and Strategies for improving the effectiveness of people’s reasoning abilities and critical attitudes

Thinking can be developed It is improved by becoming aware of the process A good way to do this: start with a short piece of writing –Abuk African folktale

Exploring the Story

Exploring with CT Students summarize each paragraph in one sentence Students ask a question that would evoke that sentence These questions will indicate their comprehension of the material Tell them to avoid simple/factual questions

Exploring with CT Exercises Choosing Revising Arranging Composing Organizing Creating Planning Chronology Scanning Mind-mapping Prediction Making inferences Making decisions

Issues to explore Point of View Create questions about point of view How would this be different if it was written: Through the eyes of Abuk’s father? Through the eyes of Abuk’s mother?

Issues to explore Assumptions: What are the assumptions in this story? What beliefs are taken for granted here?

Issues to explore Inferences Making conclusions and inferences from writing & listening is an important thinking skill, learning to go beyond the literal What inferences do you make: about the young man? about Abuk? about the future happiness of the couple?

Issues to explore Implications/Consequences –Decisions cause implications and consequences. What will come out of this story?

Issues to explore Concepts: What are the concepts underlying this story? Theories Definitions Laws Models

Four Important areas: Four important areas for Critical Thinking Working toward goals Problem solving Decision making Analyzing issues

Summary Writing

Summary exercises on reading Summary- paragraph by paragraph Individual In Pairs Group Summary Three Sentence Summary

Tips for summary writing 1. Read the entire piece before summarizing 2. List the main ideas (without looking back) 3. Review for potentially missed things of importance 4. Write a summary of the main ideas, using your own words.

Tips for summarizing, cont. A. Write a clear statement of the main ideas as your first sentence B. Stick to the important information: names, dates, places C. Avoid examples, description or adjectives - Leave out details D. Conclude with a sentence that ties all the point together

Tips for summary writing Your summary should be no more than 1/3 as long as the original Do not make critical comments. Don’t judge when you summarize

Promoting Critical Thinking End of session

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