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Teaching Critical Thinking in Discussion: “ Challenges and Strategies ”. Ekta Kandhway Interdisciplinary Humanities. What is Critical Thinking?.
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Teaching Critical Thinking in Discussion: “Challenges and Strategies” Ekta Kandhway Interdisciplinary Humanities
What is Critical Thinking? • “Critical thinking is the development of discipline organized thinking that monitors itself and is guided by intellectual standards. Further, they hold that reasoning must be at the heart of good teaching, sound learning, and preparation for college, career, and civic life.” (Paul and Elder, 1995) • Six essential skills necessary for developing critical thinking: interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation (The Delphi report, 1990)
WhyisCriticalThinkingUseful? • CT promotes purposeful, reflective judgment that results in a reasoned and fair consideration of evidence, conceptualizations, methods, and standards that ultimately frame beliefs and actions. • Critical Thinking and the question of race
Challenges in PromotingCriticalThinking • Role of the instructor • Participation of students • Time constraint • Lack of pre-reading • Prior knowledge
Concept mapping Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. Benefits: • From declarative to reflective knowledge • Analytically engaging with the subject • Open-mindedness • Interest and self-efficacy • 100% participation
Writing Assignments • Journal assignments • Creative journals • Event journals • The role of writing centers • Narrative feedback
Outcomes Direct evidence of learning: 1. More analytic papers 2. Engaged and reflective discussions 3. Better participation
Indirect Evidence of Learning • I liked that the class had a lot of group discussions because it made it possible to hear a lot of different viewpoints. I liked the concept maps because it tied in coursework from the entire semester and not just the topic of the week. • I liked that the instructorwanted the class to discuss what we were learning and was not just going over the class and readings on her own. • I enjoy doing the creative journalsand the fact that my TA is available to help you with anything, as well as being understanding.
I liked how everyone was given the chance to participate and share what they thought about the readings, • She also knew the subject very well, so when she gave me feedback on my assignments, I knew I did a good job. • The instructor was very motivated to engage us in discussions over the assigned readings.