• What does someone who thinks critically look like?

 

Critical thinking is identifying and evaluating evidence to guide decision making. A critical thinker uses broad in-depth analysis of evidence to make decisions and communicate his/her beliefs clearly and accurately.

1.Questioning 2.Structuring the classroom3.Responding to students4.Modeling behaviors

4 Teacher Behaviors that Can Improve Critical Thinking

The Three Story IntellectThere are one-story intellects, two-story intellects and three-story intellects with skylights.All fact collectors, who have no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalize, using the labors of the fact collectors as well as their own.

Three story men idealize, imagine, predict……their best illumination comes from above, through the skylight.~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Skinny vs. Fat 

High Consensus vs. Low Consensus 

Review vs. True

FAT

Plural

TRUE

Invitational

LowConsensus

Relevant to Learner

Questioning Exercise

Using the prompt on your table, use your thinking wheel to come up with

questions from each category.

 

We need to move towards a

knowledge generating society. The ability to think critically & creatively and to

reason logically

constitute the template for building a society that will be able to not just adopt or adapt borrowed knowledge but that which will be able to

create & market its own knowledge. (Ratnavadivel, 2001)

Students don’t come by this naturally

1.Provide a thoughtful classroom environment

2.Make the invisible – visible 3.Scaffold and cue (use tools)4.Provide continuing direct instruction5.Integrate thinking instruction with

content …move it around

Tools to Teach Critical Thinking