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Using emerging technologies to teach critical thinking
Summary of this pageThis page has been created by Melinda Byrne for work as part of the course FET 8611, Emerging Technologies This page will attempt to examine and list some of the emerging technologies that can be used to enhance critical thinking. Contributing to and using this page Feel free to add comments, suggestions or whatever you feel like to this page to help it to evolve into a worthwhile resource for teachers who want to develop critical thinking skills in their students, with the use of emerging technologies...and even without if you have some good ideas or web resources that can help Please add comments within a box at the end of paragraphs. You can also add comments by clicking the COMMENTS button at the bottom of the page. Contributers to this page http://www.elearnspace.org/  Why teach critical thinkingIn the part of the world I find myself in, critical thinking is very low down on the priority list when it comes to primary and secondary education. Students are not so much taught how to think, but rather what to regurgitate. The emphasis that students who I teach have had for nearly all their learning prior to coming to college has been on memorising facts and what the teacher tells them, not finding things out for themselves or questioning. I have taught students who have done their very first research project at 18 years of age, after they leave school. I teach a foundations level where students are prepared for degree and diploma courses. The teachers at those levels and indeed the instutions are asking for students who are critical thinkers - so how do we teach these skills. Surely there must be emerging technologies which engender critical thinking in students. The ProblemEveryone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.A DefinitionCritical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, orproblem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. This quote by Aristotle sums up how education and critical thinking fit together: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Paula Great quotation Paula. To add to your definition, here is one that I found: "In layperson's terms, critical thinking consists of seeing both sides of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms your ideas, reasoning dispassionately, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems and so forth (Willingham, D. 2007, p.8) The ResultA well cultivated critical thinker:
Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism. (Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008). Retrieved on 26th August from http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/define_critical_thinking.cfm Using emerging technologies to help teach critical thinkingPodcastsPodcasts are a wonderful way to introduce students to critical thinking. There are a number of casts out there that concentrate on critical thinking as their main objective. One of my favourites is Skeptoid which introduces a new topic each week and which looks at the topic in a critical manner. It is like mythbusters for radio. Below is a table you may like to add to which lists some critical thinking podcasts together with their web address
VodcastsVodcasts, similar to podcasts, but with the addition of video may capture students interest more when tackling critical thinking in the classroom. Many vodvasts are just reruns of tv shows which whilst useful are not really of interest to this wiki.Of more interest are online lecture series which have become quite common throughout the net. lectures conducted by emminent thinkers and university professors on topics as wide ranging as stem cell research to quantum mechanics and the war in Iraq give students the opportunity to take some time out and listen to latest research, latest thinking and even counter views. Below are a sample of video lecture series sites that are freely accessible. The range of topics is enormous and the expertise is apparent.
Web PagesThere are a number of web pages which can be used to teach critical thinking - to introduce students in a fun way to some of the reasons why we need to be critical thinkers. The following sites are selected for younger students to introduce them to the notion that they need to be wary of what they read and see and not just take things at face value.
There are many other sites which would be much more suited to older students, which are great discussion starters for critical thinking. Two notable ones which concentrate on satire are:
There are also sites which try to dispel myths via the internet in much the same way that Mythbusters use critical thinking and scientific experimentation to dispel or prove myths that exist in society on television. Youtube and Discovery Channel provide a number of mythbuster video clips which are useful for critical thinking in the classroom.
Finally there are sites which act as a repository of links for some very good critical thinking sites that exist on the web. Highly recommended among these are:
Second LifeSecond Life offers a range of critical thinking locations and lectures that can help students in their understanding of and growth towards critical thinking. Some of the lectures occur in real time,meaning that if you are not in the second life location at the time then you may miss the information.Science School created by the University of Denver (129, 126, 26) is one site that offers critical thinking lectures. It is found amongst sites such as Science Friday (131, 64, 44), Nasa eEducation (68, 74, 44) and SciLands by the Naked Scientists team (102, 129, 25) which all espouse the virtues of science, the scientific method and critical thinking. I apologise for the coordinates. I cannot any way to link to the sites mentioned above. BlogsApart from students creating their own blogs or shared blogs with a focus on critical thinking, there are a number of blog sites which have critical thinking as their central theme. The most powerful things about blogs is that they are easy to set up and they provide the students with the ability to publish their own thoughts for the wider web community to read.Some good examples of Blogs which have a critical thinking message include:
SoftwareWhilst software is not usually regarded as an emerging technology, the fact that it is always being upgraded, superceded, and enhanced makes it probably the most 'cutting edge' of emerging technologies.There are a number of software packages in the market which encourage ciritcal thinking, through the way that they allow users to interact with concepts, work in collaboration and view problems in a number of ways. Some good examples of software dedicated to critical thinking includes:
Both of these software titles have free trial downloads so that you can see how the software attempts to encourage critical thinking. A number of critical thinking organisations have begun to have a facebook presence. Networked blogs appear on facebook and you can easily search for them, critique them if you like and read and follow them. The facebook presence may influence students to create their own facebook critical thinking space, and it also provides ample examples of how to design a critical thinking facebook presence. You can easily get to the Facebook top 50 critical thinking sites from here However you do need to join facebook to be able to get to the pages. There are some sites that have a twitter presence regarding critical thinking. Some of these are intended to really just get you to look at their products. One such is the Critical Thinking Company. You can find their web presence here They do provide some free stuff, but it is really designed to sell you their education lines. If you do choose to follow the Critical thinking Company, then at least you are alerted to when they do put new free resources related to thinking on the web.Herein may lie the benefit of using twitter to help teach critical thinking. Students may be able to follow each other as they read information or dwell on problems that are designed to encourage critical thinking. They can be alerted straight away when one of them has new insights to share. It could be a useful tool to help collaborative learning of critical thinking concepts. On a more skeptical note a good reality check related to twitter and how trustworthy it actually is can be found here . It is titled All that twitters is not gold.Critical thinking for the WWWOne of the most difficult parts of teaching is helping students to question and challenge the attitudes, values and beliefs that lie beneath the surface of online text. It involves the analysis and critique of the relationships among texts, language, power, social groups and social practices.What does critical literacy include?
Two videos that I use with students of all ages to talk about critical literacy and use of online text include the following: http://teachertube.com/members/viewVideo.php?video_id=65989&title=New_breed_of_penguin_found http://teachertube.com/members/viewVideo.php?video_id=65991&title=BBC_journalism I can relate to your problems Melinda. When challenging attitudes and values (which I like to do with my students and which is part of critical thinking) I often find resistance from parents, which, I guess is related to the dynamics of my client group. My students come from diverse backgrounds. (I teach at a school of distance education)..so I deal with students who come from very conservative and 'resistant to change' backgrounds, students who are totally disengaged with school and learning and everything and everyone in between. I am talking about the challenge to their attitudes and their prejudices. I wrote a webquest about China several years ago and this really pushed the boundaries with many of my students who, because of embedded parental attitudes, have little understanding or respect of cultural difference. This 'online text' if you like, or rather a webquest, took them out of their comfort zone and exposed them to another culture. It was different to just using 'online texts' because it utilised a variety of web resources and also authentic contexts. This webquest was an ideal way to foster critical thinking but also to question attitudes and values. While technology has been commonly used as an information gathering tool, it can be a powerful tool in teaching critical thinking. A study conducted at Athabasca University in Canada asked online students to identify what made their online experiences positive and the answer was the teachers. The tool is still just that, a tool. Students identified teachers who made them support their conclusions and challenged them to rethink ideas (Exemplary Online Educators: Creating a Community of Inquiry tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde18/articles/article6.htm). I looked extensively at Carmel's study of China. I think what made it effect was that it had an interesting a reallife twist to it. It involved higher level of thinking because they had to use the information that they gathered to make some interesting decisions. I looked at the skeptoid site and found it very interesting- something my son will gobble up- it gives another side to the story. It would become a great critical thinking tool if a student would take the effort to research both sides of an issue to see which was most credible. Known pitfalls when teaching critical thinkingWe have probably all heard the horror stories of teachers trying to teach critical thinking who have gotten more than they bargained for. Use this space to share with others the do's and dont's of critical thinking in the classroom. Related pages in this communityCarmel's pageCarmels page looks at the value of Web 2 applications in an educational setting. What can we learn from video games? Jan's page on Video games discusses the use of games to encourage thinking skills with our students. Related ResearchThere is a great paper on why it is so hard to teach critical thinking found here It is from american Educator and is well worth the read if you have some time.Also an article on teaching Critical thinking online from the journal of instructional psychology can be found here For more 'heavy going' research, there is a paper by Marcelo Dascal entitled The Balance of Reason which can be found here There is also a very good resource from the Education for Thinking Institute (part of Columbia university) which has a number of reflections and articles on Critical Thinking as a goal of Education. The site can be found here Teaching Education and 21st Century Skills
I think this is a nice little precis of many issues relating to future education and critical thinking. Andyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eGHAuV5yLo ReferencesAnonymous. (n.d.). Logically Critical. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://www.logicallycritical.net Astleitner, H. (2002, June) Teaching critical thinking online. Journal of Instructional Psychology Retrieved July/August, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCG/is_2_29/ai_88761499/ Dascal, M. (2001, September) The balance of reason. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://www.tau.ac.il/humanities/philos/dascal/papers/berlin.html Dunning, B. (n.d.). skeptoid. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://skeptoid.com Grothe, P. J. (n.d.). Point of Inquiry. Retrieved July/August, 2009, from http://www.pointofinquiry.org Jago, C. (2009, August/September). Crispian-jago blogspot Web log message. Retrieved from http://Crispian-jago.blogspot.com Kuhn, D. (2003, June). Education for thinking project. Teachers College, Columbia University. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://www.tc.edu/centers/eft/ Law, S. (2009, August/September). Stephen Law Blogspot Web log message. Retrieved from http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com Novella, S., Novella, B., Watson, R., Bernstein, E., & Novella, J. (n.d.). Skeptics guide to the universe. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://www.theskepticsguide.org Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2008). The minature guide to critical thinking concepts and tools. Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutCT/define_critical_thinking.cfm Various. (n.d.). Harvard University Lectures Vodcasts. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://athome.harvard.edu/archive Various. (n.d.). Mind On Line Video lecture series. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://mindonline.uchicago.edu Various. (n.d.). Princeton University lectures online Video lectures. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://www.princeton.edu/webmedia/lectures Various. (n.d.). St John’s University University Lecture Series. Retrieved August/September, 2009, from http://www.csbsju.edu/multimedia/lectures/default.htm Willingham, D. T. (2007, Summer)Pp 8 - 19. Critical thinking:Why is it so hard to teach. American Educator. NB: There are also a number of other intext references which have the relevant details as part of their description, so repetition here seems unnecessary.
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