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Sociocultural Theory And Critical Thinking Analysis

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Most education programs utilize a variety of approaches in attempt to guide students in retaining knowledge and skills. For instance, if an instructor is teaching a health lesson about the potential negative consequences of alcohol use, the teacher is likely to want to emphasize health consequences, which can be done through a lesson utilizing a cognitive approach of critical thinking skills. The students however may come to the lesson with different cultural influence, which will (hopefully) compel that same teacher to want to utilize a cognitive approach of sociocultural theory, to emphasize cultural differences contrasting with societal consequences of alcohol misuse. Sociocultural Theory recognizes that our interactions with our culture and our influence from society provides us the concepts we utilize to think about problems and use skills in our everyday lives. Sociocultural theory is the process of mediating situations and acquiring information which influences our thoughts and decisions. For instance, alcohol consumption can vary greatly from one culture to another. One student may come from a home where …show more content…

Sociocultural theory helps the teacher implement teaching approaches which bring multiple viewpoints into the classroom, and critical thinking skills allow students to have conversations (external and internal) about those influences. Sociocultural theory allows students to have differing opinions, and critical thinking skills influences the student’s ability to converse about those differences. Both approaches have limitations in that they can be very time consuming approaches while leaving the classroom open for much debate/struggle, but the long-term consequences for the students are likely to be much more beneficial than a standard lecture about alcohol or any other

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