Running Head: TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN THE CLASSROOM 1 Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Classroom Patty J. Watson Lindenwood University TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN THE CLASSROOM 2 Abstract This paper discusses the planning and execution of the concept-attainment strategy of teaching. The strategy has been found to be useful at all age levels and across all subject areas. The use of this strategy is not only to teach content, but also teach critical-thinking skills. The concept attainment strategy has been shown to increase interest and curiosity in lessons and provide some variety in presentation of lesson. It also lends itself well to …show more content…
The concept-attainment strategy asks students to draw on prior knowledge to make hypotheses about given sets of data (Eggers, Kauchak, 1996, p. 160). “The teacher tries to get students to learn how to label, categorize, interpret data, explore relationships, identify critical relationships, make inferences, apply concepts, predict outcomes and explain reasoning.” (PBWorks ) The teacher will present the students with examples and non-examples of a concept and the students will make hypotheses as to what the concept is. As students make hypotheses, the teacher should write or display them somewhere visible so that students won’t forget what has already been said. The choice of examples and non-examples is vitally important, because these will either lead the students to clarification or confusion. Once the students have examined all the evidence, they must do a final analysis and come up with a final hypothesis. The teacher will then state whether they are correct. During the presentation of hypotheses, it is crucial that students voice their thinking aloud, not only to clarify, but also to help other students that may be struggling. The students who are making the hypotheses will be forced to examine their thinking processes (Eggers, Kauchak, 1996, p. 159 – 170). The concept attainment goal is to get students to become more independent and analytical thinkers, have students make connections
Beliefs, attitudes and values are three little words that have and make a massive impact on who we are as individuals, who we are as people, and even how the world is viewed by ourselves and others. A belief is something that individuals or groups think, such as believing in a god. Where a Value would be the living life in the ways a religion expects, this value will be made from the belief that the person or group has in their God. The attitude towards this would be the feelings, beliefs and behaviour tendencies towards this, for example praying, reading the holy book,
After learning studying the technics from Unit 2 on improving critical thinking skills, I feel that I have devised a plan to help me through this process. The steps in the lesson that include using wasted time and asking specific questions, planning to handle one problem per day, and internalize intellectual standards and having clarity and understanding about devising a game plan has helped me put the changes into action. Keeping a journal and trying to practice intellectual strategies are all part of my plan to improve my thinking.
Throughout the years, whenever a policy has seemed outdated or irrelevant in US policy, it has generally been gotten rid of. Slavery, prohibition, and discriminate voting laws were all done away with once people realized that they did not belong in the modern world, but there is still one piece of US policy that has long overstayed its welcome. This piece of policy is the use of the electoral college in our presidential election system. The electoral college is a group of individuals who each cast a direct vote for the president. The way that this works is complicated but essentially it boils down to this. Each state has a number of electoral college votes equal to the number of seats they have in the senate plus the number of seats they have in the House of Representatives for a total of 538 votes. Before each election, each party picks a group of people who they tell to vote for their candidate from each state to be their electors. When a citizen votes for president in November of election years, they are not voting for the president directly. They are voting for which party gets to send its group of electors to cast their vote in the electoral college. These electors then cast their votes in early December, and from those votes a winner is declared. Does it seem convoluted and overly-complicated? That is what I think. So, I say that the electoral college should be abolished because it causes problems in presidential elections, the arguments for the electoral college are
A crucial skill in critical thinking is learning to distinguish inference from assumption. An inference is an act of concluding that something is true or seems to be true. An assumption is an act of assuming something based on previous beliefs. Everyone has their own point of view, therefore, they have different assumptions about what the see. For example, if two people see an overweight person at the gym, one might infer, "There's a lazy person." The other might infer, "That person is taking control of their health." These inferences are based on different assumptions about the conditions under which overweight people end up in the gym; these assumptions are connected to the point of view about people that each has formed. The first person
This unit contains all the resources needed for teaching Grades 5 & 6 Unit 2: Critical Thinking.
I thought that the student’s conceptual development was a crucial issue in education area, now I changed: the teacher education is the area that I’d like to work on.
In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.
Enlightenment is the understanding of social life and the basics of human nature through our own logic. Humans have the ability to educate themselves and make progress in their own life decisions. Hence the change of human knowledge, such as the ability to make an understanding of reason and logic. For instance, when having faith in solving society’s problems and to encourage change to better the publics eye. Enlightenment, is to inform and convince others of one’s ideas. For an example, religion is something to inform people to and to “enlighten” them to understand and believe or even convince of the idea of religion.
The first four stages of critical thinking development are, the unreflective thinker, the challenged thinker, the beginning thinker, and the practicing thinker. When it comes to the unreflective thinker, "we are unaware of significant problems in our thinking" (Paul & Elder, 2012 P.28). An unreflective thinker doesn't question their beliefs or decisions, due to the fact that they lack intellectual standards. The unreflective thinker does not realize that they are lacking skills. Egocentric tendencies play a dominant role in this type of thinking for the reason that, they lack skills and motivation to notice how self-centered and prejudice they are. The next stage is the challenged thinker, meaning "that we become aware of problems in our
If you've ever wondered how to make your mind work more efficiently for you, and how to increase reasoning and critical thought, then read on.
How did you score on the assessment, and what was your initial reaction to your score and interpretation?
The Rule of Law is the idea that the power of government officials should be defined and limited by laws while Rule of Force related to rules dictated by an authoritative power through intimidation and military backing. Rule of Law allows citizens to understand the powers held in government as well as their individual rights, this promotes equality and mutual understanding between the two parties; it ensures government officials are subject to the same Constitutional fundamental rights as citizens.
Problems. They are everywhere! They seem to follow us, find us. They even morph into new ones once we get rid of them! How can I improve my jump shot? Why does my car make that funny sound? How can I afford college? We are faced with problems everyday. No one is immune to them. But how do these problems get resolved? Through the use of critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, in today’s world of technology, we have come to expect “answers” quickly. We Google the question and accept the answers as truth.
I plan to engage students in critical thinking to promote by having the students complete various activities after the reading of the information. Some of the activities include writing answers to scenarios, writing advantages and disadvantages to scenarios, and researching agencies that can provide
When defining the term “critical thinking” it can seem overwhelming and daunting, especially for young learners. In laments terms, you are teaching your student how to think for him or herself when it comes to problem solving. Instead of giving the student the answer, you give them the tools to discover the answer him/herself. Critical thinking is an important component of any classroom. No matter the age group, these skills stay with a child for the rest of his or her life. As a teacher, it is important to understand what critical thinking pertains to and how to structure part of your lesson plan around developing critical thinking skills.