Key Ingredients of Critical Thinking

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Key Ingredients of Critical Thinking

How Critical Thinking Relates to My Teaching Context

 

I am a teacher in a small, multigrade classroom. My students are younger (kindergarten to second graders), but due to the nature of our classroom, they have to learn independence very early on. Even if our classroom atmosphere didn’t require this level of independence, I would still want to teach my students to be self-directed and think for themselves, as it is an important ability they will need to use all through their lives. What I find is that some students seem to inherently be able to look at a new assignment and figure out what to do for themselves. However, there’s always “that one student” who just doesn’t seem to be able to “get it” (every teacher has at least one). It’s hard to engage them, hard to get them to participate and to do assignments without walking them through each step, and they struggle to apply something you just explained to them in new situations. Their favorite answer to discussion questions seems to be “I don’t know!” As teachers it’s easy to just say, “Oh, every child grows at a different rate—they’re just not as mature as the others yet. They’ll get there….” However, perhaps there is actually a solution to this lack of critical thinking skills. I am learning that with these students, we teachers can examine to see if there are some key “critical thinking ingredients” that are missing.

Before we can examine these missing ingredients, we must first define what critical thinking is. I think that the video titled “Critical Thinking” (2016) put it well when it called critical thinking “slow thinking.” Critical thinking is not just knowing the answer to a question at the snap of a finger, or being able to pass quick judgement in a tricky situation, like the quick reflexes of grabbing a ball that comes at you and catches you off guard. It is being able to brainstorm, investigate a topic from many different angles, and “weigh strengths and weaknesses” (Critical Thinking, 2016). Critical thinking is not so much knowing as it is wondering.

              However, critical thinking is not something that just happens. As Willingham (2007) put it, you can teach a student that they need to think critically, but just knowing that is not going to help them actually do it. There are some key ingredients that allow critical thinking to take place. The first of these is that the student must have activated prior knowledge of the topic (Willingham, 2007). As teachers, it can be easy to assume that all our students must have some prior knowledge about the topic we’re teaching, but depending on their home life, that might not be the case. Willingham (2007) made it clear that “critical thinking depends on knowing relevant content very well and thinking about it, repeatedly” (para. 1). He goes on to explain the next ingredient, which is the ability to see the pattern to the structure of what is being learned and apply the principle to another topic or situation of the same nature. The last and perhaps most vital ingredient is that students must have an openness to expressing themselves without worrying about having the right answer. I like how Mendler (2013) recommended fostering this atmosphere in the classroom: “Tell students that you don't require them to ‘know’ but that you do expect them to ‘think.’ Teach them how to wonder aloud, speculate, guess or give the best answer they can” (para. 10).

With this in mind, the next time you find yourself frustrated with the “slow learner” in your classroom—the student who just doesn’t seem to be paying attention, isn’t engaged, or just “doesn’t know” any answers, rather than sighing and writing them off, see if there’s a way you can activate (or build) their prior knowledge base of the topic (you might be surprised and find out that it’s actually a topic they were never exposed to before), encourage them to look for deeper patterns and principles and apply them to new situations, and lastly make it clear that you’re not just expecting “right answers,” but are open to wonder and speculation. You might just find that these missing key ingredients were all that was holding your students back from thinking critically after all.

 

References

Mendler, A. (2013, November 5). Teaching Your Students How to Have a Conversation. [Web log post]. Retrieved April 3, 2-18 from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-your-students-conversation-allen-mendler

[NewDemocracy Foundation]. (2016, October 25). Critical Thinking. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/uMFgrHXetSM

Willingham, D. (Summer 2007). Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?, American Educator. (2007, Summer). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/critical-thinking-why-it-so-hard-teach

Comments

  1. KadyApril 11, 2021 at 10:40 AM

    Thank you for this thoughtful blog. I have been working on critical thinking skills with my freshmen, and what you said inspired me not to give up when students don't seem to "get it." I have also been teaching study skills that enhance critical thinking. We most recently covered elaborative interrogation and self-explanation. Both are a great way to use critical thinking skills. I wish you the best as you work with young people to turn them into thinkers rather than reflectors of other people's thoughts.

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