In college, we expect students to utilize their critical thinking skills to begin to develop their own ideas and beliefs related to teaching and learning. In this post, I am going to examine how we can encourage our students to improve their critical thinking skills, become reflective thinkers, and how both will impact their learning.
Before I begin, let’s consider why critical thinking skills are important….
In high school, students may have focused on the memorization of facts, vocabulary, and ideas. These things helped them create a foundation of baseline knowledge upon which they will begin to develop their expertise. Now that they are in college, we want them to begin to think about how they can develop their expertise in meaningful ways. The first step is to help them become critical thinkers. When I talk about critical thinking, I don’t mean teaching them to criticize everything they read, but rather to contemplate what they are learning and to think about how what they are learning connects to what they already know.
Now that we have explored the basics of critical thinking, let’s examine how we can apply these concepts to deepen student learning.
Dr. McGuire provides a great framework for higher-order thinking. Bloom’s Cue Questions (linked below) will help students begin to move away from simply remembering information to using that information in meaningful ways as they become a higher-order thinkers. It’s important to note that one cannot get to the analyzing stage without first remembering and understanding information. Critical thinking skills exist on a continuum – one must first have a foundation of basic knowledge from which to build and grow. The key is that we cannot be content to just memorize facts when we are working towards expertise.
Now that we’ve spent some time thinking about our student’s critical thinking skills, let’s consider how the development of these skills is crucial to deep learning with them. This last video examines critical thinking in the classroom.
Something to think about….
Take a moment to jot down your thoughts related to the following prompts.
- After watching these videos, what might you do differently in your classes to deepen your learning?
- What surprised you or struck you as interesting as you watched?