Teaching Critical Thinking Skills

[Music] [Applause] English for academic purposes students have quite a challenge ahead of them not only do they need to learn the English language to quite a high level of language proficiency including complex vocabulary and complex grammar they also need to learn different ways of thinking that will enable them to be successful in a higher education setting in an english-speaking context in this session we're going to look at one of these ways of thinking that we need to teach our English for academic purposes students and that is critical thinking will define the concept we'll also explore some of the cultural assumptions behind the concept and then we'll take a look at different ways to teach our students critical thinking so that they can be successful with their higher education studies in English we'll start by defining critical thinking because there are different ways to actually define the concept then we'll take a look at the cultural assumptions that lie behind the value that we place on critical thinking in english-speaking cultures then we'll start to pull critical thinking apart using different frameworks so these frameworks include Bloom's taxonomy different structures of arguments different types of reasoning and different sub skills that go along with critical thinking then we'll also take a look at the language of the English language that goes with critical thinking finally we'll take a look at activities to use with your students to ensure that they've learned critical thinking skills and we'll wrap up just with a really quick look at additional resources that you can use to expand your knowledge of critical thinking [Music] critical thinking is one of those concepts that's really challenging to define there is no single definition of critical thinking out there that captures all of the intricacies that go with the concept so we're going to take a look at a variety of definitions and pull out key points from each definition here's the first definition critical thinking is disciplined thinking that is clear rational open minded and informed by evidence this definition is just a standard dictionary definition there are two key points to pull out from this first definition of critical thinking the first is that critical thinking is rational so it is logical and it's very objective the second key point is that critical thinking is evidence-based so we don't come up with our conclusions and critical thinking using our imagination or any other type of creativity it is very very evidence based based on what's happening and what we see in the real world here's another definition that comes to us from John Dewey way back in 1909 critical thinking is active persistent and careful consideration of a belief or suppose a form of knowledge in the light of the grounds which support it and the further conclusions to which it tends a key point to pull out from the second definition of critical thinking is that it's active where it's an active process as opposed to being a passive process so when we think critically we are actively engaging our brains to process the information and decide if we're going to believe this information or not here's a definition that comes from a current and core textbook on critical thinking critical thinking is the systematic evaluation or formulation of beliefs or statements by rational standards in the third definition of critical thinking we're going to focus on the point that critical thinking is system Matt so when we're thinking critically we're following very clear steps or a very clear process and we'll look at what some of these processes are further into this session back in 1941 Edward Glasser came up with this definition critical thinking is one an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come with the range of one's experience to knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning and three some skill and applying those methods from the fourth definition we're going to focus on the fact that critical thinking has three layers to it so it has an attitudinal layer so you have to be open-minded and willing to think critically then it has a knowledge layer so you have to understand the concepts of critical thinking in order to be able to do it and then finally it has a skill there so not only do you need to know about critical thinking you actually have to be able to use it more current definition from 1989 yes critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do in the fifth definition we're going to focus on the word reflective critical thinking is a reflective process in that it first of all is internal and secondly it's a process that we engage upon in which we go back and rethink what we previously thought so it's very much this intellectual reflective process and finally a definition from 1993 critical thinking is that mode of thinking about any subject content or problem 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 in the final definition a key idea is that as human beings we can take charge of our own thinking through critical thinking so with critical thinking no one's telling us what to think we're figuring it out for ourselves using this systematic process if we pull all of these ideas together we get the bubble diagram that we've given you an activity one so critical thinking is active it's systematic it's rational its evaluative it's evidence-based you know that it's a system over which we have personal control it's reflective and it has those three layers of attitude knowledge and skills critical thinking really pinpoints a key cultural difference and that is a difference in belief about how we learn as human beings if we were to put these differences on a continuum with two opposite ideas at each end of the continuum on one side we would have the belief that human beings learn by passive transmission of knowledge so as an expert I have knowledge and then I give it to you as a non expert and you take that knowledge and now you've learned on the other end of the continuum is the belief that human beings actively and individually construct their own knowledge based on both knowledge people give them but also on their own personal experiences and they construct this knowledge critically this is called constructivism and this is a key belief in english-speaking cultures and it's particularly evident at the higher education sector in cultures in which there's the belief that learning takes place through the passive transmission of knowledge the education system is fact-based and non critical and students take part in activities such as rote memorization description and narration so there's no critical component going on in these education systems at the other end of the continuum in education systems based on constructivism the instructional process is very critical almost the point of being adversarial so there's this back and forth discussion between the teachers and the students about the knowledge that's being considered so instructional activities here include problem-solving critical thinking discovery and any type of discussion or debate that puts the knowledge under the microscope and evaluates it for our English for academic purposes students who come from a culture where the education system is based on this idea of passive transmission of knowledge making the leap to constructivism and more specifically critical thinking is really really challenging we can't just tell our students okay think critically about this article what we have to do first of all is explicitly explain the concept then we have to break it down and we have to give them activities so they can approach critical thinking incrementally so that's one of the things we'll look at in this session how do we bridge that cultural gap for our students a useful framework for making constructivism and critical thinking explicit for a EAP students is Bloom's taxonomy Bloom's taxonomy takes the learning process and divides it into six levels and as you go down each level the thinking required becomes more and more complex students who come from a culture based on passive transmission of knowledge will be comfortable at the first two levels of Bloom's taxonomy but they'll be very uncomfortable and unskilled at the subsequent levels where the thinking becomes more critical and more evaluative let's take a look at each level of Bloom's taxonomy in a bit more detail so I'll give you the level a brief description of the level and then example tasks that we might give students so that they can think at this level of the taxonomy the first level is knowledge at this level students recall data or information so tasks that we may give students at this level include define label recall list identify describe and state the second level is comprehension at this level students understand the meaning and interpretation of instructions and problems they're able to state a problem in their own words to demonstrate that they've understood task types that we can give students at this level include interpret paraphrase modify and explain the third level and this is where we're getting into territory that might be new for some of our EAP students his application at this level students use a concept in a new situation they apply what was learned in the classroom to these new situations tasks that we might give students at this level include compute apply demonstrate and generate the next level is analysis at this level students separate concepts into their component parts so that they can understand the organizational structure task types at this level include analyze categorize relate and differentiate the fifth level is synthesis at this level students build a structure or pattern from different pieces of more elements so they put parts together to form a whole with an emphasis on creating a new meaning or a new structure from those parts tasks that we can give students at this level include create combine reconstruct summarize revise modify and design the sixth and final level of Bloom's taxonomy is evaluation at this level students make judgments about the value of ideas or situations so tasks that we can give them here include compare evaluate critique support conclude justifying the discriminate contrast and defend one of the things we can do to help our students complete critical thinking tasks is to make them aware of the level at which this particular task falls in terms of Bloom's taxonomy so for example if I have them design something then I point out or I get them to point out that this falls at the synthesis level if I'm asking them to critique something we talked about the fact that this is that the evaluation or the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy so just make it really obvious for your students the level of thinking in which they need to operate to complete a task with Bloom's taxonomy we can make our ap students aware that different tasks require different levels of thinking and in order to think of these different levels so the different levels of the taxonomy students need to draw upon different types of thinking skills they may not have those thinking skills so they have to develop them [Music] another way to help our students simply understand the idea of critical thinking and the skills involved in critical thinking is to walk them through different structures of arguments so they may not be familiar first of all with how we structure a general argument and secondly with how we structure different types of arguments so we make this explicit and obvious to our students an easy way to make argument structure obvious for our EAP students is to diagram them so we can make diagrams of the argument structure that start with the statement or the position that we're making and then the diagram shows how the different supporting points in turn make that argument rational and valid let's take a look at some of the simpler argument structures that we can put into diagrams the simplest argument structure that we can diagram for students is one with a single statement or position and then multiple equally important supporting points the next argument structure has a statement or position which is first supported by a general point and then subsequent points become more and more specific and the final point is the most specific point of all or the most detailed point of all the next argument structure has a statement or position and it's supported by points of decreasing levels of importance so the first point is the most important the next point is less important and the very last point is the least important the next argument structure introduces both supporting points for the statement and opposing points so the structure starts with the statement or position once again followed by the points that support that position this is then followed by points that oppose the position and rebuttals of those opposing points and it concludes with a restatement of the supporting points the next argument structure has a statement or position supported by two main points and then those main points are in turn supported by smaller points so we start to get a hierarchy or a pyramid structure going this is just a sample of the argument structures that we want to teach our IEP students for more complex argument structures to teach higher-level EAP students take a look at some of the resources provided at the end of your handout these resources take you through these more complicated argument structures and they also have good diagrams of the structures there are now software tools available to help students and you as the teacher in fact diagram out the structures of arguments these tools allow you to create really good visual representations of the arguments you're making so that then you can verify the structure and the argument take a look at your handout for two samples of this type of software [Music] another approach we can take when we're trying to make critical thinking explicit and obvious for a EAP students is to take them through different types of reasoning so not argument structure but reasoning or thinking the two main types of reasoning that students need to know are deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning deductive reasoning is also known as top-down reasoning in deductive reasoning we start with general statements that are true and from those general statements we then conclude that a more specific statement is also true as long as those general statements are actually true and our reasoning is logical then we're very confident that our concluding statement our very specific statement is true also here's a very simple example of deductive reasoning so my first general statement is that human beings have a heart my second general statement is that you are a human being my specific statement therefore is that you have a heart inductive reasoning is also known as bottom-up reasoning with inductive reasoning we start with specific examples and then we draw a general conclusion that conclusion is probably true but it may also not be true with inductive reasoning we can't always say with 100% certainty that our conclusion is true we can simply say it is either strong or weak depending upon the probability of that truthfulness here's a very simple example of inductive reasoning my first specific example is John is a basketball player and he is very tall my second specific example is Mark is a basketball player and he is also very tall my general conclusion then is that basketball players are very tall this is a fairly strong inductive reasoning argument but it's not 100% true all the time we can further break both deductive and inductive reasoning into subcategories so there are more detailed types of deductive and inductive reasoning these types are beyond the scope of this session if you want to dig more deeply into deductive and inductive reasoning take a look at the additional resources we've given at the end of the session we don't just have to teach our students types of effective reasoning so deductive and inductive reasoning we also have to teach them flawed reasoning which obviously we want to avoid here are some examples of flawed reasoning that we might want to teach our EAP students a contradiction is reasoning in which two opposite points are claimed to be true but it is not logical for these two points to actually be true at the same time a circular argument is flawed reasoning in which the conclusion is also one of the supporting points so in other words in a circular argument a conclusion is used to support itself a false analogy is flawed reasoning in which an analogy is used that is illogical an analogy is when two objects are considered to be similar and they share similar properties so they're used to support an argument because of the similarities of these properties a false analogy is when two objects appear to be similar but they're actually different with respect to the particular property being used in the reasoning an illogical conclusion is false reasoning that is simply not logical if I try to make my conclusion based on the point that two plus two equals five I have an illogical conclusion because mathematically we know two plus two equals four when we're working with our students on their critical thinking we need to give them practice in both deductive and inductive reasoning we also need to give them practice that identifying flawed reasoning so with this four students will always know what type of reasoning they're using and they'll know if their reasoning is effective or not a final framework to use with our students to help them develop their critical thinking is to take the overall skill of critical thinking and divide it into sub skills so we're breaking the skills down into manageable chunks and our students can learn each of the sub skills and then put them together to have good overall critical thinking these sub skills can first be divided into sub skills for listening and reading and then sub skills for speaking and writing the receptive critical thinking sub skills so the skills for when students are listening and reading are as follows identify the author's position evaluation or judgment identified the supporting details or reasons for that position identify the structure of the argument the author is making identify the type of reasoning the author is using identify the types of supporting details so are they direct support opposing arguments rebuttal of opposing arguments distinguish fact and opinion distinguish qualitative and quantitative supporting details identify implied versus explicitly stated points identify and evaluate hidden assumptions premises biases and appeals to emotion evaluate the author's argument as true or false or strong or weak identify the flaws in the author's argument including contradictions circular arguments false analogies and illogical conclusions here are the productive critical thinking sub skills that our students need so these are the skills for speaking and writing clearly state the position evaluation or judgment support a position evaluation or judgment with details examples for research have a clear argument structure have an evident type of reasoning have clear types of supporting details so direct support opposing arguments rebuttal of opposing arguments have both qualitative and quantitative details if applicable avoid assumptions premises biases and appeals to emotion avoid flawed reasoning such as contradictions circular arguments false analogies and illogical conclusions connect ideas so that the argument flows smoothly [Music] a final piece that we need to give our students not so they can think critically but so that they can communicate their critical thinking use the language that goes with critical thinking we call this language indicators indicators are words or phrases that tell the listener or reader what they're about to listen to or read we can divide these indicators for critical thinking into three main categories we have the indicators for the statement or position we have the indicators for the supporting points and we have the indicators for the conclusions Stevan or position indicators include my position is my point is I believe that it is my belief that I contend that I put forward that and it is thought that this list isn't it by no means complete but it's a good starting point reason or supporting point the indicators include because since for first second third then next finally or the phrase my first point is my second point is and my third point is examples of conclusion indicators are therefore so hence thus consequently which proves that which demonstrates that we can conclude that the conclusion is from which we can conclude it follows that or such-and-such demonstrates that when we teach critical thinking to our students it's important that we give them this language for critical thinking so these indicators so that they can effectively communicate both their critical thinking and their reasoning to their listeners and their readers [Music] now that we've looked at different frameworks with which to make critical thinking explicit to our students it's time to take a look at how we actually teach critical thinking there are four key things to keep in mind overall when you're teaching critical thinking to your students first critical thinking should be taught at all language proficiency levels don't just teach it at the advanced levels at the lower language proficiency levels your vocabulary and your concepts and your grammatical structures are simpler and you're just going to teach the very basic critical thinking skills how and then as students get better and get more advanced you're going to increase the complexity of the concepts increase the complexity the vocabulary and the grammar and also increase the critical thinking demands that you place on them but regardless of language proficiency level students need to be introduced to critical thinking skills and they need the opportunities to practice those skills second critical thinking should be taught incrementally so you're going to just gradually expand the skill set that students have with the overall skill of critical thinking so introduce some of the sub skills and then add more sub skills and more substance introduced one type of reasoning the next type of reasoning and so on so approach it incrementally third give students a lot and I do mean a lot of opportunity to practice critical thinking don't just explain it or give them the frameworks make sure they have the opportunity to put these skills and put these frameworks into practice the more they practice the better they'll be and finally use concrete examples and diagrams and illustrations wherever possible the more support you can give students as they try to master critical thinking the better let's take a look at specific activities that we can use to teach our students critical thinking skills we'll start with activities for the receptive skills so listening and reading and then we'll look at activities for the productive skills speaking and writing give students a series of statements students have to work either end or in pairs to determine which statements are positions so which are your arguments and then which statements are supporting points or supporting details give students a series of statements once again this time however their distinguishing between statements that are fact and statements that are opinion give students the series of statements that are supporting details for an argument and tell them what the argument or position is first students then have to determine which of the statements are direct supporting points which are actually opposing arguments in which are rebuttals of the opposing arguments students read a short text and identify what the author's voice viewpoint and biases are so they're trying to determine the author's perspective in this text give students a short text that contains a clear argument how students work individually or in pairs to create a diagram similar to the ones presented earlier that illustrates the argument and the structure of the argument give students a series of short texts each of which contains a single argument have students read each text and determine whether the reasoning in each of the arguments is deductive or inductive how students quickly scan a longer academic argument and they are scanning to identify which supporting details are qualitative and which supporting details are quantitative how students read a series of short texts and have them identify any flawed reasoning within the short texts how students read an academic article and it can either be long or short depending on the language proficiency level of the students as they read have them identify the supporting points and the types of reasoning and have them apply more than one of the sub skills to critical thinking that we've presented at the end of reading students need to decide whether this is a good argument or a not-so-good argument and why now take a look at productive critical thinking activities that we can do with our students so these are activities for speaking and writing put a series of simple position or argument statements on the board and they can be about any topic students work individually to write two or three supporting details to support those argument or position statements how students write three sentences that demonstrate deductive reasoning on a topic that you give them and keep the topic simple and then have students write three sentences that demonstrate the inductive reasoning on the same topic or a different topic have students write six sentences three of which are facts and three of which are opinions you can either leave the topic up to them or you can provide the topic in advance students work with a reading text that has flawed reasoning in it and then they work to correct that flawed reasoning and they rewrite the text with the corrected reasoning hint give students an argument structure and a topic have them first of all create an argument diagram for that topic with their position statement and their supporting details then have them pull all of that together into a simple paragraph that argues their position how students create an argument structure diagram on a topic you provide and this time they're going to create a debate and actually enact the debate based once again on the argument structure diagram that they've created finally you can have students complete lengthier works either in speaking or writing that pull together multiple frameworks or multiple sub skills that we've looked at for example for a lower level students you can have them write a single paragraph that makes a particular argument and uses a particular structure for intermediate students you can have them write for example a three paragraph essay and for higher level students you can have them writing multi-page essay similarly you can have students do short presentations that demonstrate their position and their argumentation on different topics there are a lot of activities that you can use with your students both for receptive skills and productive skills to help them both learn critical thinking and apply critical thinking to their academic work we've only really touched the surface of the concept of critical thinking and how to teach critical thinking to our students if you want to dig more deeply into critical thinking take a look at the additional resources we've provided under activity 9 in your handout critical thinking is an essential skill for English for academic purposes students in english-speaking settings for higher education they simply will not be successful if they don't have these critical thinking skills and this is true regardless of the field of study that the students are going into work with your students on these critical thinking skills using the frameworks and the activities we've presented you'll find it very rewarding as you see the progress that your students make in the development of their critical thinking skills [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Advance Consulting for Education

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Keywords: Advance Consulting for Education, ACE, Teaching English, English as a Second Language, Teaching ESL, ESL, EFL, TEFL, TESL, TESOL, Teaching Tips, Teaching Techniques, Teaching Strategies, Teacher Professional Development, Teacher PD, Professional Development, The PD Exchange, The Professional Development Exchange, www.thepdexchange.ca, critical thinking skills, teaching critical thinking skills, www.aceducation.ca, Dianne Tyers

Id: 9bu9SPbZanw

Length: 35min 8sec (2108 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 25 2018