DHC Faculty Handbook :: Critical Thinking

CRITICAL THINKING - What is Critical Thinking?

The exact definition of critical thinking has been up for debate for many years. However, in 1990, the Delphi Report, a research study on critical thinking, was published to clarify the definition of critical thinking. A consensus definition was developed from the 46 critical thinking experts consulted for the research study.

The Delphi Report definition: Critical thinking is the level a student is able to interpret, analyze, evaluate, explain, and infer concepts and ideas.

Helping Students Evaluate Their Thinking

There are two essential dimensions of thinking that students need to master in order to learn how to upgrade their thinking. They need to be able to identify the "parts" of their thinking, and they need to be able to assess their use of these parts of thinking , as follows:

The question can then be raised, "What appropriate intellectual standards do students need to assess the "parts" of their thinking?" There are standards appropriate to the assessment of thinking that are virtually universal: clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logic.

How well a student is reasoning depends on how well he/she applies these universal standards to the elements (or parts) of thinking.

What follows are some guidelines helpful to students as they work toward developing their reasoning abilities:

1. All reasoning has a PURPOSE.: Take time to state your purpose clearly.; Distinguish your purpose from related purposes.; Check periodically to be sure you are still on target.; Choose significant and realistic purposes.
2. All reasoning is an attempt to FIGURE SOMETHING OUT, TO SETTLE SOME QUESTION, TO SOLVE SOME PROBLEM.: Take time to clearly and precisely state the question at issue.; Express the question in several ways to clarify its meaning and scope.; Break the question into sub questions.; Identify if the question has one right answer, is a matter of opinion, or requires reasoning from more than one point of view.
3. All reasoning is based on ASSUMPTIONS.: Clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable.; Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view.
4. All reasoning is done from some POINT OF VIEW.: Identify your point of view.; Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses.; Strive to be fair-minded in evaluating all points of view.
5. All reasoning is based on DATA, INFORMATION and EVIDENCE.: Restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have.; Search for information that opposes your position as well as information that supports it.; Make sure that all information used is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at issue.; Make sure you have gathered sufficient information.
6. All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, CONCEPTS and IDEAS.: Identify key concepts and explain them clearly.; Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions to concepts.; Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision.
7. All reasoning contains INFERENCES or INTERPRETATIONS by which we draw CONCLUSIONS and give meaning to data.: Infer only what the evidence implies.; Check inferences for their consistency with each other.; Identify assumptions which lead you to your inferences.
8. All reasoning leads somewhere or has IMPLICATIONS and CONSEQUENCES.: Trace the implications and consequences that follow from your reasoning.; Search for negative as well as positive implications.; Consider all possible consequences.

Reference:

Critical Thinking Center Sonoma State University- http://www.sonoma.edu/cthink/K12/k12library/library.nclk

Designing Assignments that Require Students to Think Critically

Assignments that require students to think critically will ask students to exercise one or more higher level thinking skills. These skills involve:

evaluating
classifying
interpreting
grasping principles
noting relationships among other relationships
hypothesizing
offering opinions with reasons
making judgments with criteria

A more detailed taxonomy of thinking skills was developed by Benjamin Bloom, can also be a helpful reference as you design assignments that seek to develop specific thinking skills.

John C. Bean from Seattle University (1996) provides the following list of critical thinking activities in his book Engaging Ideas:

Have students link concepts from your course to personal experiences or real world examples.
Provide opportunities for students to teach concepts from your course to beginners or have them write detailed explanations of difficult material to a novice, or their grandmother etc.
Draw upon controversial material in your area of expertise for students to discuss or debate.
Design complex problems, puzzles or questions for students to answer or discuss in small groups.
Provide students with raw data, then ask them to develop a hypothesis, argument or analysis based on the data.
Have students role-play unfamiliar points of view, in "what-if " situations.
Have students develop case studies. Emphasize that the case study should revolve around a conflict to be solved or a decision to be made.

Additional Information Available on the Web:

Critical Thinking and Epistemology- Two short articles on how a students view of knowledge can effect their ability to think critically. For more background on their decision making model click here.
Performance Assessments of Critical Thinking: The Reflective Judgment Approach - This is an article with several good definitions of critical thinking and rubrics for scoring students responses to ill-structured problems.
Critical Thinking Resources from Longview Community College- This site has many excellent resources, but mainly is focused on describing how to build an effective argument and Socratic Reasoning.
Critical Thinking Center at Sonoma State University Home Page -They offer information on events, resources and references. The Center is mainly focused on Socratic Reasoning.
Critical Thinking Questions You Can Ask About Anything By John Stenzel, UC Davis, Campus Writing Center.
The MiningCo.com has put together section on Critical Thinking Skills which gives a general description of Critical Thinking in handout form. There is also a page called General Information which list links to several useful sites.There is also a page called Lesson Planning which has links to Web Sites with ideas for incorporating Critical Thinking into your lessons. Of particular interest is the Critical Thinking Discussion link which provides an excellent model for designing questions that encourage students to analyze and interpret data. Designing your own lesson based on this model may be a useful tool to teach students how to analyze and interpret the information they find as groups research their topics.

References:

Bean, J.C. Engaging Ideas: The Professors's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1996.