Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field that researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind, considering findings that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application, thereby creating advantage to learners benefit.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. Willing to Change? .............
Critical thinking skills enable us to think clearly and independently. They help us assess different sources of information and give our own logical answers.
Guide Students to Think Critically
Our goals for student critical thinking must be domain-specific. Working with the amalgamation of skills of Problem-solving and developing strategies with enhanced memory will create the holistic impact on the learner.
First, the recognition process involves identifying the sort of problem, can still apply to subparts of a complex, open-ended problem.
Second, acquired knowledge impacts working memory. where we hold information and manipulate it to carry out cognitive tasks.
Third, to carry out the cognitive tasks we need to deploy thinking strategies.
How to relate it with student learning experience.
Step by Step process to administer critical thinking.
Step:1
First, identify what’s meant by critical thinking in each domain. Be specific by focusing on tasks that tap skills, not skills themselves. What tasks showing critical thinking should a high school graduate be able to do in mathematics, history, and other subjects?
For example,
Educators might decide that an important aspect of understanding history is the ability to source historical documents; that is, to interpret them in light of their source—who wrote it, for what purpose, and for what intended audience.
Educators might decide that a key critical thinking skill for science is understanding the relationship between a theory and a hypothesis. These skills should be explicitly taught and practiced—there is evidence that simple exposure to this sort of work without explicit instruction is less effective.
Step:2
Second, identify the domain content that students must know. We’ve seen that domain knowledge is a crucial driver of thinking skill. What knowledge is essential to the type of thinking you want your students to be able to do? The prospect of someone deciding which knowledge students ought to learn—and what they won’t learn—sometimes makes people uneasy because this decision depends on one’s goals for schooling, and goals depend on values. Selection of content is a critical way that values are expressed. Making that choice will lead to uncomfortable tradeoffs. But not choosing is still making a choice.
Step:3
Third, educators must select the best sequence for students to learn the skills. It’s obvious that skills and knowledge build on one another and we interpret new information in light of what we already know.
Fourth, educators must decide which skills should be revisited across years. Studies show that even if content is learned quite well over the course of half of a school year, about half will be forgotten. But when considering skills we hope will stick with students for the long term, we should plan on at least three to five years of practice.
Factors that will help the process outcome.
Student age:
When should critical thinking instruction start?
Researchers interested in thinking skills like problem solving or evidence evaluation in young children (preschool through early elementary ages) have studied how children think in the absence of explicit instruction.
The great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget proposed a highly influential theory that suggested children’s cognition moves through a series of four stages, characterized by more and more abstract thought, and better ability to take multiple perspectives. Research tells us that including critical thinking in the schooling of young children is likely to be perfectly appropriate.
Types of students:
Should everyone learn critical thinking skills?
The question sounds like a setup, like an excuse for a resounding endorsement of critical thinking for all. But the truth is that, in many systems, less capable students are steered into less challenging coursework, with the hope that by reducing expectations, they will at least achieve “mastery of the basics.” These lower expectations often pervade entire schools that serve students from low-income families.
It is worth highlighting that access to challenging content and continuing to postsecondary education is, in nearly every country, associated with socioeconomic status.
Children from high socioeconomic status families also have more opportunities to learn at home. If school is the chief or only venue through which low socioeconomic status students are exposed to advanced vocabulary, rich content knowledge, and demands for high-level thinking, it is absolutely vital that those opportunities be enhanced, not reduced.
Assessment:
Assessment of critical thinking is, needless to say, a challenge.
On the bright side, the plan for teaching critical thinking that some aspects of assessment are more straightforward. The predictability ought to make teachers more confident that they can prepare their students for standardized assessments.
As much as teaching students to think critically is a universal goal of schooling, one might be surprised that student difficulty in this area is such a common complaint.
Educators are often frustrated that student thinking seems shallow. That means that designers and administrators of a program to improve critical thinking among students must take the long view, both in the time frame over which the program operates and especially in the speed with which one expects to see results.
Individuals vary in their views of what students should be taught, but there is little disagreement on the importance of critical thinking skills. In free societies, the ability to think critically is viewed as a cornerstone of individual civic engagement and economic success.
Patience will be a key ingredient in any program that succeeds.
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