Tag: critical thinking

Imagine the following scenario:

A school principal gathers wise cognitive scientists to ask a straightforward question…

“Because critical thinking is an essential 21^st century skill, we know our students need to develop critical thinking skills. If we want to create a school program or a class or a curriculum to foster critical thinking, what guidance can you give us?”

Happily, we don’t have to imagine. At last week’s Learning and the Brain conference in New York, I asked a distinguished group of cognitive psychologists* exactly that question.

The resulting conversation offered practical suggestions, provocative assertions, and a surprising amount of humor.

I’ll try to summarize that half-hour conversation here.

On the One Hand…

Let’s start at one end of the spectrum, with the most optimistic ways to answer the question:

First: we know what critical thinking is.

Dr. Laura Portnoy, for instance, considers critical thinking the ability to support claims with evidence and reason.

If I claim that “the earth orbits the sun,” I should be able to cite evidence supporting that claim. And I should be able to explain the logical process I use to make conclusions based on that evidence.

Dr. Ben Motz agrees with that foundation, and adds an important step: critical thinkers recognize and avoid logical fallacies.

A comprehensive list of logical fallacies goes on for pages, but critical thinkers typically question their own beliefs aggressively enough to avoid the most common mistakes.

Second: we know how to foster critical thinking.

The specifics of an answer probably vary by age and discipline. However, we’ve got specific curricular strategies to help us foster critical thinking among students.

Dr. Laura Cabrera, with this truth in mind, offers a specific bit of advice: start early.

If we want students to grow as critical thinkers, we shouldn’t wait until their sophomore year in high school. Kindergarten would be a fine place to start.

On the Other Hand…

All these optimistic answers, however, quickly give way to grittier – perhaps more realistic – assessments of the situation.

First: because critical thinking is so complicated, no precise definition holds true in a broadly useful way. In other words – politely speaking – we can’t exactly define it.

In cognitive psychology terminology, as Dr. Derek Cabrera put it, “critical thinking has a construct validity problem.” In fact, the five psychologists on the panel – professors all – don’t agree on a definition.

Second: This definition problem has terrible implications.

If we can’t define critical thinking, broadly speaking, then we can’t determine a consistent way to measure it.

And if we can’t measure it, we have no (scientific) way of knowing if our “critical thinking program” helps students think critically.

Third: In fact, if we can’t measure students’ critical thinking skills right now, we might not realize that they’re already good at it.

Dr. Dan Willingham – author of the well-known Why Don’t Students Like School – made this point at the beginning of our conversation.

“Why,” he asked, “do you think your students have a critical thinking problem? What measurement are you using? What do you want them to do that they can’t do?”

In other words: it’s not obvious we should start a critical thinking program. Because we can’t measure students’ abilities, we just don’t know.

Dr. Derek Cabrera made this point quite starkly: “My advice about starting a critical thinking program is: don’t.”

Don’t Start Now

Even if we could measure critical thinking, as it first seemed we could, teachers might not want to give it disproportional attention.

Fourth: some panelists doubt that critical thinking is any more important than many (many) other kinds of thinking – creative thinking, interdisciplinary thinking, systems thinking, fuzzy logic…the list goes on.

Dr. Portnoy, for instance, champions good old-fashioned curiosity. If students ask the right questions (critical or otherwise), they’re doing good thinking and learning.

Why, then, would it be bad if they aren’t doing critical thinking, narrowly defined?

The Cabreras, indeed, argue that students trained to think critically often get too critical. They stamp out potentially good ideas (that spring from imaginative thinking) with all their skills at critical thinking.

Fifth: opportunity cost.

Schools already have far too much to do well, as Dr. Willingham frankly pointed out.

If we plan to add something (a critical thinking program/curriculum), we should know what we plan to take out.

And, we should have a high degree of confidence that the new program will actually succeed in its mission.

If we remove a program that does accomplish one goal and replace it with one that doesn’t, our efforts to improve schools will – paradoxically – have deprived students of useful learning.

Making Sense of the Muddle

All these points might seem like bad news: we (perhaps) don’t know what critical thinking is, and (perhaps) shouldn’t teach it even if we did. Or could.

That summary, I think, overlooks some important opportunities that these panelists highlighted.

Dr. Motz offers specific ways to define critical thinking. His talk at the conference, in fact, focused on successful strategies to teach it.

Even better: he wants teachers to join in this work and try it out with their own students.

The question we face, after all, is not exactly “can I teach critical thinking — generally) — to everyone?”

It is, instead: “can I teach critical thinking — defined and measured this way — to my students?”

If the answer to that question is “yes,” then perhaps I should make room for critical thinking in my students’ busy days.

Made wiser by these panelists’ advice, I know better how to define terms, to measure outcomes, to balance several thinking skills (including curiosity!).

When researchers’ perspectives on critical thinking helps us think critically about our teaching goals, we and our students benefit.

---

* The panelists: Dr. Derek Cabrera, Dr. Laura Cabrera, Dr. Benjamin Motz, Dr. Lindsay Portnoy, Dr. Dan Willingham.

Over at The Learning Scientists, Althea Need Kaminske asks if we can teach critical thinking.

Reasonably enough, she argues that it depends on our definition of “critical thinking.”

Let’s consider two different kinds:

Type I Critical Thinking: Within Disciplines

Type II Critical Thinking: Across Disciplines

Kaminske’s answer goes like this:

Teaching critical thinking within disciplines (type I) is hard, but can be done.

Teaching critical thinking across disciplines (type II) is really hard, and can sort of be done.

Type I: Critical Thinking Within Disciplines

When we learn a lot about any particular subject, our increased knowledge of that subject allows us to think critically about it. Especially if we practice thinking critically.

So, for example, I’ve spent most of my life acting in, directing, and studying plays. I can (and do) think critically about the theater quite often.

I can tell you why the set worked, but the costumes didn’t. I can explain why this actor’s performance suited the first act of the play but not the second. I can opine that the director’s background (she does musicals more often than plays) has shaped her interpretation of this distinctly un-musical script.

Important warning:

This expertise takes quite a long time and explicit practice to develop. In a famous foundational study from 1981, Chi et al. found that graduate students (!) in physics thought more like undergrads than like professors.

That is: after years of high-level physics study, they still weren’t proficient at seeing below the surface features of a problem to its deep structures. They hadn’t yet mastered critical thinking in their discipline.

They still needed more practice.

Type II: Critical Thinking Across Disciplines

Important warning #2: the critical thinking skills I developed in the theater almost certainly don’t apply in other disciplines.

My theater skill/knowledge certainly won’t help me categorize physics problems.

They won’t help me — in Kaminske’s example — draw expert judgments about different types and qualities of beer. (I’d need LOTS MORE beer expertise to do so. Care to join me?)

Here’s a test you might try: watch 10 minutes of a rugby match. If you — like me — don’t know nothin’ about rugby, you’re unlikely to have much insight into the game you saw.

Why? Because we need LOTS of specific knowledge about and experience in rugby to have critical rugby insights. Our ability to think critically about lesson plans doesn’t help here.

For instance, Kaminske teaches a course on Statistics and Research Methods. For the course, her students have to do a literature review, and write it up as a persuasive essay. All of her students have taken a college course on persuasive writing:

This writing course focuses on writing essays and constructing persuasive arguments. I know that my students know how to do this. I also know that they have no idea how to transfer those skills to my class.

That is: demonstrated critical thinking in one kind of analytical college writing doesn’t transfer to another discipline. She has to teach them explicitly how to do so.

To be clear: Kaminske holds out some hope about about cross-disciplinary critical thinking. Quoting research by van Gelder, she argues that some strategies — such as visualization — promote critical thinking skills in many disciplines.

And yet, that hope is tempered with caution. As a cognitive psychologist with an interest in science fiction movies, she has critical insights into the Matrix, and similar shows.

However, my ability to think critically about cognitive psychology in these movies/shows does not necessarily mean I can think critically about the cinematography or directing. …

Or that I can think critically about any number of things outside of my very specific areas of training and experiences. My critical thinking is very good in a specific domains and less good outside of that domain.

Classroom Implications

Teachers have a finite number of hours that we can spend helping our students think. We should choose the most effective strategies to get that job done.

When we want students to think critically, we can help them do so in two ways.

First: we can teach them more information and skills within a particular topic.

If I want my students to think critically about poetry, they should read a lot of poems, and learn a lot about authors and genres and analytical strategies.

Second: we can give them many opportunities to engage in critical work.

The more time they spend comparing poems, or figures of speech, or genres of love poetry, the more skilled they will become at the critical thinking necessary to do so.

We might wish that cross-disciplinary critical thinking strategies (our type II) existed. Perhaps some — like visualization — do help.

Given what we know about type II critical thinking, however, our most effective strategy will be to focus on type I.

---

A Final, Sheepish Confession

Honestly, I wish this conclusion weren’t true. I wish we could teach a general critical thinking skill that would apply to all realms of cognitive activity.

I really like how that sounds.

But, scholars starting with Daniel Willingham (back in Why Don’t Students Like School?) have shown that we need lots o’ disciplinary knowledge, and lots o’ specific practice.

I think I serve my students — and my readers — best by acknowledging that frank truth.