{"id":1970,"date":"2017-05-05T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=1970"},"modified":"2017-12-26T21:54:49","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T21:54:49","slug":"thinking-critically-about-teaching-critical-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/thinking-critically-about-teaching-critical-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking Critically about Teaching Critical Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AdobeStock_69438555_Credit\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A friend recently referred me to this<\/a> online article (at bigthink.com) about this<\/a> research study: the eye-catching phrase in both headlines being \u201cTeaching Critical Thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The online article is even more emphatic: \u201cStudy: There Are Instructions for Teaching Critical Thinking.\u201d)<\/p>\n

This headline sounds like great news. We can do it! Just follow the instructions!<\/p>\n

We should, of course, be delighted to learn that we can teach critical thinking. So often, especially in upper grades, schools emphasize teaching \u201cnot what<\/em> to think, but how<\/em> to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every time we say that, we are\u2014in effect\u2014claiming to be teaching critical thinking.<\/p>\n

The author of the BigThink article summarizes the societal importance of critical thinking this way:<\/p>\n

We live in an age with unprecedented access to information. Whether you are contributing to an entry on Wikipedia or reading a meme that has no sources cited (do they ever?), your ability to comprehend what you are reading and weigh it is a constant and consistent need. That is why it is so imperative that we have sharp critical-thinking skills.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly, students need such skills. Clearly we should teach them.<\/p>\n

It Can Be Taught!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study itself, authored by N. G. Holmes and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, follows students in a college physics course. The course explicitly introduced its students to a process for thinking critically about scientific data; it emphasized the importance of this process by grading students on their early attempts to use it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For example (this excerpt, although complex, is worth reading closely):<\/p>\n

\u201cstudents were shown weighted\u00a0\u03c72 calculations for least squares fitting of data to models and then were given a decision tree for interpreting the outcome. If students obtain a low\u00a0\u03c72, they would decide whether it means their data are in good agreement with the model or whether it means they have overestimated their uncertainties.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Early in the course, the instructors often reminded the students to use this process. By term\u2019s end, however, those instructions had been faded, so the students who continued to use it did so on their own.<\/p>\n

The results?<\/p>\n

Many students who had been taught this analytical process continued to use it. In fact, many of them continued to use it the following year in another<\/em> course taught by a different <\/em>professor.<\/p>\n

In other words: they had been taught critical thinking skills, and they learned critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n

Success!<\/p>\n

It Can Be Taught?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sadly, this exciting news looks less and less promising the more we consider it.<\/p>\n

In the first place, despite the title of his article, Holmes doesn\u2019t even claim<\/em> to be teaching critical thinking. He claims to be teaching \u201cquantitative<\/em> critical thinking,\u201d or the ability \u201cto think critically about scientific data and models<\/em> [my emphasis].\u201d<\/p>\n

Doubtless our students need this valuable subset<\/em> of critical thinking skills. And yet, our students think about many topics that defy easy quantification.<\/p>\n

If we want our students to think critically about a Phillis Wheatley poem, or about the development of the Silk Road, or about the use of gerundives, we will quickly recognize they need a meaningfully different set of critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n

How, for example, would a student use \u201cweighted\u00a0\u03c72 calculations for least squares fitting of data\u201d to compare the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States?<\/p>\n

To return to the examples offered in BigThink\u2019s enthusiastic paragraph: despite this author’s enthusiasm, it\u2019s not at all certain this procedure for analyzing \u201cscientific data and models\u201d will help us update a Wikipedia entry, or critique an unsourced meme.<\/p>\n

(It might, but\u2014unless we\u2019re editing a very particular kind of Wikipedia entry, or reading a very statistical meme\u2014it probably won\u2019t.)<\/p>\n

In brief: ironically, the headlines implying that we can \u201cteach critical thinking\u201d generally do not stand up to critical thought.<\/p>\n

The Bigger Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cognitive scientists, in fact, regularly doubt the possibility of teaching a general set of critical thinking skills. And here\u2019s one big reason why:<\/p>\n

Different disciplines require different kinds of critical thought. <\/em><\/p>\n

Critical thinking in evolutionary biology requires different skills than critical thinking in comparative theology.<\/p>\n

The field I\u2019m in uses psychology and neuroscience research to inform teaching; hard experience has taught me that the fields of psychology and neuroscience demand very different critical thinking skills from their practitioners.<\/p>\n

Perhaps your own teaching experience reveals the same pattern:<\/p>\n

The English department where I taught included some of the sharpest minds I know: people who can parse a sonnet or map a literary genre with giddy dexterity. Their critical thinking skills in the world of English literature can\u2019t be questioned.<\/p>\n

And yet, many of these same people have told me quite emphatically that they are hopeless at, say, math. Or, chemistry. Or, doing their taxes. Being good critical thinkers in one discipline has not made them successful at critical thought in others.<\/p>\n

Chapter 2 of Daniel Willingham\u2019s Why Don\u2019t Students Like School<\/em> explores this argument at greater length.<\/p>\n

The Smaller Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a second reason that it\u2019s hard to teach general critical thinking skills: knowledge of details.<\/p>\n

To think critically about any topic, we need to know a very substantial amount of discipline-specific factual information. Finding those facts on the interwebs isn\u2019t enough; we need to know them cold\u2014have them comfortably housed in long-term memory.<\/p>\n

For example: to use Holmes\u2019s critical thinking technique, you would need to know what \u201cweighted\u00a0\u03c72 calculations for least squares fitting of data\u201d actually are<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even more: you\u2019d need to know how to calculate them<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have that very specific kind of detailed knowledge, you\u2019re just out of luck. You can\u2019t think critically in his world.<\/p>\n

Another example. Much chess expertise comes from playing lots and lots of chess. As Chase and Simon\u2019s famous study<\/a> has shown, chess experts literally see chess boards differently than do chess novices.<\/p>\n

You really can\u2019t think<\/em> like a chess expert (that is, you can\u2019t engage in critical chess thinking) until you can see<\/em> like a chess expert; and, seeing like a chess expert takes years. You need to accumulate substantial amounts of specific information\u2014the Loomis gambit, the Concord defense\u2014to make sense of the chessboard world.<\/p>\n

Your own teaching experience almost certainly underlines this conclusion. Let me explain:<\/p>\n

How often does it happen that someone learns you\u2019re a teacher, and promptly offers you some heartfelt advice on teaching your students more effectively? (“I saw this AMAZING video on Facebook about the most INSPIRING teacher…”) How often is that advice, in fact, even remotely useful?<\/p>\n

And yet, here\u2019s the surprise: the person offering you this well-meaning advice is almost certainly an expect in her field. She\u2019s an accomplished doctor, or financial adviser, or geologist, or jurist. In her field, she could out-critical-think you with most of her prefrontal cortex tied behind her occipital lobe.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, her critical thinking skills in that<\/em> field don\u2019t transfer to our<\/em> field, because critical thinking in our field requires a vast amount of very specific teaching knowledge<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(By the way: twice now this post has assumed you\u2019re a teacher. If you\u2019re not, insert the name of your profession or expertise in the place of \u201cteacher.\u201d The point will almost certainly hold.)<\/p>\n

Wishing and Thinking, not Wishful Thinking<\/strong><\/p>\n

As so often happens, I feel a bit like a grinch as I write this article. Once again, I find myself reading news I ought to find so very exciting, and instead finding it unsupported by research.<\/p>\n

Truthfully, I wish we could<\/em> teach critical thinking skills in general. If you\u2019ve got a system for doing so, I genuinely hope you\u2019ll let me know. (Inbox me: blogger@learningandthebrain.com)<\/p>\n

Even better: if you\u2019ve got research<\/u> that shows it works, I\u2019ll dance a jig through Somerville.<\/p>\n

But the goal of this organization\u2014and the goal of Mind, Brain, and Education<\/em>\u2014is to improve psychology, neuroscience, and pedagogy by having these disciplines talk with each other deeply and knowledgeably.<\/p>\n

And with that deep knowledge\u2014with critical thinking skills honed by scientific research\u2014we know that critical thinking skills must be taught discipline by discipline; and, they must be honed through extensive and specific practice.<\/p>\n

This task might sound less grand than “teaching critical thinking skills.” And yet, by focusing not on lofty impossibilities, but on very realistic goals, we can indeed accomplish them\u2014one discipline at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend recently referred me to this online article (at bigthink.com) about this research study: the eye-catching phrase in both headlines being \u201cTeaching Critical Thinking.\u201d (The online article is even more emphatic: \u201cStudy: There Are Instructions for Teaching Critical Thinking.\u201d) This headline sounds like great news. We can do it! Just follow the instructions! We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,19],"class_list":["post-1970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-skepticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2067,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions\/2067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}