Critical Thinking

Slide 1: MORE THEN BEING CRITICAL Presented by: Greg Pearson and Mary Zammit Mississauga Secondary School October 17, 2007

Slide 2: Beyond your curriculum, what is  the most important thing you can teach or educate your students about?

Slide 3: Working in table groups of 5-6 each group will  receive a piece of chart paper and list answers/ideas to the question that follows Groups post their work on the wall for others to see  One member in a group will highlight a key item or  idea that seems to appear on more than one chart paper

Slide 4: When you think of  someone you consider an effective critical thinker, what attributes do you attach to that individual?

Slide 5: One definition is:  “the thinking through of a problematic situation about what to believe or how to act where the thinker makes a reasoned judgment that reflects competent use of the intellectual tools for quality thinking.”

Slide 8: A community of thinkers is defined as  an active group of students and teachers striving to learn more about a discipline by engaging in critical and imaginative thinking. Adapted from - Explorers of the Universe

Slide 11: Three levels of questions:   Literal: \"On the page“  right there, reading for facts and accuracy  Inferential: \"Between the lines“  drawing conclusions, reading between the lines  Evaluative: \"Off the page“  defending an opinion, synthesizing information, bringing personal observations and insights to the text

Slide 13: A grid used to  form questions by selecting framing words (who, what, where, …) from the vertical list and then adding a verb from the horizontal list (is, did, might,…)

Slide 14: Why use it?   Can be easily used by students to formulate questions that can range from simple recall to inference  Supports reading comprehension  Can be used to guide students while reading a text  Can be used with pictures or text

Slide 15: As students read a passage, they can use the  following coding system to help them organize their thoughts and main ideas I = Important L = Learned something new ! = Big idea surfaced * = Interesting or important fact ? = Unsure/ Find out more = Agree  = Disagree ≠

Slide 16: Why use it?   Supports reading comprehension  Requires students to \"think\" about what they are reading  Requires students to make judgments  Provides useful discussion starters  Can assist students in answering questions related o the text

Slide 17: have no obvious ‘right’ answer   raise other important questions, often across subject area boundaries  often address the philosophical or conceptual foundations of a discipline  naturally recur  are framed to provoke and sustain student interest

Slide 18: Does the challenge require reasoned  judgment? (i.e., involve assessment among plausible options/possibilities based on criteria)  Is the challenge likely to be perceived as meaningful by students?  Will significant curricular understanding be uncovered as students respond to the challenge?

Slide 20: “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”