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Critical Thinking – A Durable Skill

Did you know that critical thinking is something that can be taught? While it is domain-specific, the general thinking skills and dispositions support all domains. Why this is important is because if we teach students these skills, students will use them in their careers and personal lives beyond their time in school. Critical thinking is a skill that helps leaders make the right decisions. And like many skills we want students to learn, the teaching of critical thinking needs to be incorporated into subject-matter instruction rather than as stand-alone skills.

Critical thinking is being able to analyze the facts to thoroughly understand a topic or issue. There are three basic aspects to this type of thinking: Collecting information and data, asking thoughtful questions and analyzing possible solutions. The necessary skills include observation, analysis, inference, communication and problem solving. Infusing critical thinking skill instruction into content knowledge instruction means that students will be going deeper with their learning. And teachers will be teaching for transfer – there is a need to be explicit about how these skills learned in one domain directly transfer to another.

Certain subject domains naturally lend themselves to teaching the skills mentioned above. Science, history and language arts teachers want learners to demonstrate analytical thinking. Gathering information and interpreting it are components of research in these domains. Making inferences happens in so many content areas. Then once a learner reaches their conclusions, communicating the results well and clearly is important. Learners may need to employ creative thinking in connecting the data they collect and in communicating their results. Finding connections between things that seem unrelated is in important aspect of critical thinking and is supported by creative thinking. Open-ended, hypothetical and structural questions are useful to surface the right conclusions. Teaching how to ask these questions is important.

The world of work has labeled critical thinking a soft skill. My preference is to use the term “durable skill.” Being able to logically connect ideas, evaluate arguments, find inconsistencies or errors, solve complex problems, and reflect are skills we want students to learn and employers want staff to use. Think about your life and where these skills come in to make you successful in what you are doing. Did you learn them on the fly or were they explicitly taught to you? How much deeper/stronger could those skills be if explicitly taught and connected?

How to teach critical thinking

Classroom discussion is a good way to teach learners to be open-minded and creative, to share their thinking and ask “why.”

  • Start with an open-ended question
  • Provide think time
  • Identify the “good” in contrasting ideas
  • Identify patterns and connections
  • Analyze and explain reasoning or inferences
  • Summarize results
  • Reflect together

Classroom discussion is a strategy often used. How can we make it purposeful for teaching critical thinking? Let us know what you are doing and how it works for your learners.

Resources

GUEST POST: Going Below the Surface: Depth Structure and Transfer in Critical Thinking — The Learning Scientists

MultiBrief: The 4 C’s of 21st century learning for ELLs: Critical thinking (multibriefs.com)

Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It's Important | Indeed.com

6 Critical Thinking Skills You Need to Master Now | Rasmussen University

Teaching Critical Thinking | Reboot Teachers’ Guide | REBOOT FOUNDATION (reboot-foundation.org)