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04/21/23 Dr. Sufian Abu-Rmaileh 1
United Arab Emirates UniversityUnited Arab Emirates UniversityUniversity General Requirements UnitUniversity General Requirements Unit
Dr. Sufian Abu-RmailehDr. Sufian Abu-Rmaileh
UGRU/UGRU/United Arab Emirates UniversityUnited Arab Emirates University
P.O. Box: 17172P.O. Box: 17172
Al Ain, United Arab EmiratesAl Ain, United Arab Emirates
Tel. +971-50-7131803Tel. +971-50-7131803
Fax: +971-3-7131393Fax: +971-3-7131393
E-mail:E-mail: [email protected]
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Critical Thinking Use in the Content Area
by
Dr. Sufian Abu-Rmaileh
A paper Presented at the
18th Annual International TEOSL Arabia Conference
“Achieving Excellence Through Life Skills Education”
HCT, Dubai Women’s College
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
8-10 March 2012
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ObjectivesThe objectives of this presentation are to:
• discuss who passive and active learners in the classroom are;
• talk about the dimensions of learning and their connection to critical thinking;
• talk about the definition and the rationale for critical thinking and metacognition and the difference between creative and critical thinking.
• talk about how to promote critical thinking in the classroom, identifying students’ disposition to learning and the teachers’ roles in the critical thinking process ;
• suggests some strategies and techniques to help train students to use critical thinking in the classroom;
• Conclusion
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Passive Learners
The passive kind of learner is where the teacher lectures, dictates and loads the students with information. The teacher pours facts into the students’ heads without giving them the opportunity to react to those facts.
They are not involved in interactive or cooperative learning activities that would enhance their learning and/or improve their creative and critical thinking abilities.
The Effects of Being Passive Learners
1. Not much creativity or thinking on the part of the students takes place. The students are asked to memorize something, and then, produce it when necessary.
2. Not much effort is produced by the students to try and apply their knowledge to real life situations. The students are expected to take the information as it is without the need for them to connect it to anything or relate it to what is going on in the real world (McManus, 2001). The information they get and produce is done mechanically.
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The Effects of Being Passive Learners3. There is no mutual exchange of ideas between the instructor and the students.
The instructors do not expect the students to respond to what they say. 4. The students do not own the information that they have; it is someone else’s
so, they tend to forget it. The information is not related to something that could remind the students of events, ideas, discussions or explorations.
5. The students’ ability to think or use judgment is diminished. Their critical thinking abilities and their classroom independence tend to be low, depending on others to feed them the information that they want.
6. The students’ motivation level tends to drop when they are not participating
in the classroom. They tend to be bored, fall asleep or create conflict with others all for the purpose of entertaining themselves and relieve themselves of boredom.
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Active Learners
Learners who are involved in such classrooms are using and practicing what information, data or material they are exposed to in ways that would enhance their internalization process of
that information.
Active learners not only look at the material through the eyes of their teachers, but also through their own eyes, experiences and world knowledge. They apply and critique the information from
their point of view. They also get to add their own spin on the material and come up with their own conclusions.
What is the importance of active learning?
1. The students are willing partners in their education. They tend to take responsibility and take charge of their learning.
2. The students would take the knowledge that they get in the classroom, and go out into the real world and apply it to real life situations that could benefit them in the long run.
3. Once the students participate and share their ideas and what they are thinking about, they tend to own the information that they contribute in class.
4. The retention of that information becomes higher because they handled the information, talked about it, tried it and later evaluated it.
5. The students’ ability to think, analyze and use judgment is heightened.
6. The students’ motivation level is raised and reinforced when they are active participants in the classroom. (Abu-Rmaileh, 2006a and b).
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Dimensions of Learning
• Dimension 1: Attitudes and Perception
• Dimension 2: Acquire and Integrate Knowledge
• Dimension 3: Extend and Refine Knowledge
• Dimension 4: Use Knowledge Meaningfully
• Dimension 5: Productive Habits of Mind
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What is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is the person’s ability to use their minds in a way where they can look at, analyze, critique, evaluate and apply whatever information they encounter to day-to-day life events and issues.
Critical thinking is the person’s competence to solve problems that culminate in the attainment of reliable results to those problems. It is the way people process information in a way that uses skills, observations, experiences and background knowledge to approach and solve problems
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The Rationale for Critical Thinking
Teachers manage well in properly relating and transmitting the subject matter to the students, however, they “often fail to teach students how to think effectively about this subject matter, that is, how to properly understand it” (Schafersman, 1991).
To change the role of the students from being passive participants in the learning process, students need to be part of what they are doing. They need to be included in what is going on in the learning process by teaching students to make proper use, expand and relate knowledge to different situations that they encounter.
Thinking about Thinking
Students can take critical thinking a step further by using another technique called ‘thinking about thinking’ which is a higher order critical thinking technique (Swartz, 2000). This allows students to reach a stage where they think about how they reached the results they reached. They think about the thinking process itself.
Thinking about thinking allows students to check and examine the steps that they took to reach the conclusions that they came up with. This higher order thinking process is taught to the students so that when they have similar problems or issues in the future, they can follow the same steps to reach the desired conclusions.
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Higher Order Thinking
Thinking about thinking focused student attention on what they did and how they thought about those types of applications, what kind of thinking they did, and how they did the compare and contrast of the two types of applications. They also thought about how different compare and contrast is from the way students usually study concepts in any subject.
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Metacognition
Metacognition as an overarching cognition skill that keeps an eye or monitors our thinking and the processes that we go through in order for us to reach decisions or assess the problems and issues that we encounter.
Swartz, Fischer and Parks (1998) define metacognition as the “internal managing process that we use to take charge of and direct our own thinking so that it is no longer determined by impulse and association but by what we should do to be skillful thinkers” (p. 541).
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Creative vs. Critical Thinking
Creative Thinking in the classroom is seen as the ability to create and generate ideas, processes, or experiences. It is also concerned with coming up with fresh and innovative ideas and thoughts about the material or the projects with which students are dealing.
Critical Thinking: is thought to be the process of evaluating ideas, reflecting, critiquing and determining whether to accept, reject or defer judgment about those ideas. It is also about being able to give reasons for coming up with those determinations
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Promoting Critical Thinking in the Classroom
1. Students’ Disposition to Critical Thinking
A. The student should be inquisitive.
B. The student should be systematic.
C. The student should be analytical.
D. The student should be open-minded.
E. The students should be judicious.
F. The student should be truthseeking.
G. The student should be confident in reasoning.
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Promoting Critical Thinking in the Classroom
2. The Teacher’s Role in the Classroom Critical Thinking Process
1. The teacher organizes the classroom in collaborative groups
2. The teacher directs and questions students in a way that would allow the students to connect ideas together focus their thoughts and create relationships
3. The teacher responds to students’ questions, ideas or curiosity in a way that would foster critical thinking.
4. The teacher infuses critical thinking with the content area being taught.
5. The teacher utilizes and uses the different critical thinking terminology in the classroom.
6. The teacher encourages open-mindedness in the classroom.
7. The teacher exhibits or models unrelenting desire to use and practice critical thinking.
8. The teacher provides opportunities for the students to select projects and activities that interest them.
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Critical Thinking Teaching Strategies and Techniques
1. Journaling2. Affective Response3. Summaries4. Discussions 5. Modeling6. Concept Mapping7. Jigsaw Puzzle Games8. Paraphrasing9. Role Playing 10. Asking for Clarifications
Creating an Atmosphere Conducive to Critical Thinking
1. Create an environment where students are responsible for asking questions and finding answers on their own.
2. Build trust with students and be approachable to questions.
3. Engage students in the learning process.
4. Allow students sufficient time to do assignments and reflect on their ideas.
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Two Examples Of Class Activities
The ApproachTeaching thinking skills, as well as, the
processes of infusing analytical skills into content area instruction, enhances understanding. The main goal of this research was to find whether students can reach conclusions and use reasoning to solve problems that face them.
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Group ActivitiesActivity one (compare and contrast)
The students were asked to list the characteristics of the two major software applications, (i.e. MS Word and PowerPoint) to understand the relationships and differences between those two applications regarding the features and the interface one has in relation to the other.
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Thinking Map
Open Compare & Contrast
How are they are similar?
How are they different?
What similarities and differences seem significant?
What categories or patterns do you see in the significant similarities and differences.
What interpretation or conclusion is suggested by the significant similarities and differences
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Figure 1: Compare and Contrast Graphic Organizer
04/21/23 24 Figure 3: Compare and Contrast Class Work
Activity 1
In the language classroom, what can you do with something like this?
Would you please work with someone to create an activity for your classroom?
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Group ActivitiesActivity two (determining parts-whole relationship)
The concept behind this activity was to find how each part of the task is relevant and what role it plays in learning the task. It was also about how if a certain part of the task was missing, how that task would function properly.
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Thinking Map
Determining the Parts-Whole Relationships
What smaller things make up the whole?
For each part, what would happen if it were missing?
What is the function of each part?
How do the parts work together to make the whole? What is it? or how does it operate?
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04/21/23 28 Figure 4: Parts-Whole Graphic Organizer
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Figure 6: Parts-Whole class work
Activity 2
In the language classroom, what can you do with something like this?
Would you please work with someone to create an activity for your classroom?
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Conclusion
Students cannot sit down in the classroom, being passive and not doing any activities in the classroom. They have to be active participants in the learning process.
To be an active participant in the classroom, one has to be able to do critical thinking activities that would allow the students to be active participants.
Before using and applying critical thinking, teachers need to provide an environment conducive to critical thinking.
Different strategies are suggested for the use of critical thinking in the classroom. Some strategies might work for one group of learners but not for others.
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Conclusion
Developing students’ abilities to use creative and critical thinking is not an easy job. For decades, students were treated as recipients of knowledge.
Students need to be encouraged by their teachers to be active participants in the classroom.
Students in our educational institutions need to be given the tools and the strategies to be able to practice their critical thinking abilities.
