PROMOTING AND ASSESSING CRITICAL THINKING (WEEK 15) Flashcards
- The ability to discern judgments based on standards.
- Critical thinking is the art of thinking about thinking while thinking in order to make thinking better. It involves three interwoven phases:
Critical Thinking
By focusing on the parts of thinking in any situation
It analyzes thinking
By figuring out its strengths and weaknesses
It evaluates thinking
By building on its strengths while reducing its weaknesses
It improves thinking
three dimensions of critical thinking
analytic, an evaluative, and a creative component.
Identify its:
1. Purpose
2. Question
3. Information
4. Conclusion(s)
5. Assumptions
6. Implications
7. Main concept(s)
8. Point of view
To Analyze Thinking
Check it for:
1. Clarity
2. Accuracy
3. Precision
4. Relevance
5. Depth
6. Breadth
7. Significance
8. Logic and fairness
To Assess Thinking
- Raises vital questions and problems, formulates them clearly and precisely
- Gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively
- Comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards
- Thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences
- Communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems
A Well-cultivated Critical Thinker
analyzes, assesses, and improves our ordinary thinking.
second level of thinking
is first-order thinking raised to the level of conscious realization (analyzed, assessed, and reconstructed).
Second-order Thinking
is spontaneous and nonreflective.
It contains insight, prejudice, truth and error, good and bad reasoning, indiscriminately combined.
First-order Thinking
- understandable, the meaning can be grasped
- The reader or listener can understand what is being said
- “Gateway” standard to critical thinking
- If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or relevant
- This is essential for both educator and student
Clarity
- free from errors
- Remember that a statement may be clear but inaccurate -> Validate Sources of information always.
Accuracy
- exact to the necessary level of detail
- Exactness and Specificity
- Giving exact amount of detail that is required for a given situation
Precision
- relating to the matter at hand
- How is this idea connected to the topic at hand
- How to presented facts bare to the topic
- How do ideas presented by students relate to the ideas discussed.
Relevance
- contains complexities and interrelationships
- How do ideas/ presentations address the complexities of topic at hand
- How do deal with significant factors that must be addressed (i.e.lectures)
Depth
- encompasses multiple viewpoints
- The idea of using multiple points of view
- Using other ways to look at and solve problems
Breadth
- no contradictions
- If the topic/ problem makes sense
- If answers to question sets follow from given data/information.
Logic
- focuses on the most important
- What the most significant information is needed to be gathered (for students) or conveyed (for educators)
- How important are the facts being presented with regards to the context of discussion.
Significance
- justifiable; not self-serving
- If the thinking, assumptions and behaviors are justified
- If the concepts discussed are being justifiably used or
discussed
Fairness
- Implies excellence in thinking within the subject
- Use their intellectual skills to develop a broad range of knowledge.
- Exemplary work is clear, precise, and well-reasoned,
but also insightful and well-informed - Student has internalized the basic intellectual
standards appropriate to assessing his or her own work in a subject and is highly skilled at self-evaluation.
Exemplary Students
- Sound thinking within a subject
- Development of a range of knowledge acquired
through the exercise of thinking skills and abilities. - Thinking is, clear, precise, and well-reasoned, but
sometimes lacks depth of insight (especially into
opposing points of view). - Internalize the intellectual standards relevant to the
subject and demonstrate competence in self-evaluation
High-Performing Students
- Perform inconsistently in a subject, and therefore
develop a limited body of knowledge. - Often use memorization as a substitute for
understanding - Learning at this level demonstrates incomplete
comprehension of basic concepts and principles - Internalized a few of the intellectual standards
appropriate to the assessment of their own work in a
subject, but demonstrate inconsistency in self evaluation.
Mixed-Quality Students
- They frequently try to get through courses by
memorizing things rather than by understanding them. - Often produce work that is unclear, imprecise, and
poorly reasoned. - May achieve competence in reciting information and
naming concepts, but they often use terms and concepts incorrectly because their understanding is superficial or mistaken.
Low-Performing Students
