Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Last week TED-Ed released a new video lesson titled This Tool Will Help You Improve Your Critical Thinking. As I wrote last week, I almost immediately used the lesson in one of my computer science classes. Writing that blog post and using that lesson inspired me to take a look back through my archives for other lessons and resources for teaching and learning about critical thinking. Here's my updated list of resources about critical thinking and logical fallacies. 

This is the first of three posts that I am writing in an attempt to inspire more discussion around the following question: How do we prepare students to be successful in their futures?

As a growing number of medical schools bring virtual reality into the classroom, students are finding it an effective way to learn complex subject matter, such as anatomy, that’s often easier to understand with hands-on practice.

It’s natural to want children and graduates to develop a set of all-purpose cognitive tools with which to navigate their way through the world. But can such things be taught? Carl Hendrick argues that general critical thinking skills cannot be so easily transferred from one context to another.

Being an air-traffic controller is not easy. At the heart of the job is a cognitive ability called “situational awareness” that involves “the continuous extraction of environmental information [and the] integration of this information with prior knowledge to form a coherent mental picture”. Vast amounts of fluid information must be held in the mind and, under extreme pressure, life-or-death decisions are made across rotating 24-hour work schedules. So stressful and mentally demanding is the job that, in most countries, air-traffic controllers are eligible for early retirement. In the United States, they must retire at 56 without exception.

Critical thinking skills truly matter in learning. Why? Because they are life skills we use every day of our lives. Everything from our work to our recreational pursuits, and all that’s in between, employs these unique and valuable abilities. Consciously developing them takes thought-provoking discussion and equally thought-provoking questions to get it going. Begin right here with the Critical Thinking Skills Cheatsheet.

For a field of study that explores the nature of knowledge, Philosophy has had a surprisingly small impact on education.

Most formal academic ‘platforms’ like public schools and universities tend to parse knowledge into content areas–what is being learned–rather than how and why it is being learned. This, to a degree, reduces the function of pure philosophy. Psychology, Neurology, and even Anthropology all have had a louder voice in ‘education,’ which may explain why critical thinking seems to be so often missing from most school and curriculum design.

The Question Game: A Playful Way To Teach Critical Thinking

Big idea: Teaching kids to ask smart questions on their own

A four-year-old asks on average about 400 questions per day, and an adult hardly asks any. Our school system is structured around rewards for regurgitating the right answer, and not asking smart questions – in fact, it discourages asking questions. With the result that as we grow older, we stop asking questions. Yet asking good questions is essential to find and develop solutions, and an important skill in innovation, strategy, and leadership.

This post was written by Shelbie Witte, Don Latham, and Melissa Gross, editors of Literacy Engagement through Peritextual Analysis (ALA & NCTE, 2019).

As teachers and librarians with a love of texts, we encourage our students to engage with peritext often, and yet we encounter many students who are unfamiliar with the term and the language of peritext. Common peritextual elements such as the text cover, table of contents, and source notes provide opportunities for readers to increase their comprehension of and to think critically about a text. Many times, readers will skip the reading and viewing of peritext and begin with the text proper. By doing so, they are often missing critical information an author has included about the text and haven’t taken advantage of all the layers of meaning surrounding the text.

At one time or another we have all engaged in poor thinking habits. After all, nobody’s perfect and neither is anybody’s thinking. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t get better at it and start thinking more critically. It’s worth our time to seek ways of improving our thinking and to guide our learners to do the same.

Poor thinking habits refer to the ways of thinking that produce adverse effects in every part of our lives. They can negatively affect our personal progress, our relationships, and everyone around us. But they do much more than that, actually. Not only do they affect the outside world, but they do damage from within as well. In the long run poor thinking can affect our self-esteem, our ability to cope with challenges, and even our physical health.

The Essential Fluencies are a solid foundation for effective modern learning. They cover all the bases of the skills students need for success beyond school. Developing these Fluencies in our students is a critical thinking journey in itself. That’s why you’ll find good questions at the heart of Essential Fluencies development.

Every stage of every Fluency asks us to think deeply and critically, and their embedded skills and abilities are about stretching thought and imagination. By asking good exploratory questions, students learn the essence of each Fluency and its phases. That’s what the following lists are meant to give you and your students.

Educational technology, or edtech, has revolutionized the classroom by improving learning efficiency and efficacy. Used wisely, edtech strategies help students develop vital critical thinking skills, and can change the paradigms of education. Here are eight specific ways classroom tech can help students develop their critical thinking.

“You don’t need to teach us.  That’s what Google is for.” That was the message a student shared with a surprised audience of educators during a popular technology conference. The students went on to say, “If I can't figure something out I prefer to watch a YouTube video or text a friend rather than ask a teacher.” The other students in the room nodded their heads in agreement.