Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

We all endorse it and we all want our students to do it. We also claim to teach it. “It” is critical thinking, and very few of us actually teach it or even understand what it is (Paul & Elder, 2013). Research tells us that our students learn critical thinking only after we receive training in how to teach it and design our courses explicitly and intentionally to foster critical thinking skills (Abrami, Bernard, Borokhovski, Wade, Surkes, Tamim, & Zhang, 2008). We have to start by formulating assessable critical thinking learning outcomes and building our courses around them.

Thinking allows connections, leads to development of new ideas.

Thinking in the right frame is valid in learning. Developing the right frame of thinking is essential in teaching.

Spread of false news, image editing and blending, audio editing, and video clipping are some common fallacy we come upon. Belief in such mistaken identities can be dangerous to individuals and societies. To bring upon awareness on such misinterpreted or misrepresented information, thinking skills need to be developed among students

Remember that scene from the ’90s film Reality Bites in which Wynona Ryder was given the chance to quickly define irony to land a sweet gig? The elevator closed on her face while she struggled to define a word we all use every day. So it may be with the term critical thinking.