Developing Critical Thinking Skills
is Vital to
Students’ Future Success
The Importance of Developing Critical Thinking SkillsToday’s businesses must compete in a global economy. Students need a set of core knowledge, along with thinking skills that include critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. Thinking skills are identified in the
US Department of Labor’s SCANS report
as one of the three foundational skill sets crucial to success in today’s workforce.
What is Critical Thinking?Critical thinking is investigating issues that are not always clearly defined and have no clear-cut answers by asking significant questions and exploring different solutions.
Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking
Critical thinking and creative thinking both connect and support each other.
Creative thinking
widens the focus of thought. It involves generating new, varied, and unique ideas. Critical thinking helps evaluate ideas and add value to them by identifying the most reasonable ones or ones most likely to succeed.
Critical Thinking in the ClassroomCritical thinking is a skill that we can teach to our students. It draws on other skills, such as
communication
and information literacy, to explore a problem, then analyze, explain, and evaluate it.
Today’s students have more access to information than ever before with the help of Web 2.0 tools. As teachers, we must remember that simply accessing information is not enough. Students need to be able to analyze, synthesis, and evaluate information.
Bloom's Digital Taxonomy
explains how using Web 2.0 tools can facilitate learning. Instead of “teaching” Web 2.0 tools, teachers should be developing critical thinking skills in the classroom with Web 2.0 tools
Today’s students need to develop critical thinking skills by learning to:
* Use different kinds of reasoning, such as deductive and inductive, to understand a situation.
* Analyze complex systems and understand how their interconnected parts support the systems.
* Gather relevant information.
* Ask important questions that clarify points of view and help solve problems.
* Make decisions by selecting appropriate criteria and identifying alternatives to make reliable choices.
Web 2.0 ToolsRemember the importance of developing critical thinking skills when using these Web 2.0 teaching tools with your students:
Inanimate Alice - A Digital Novel
Intel® Visual Ranking Tool - Analyzing and Evaluating Answers
MIND MAPPING TOOLS:
Bubbl.us - Brainstorming and creative thinking
Mindomo - Critical thinking and Mind Mapping
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