| Developing Important Skills for the Future Discussions about 21 st century skills are highly visible in today’s educational environment. In a time where students in the United States are seemingly falling behind those of comparable countries, much attention has been given to the need to improve the quality of our students’ thinking. For this to happen, we believe that educators and administrators must have substantive professional development experiences. However, financial constraints pose some of the most significant obstacles to providing long-term professional development opportunities. The Foundation for Critical Thinking is currently seeking partnerships with schools and school districts to provide professional development workshops at NO COST. To fund this endeavor, we are looking for sponsors. Please contact us if your school or school district is interested so, together, we can locate and apply for various grants. The applications are limitless, but time is not. Let’s work together to make this happen. Please email the address below if you are interested: cct@criticalthinking.org | Announcements
New Thinkers Guide
An Aspiring Thinker’s Guide to Critical Thinking w  as created specifically for the young learner, but the content and approach are applicable to all students. This four color guide introduces essential concepts and strategies for thinking critically. You can preview the guide here.
Join us for The World's Oldest Annual Conference on Critical Thinking Conference Theme: Fostering Intellectual Discipline  July 20-23, 2009 Preconference: July 18-19 at the DoubleTree Hotel and Executive Meeting Center, Berkeley Marina, California Learn more about the 29th International Conference | | Fostering Critical Thinking in the Classroom… Routinely ask questions that probe student understanding of the content. Questions such as: - Focusing on purpose: What is the purpose of this chapter? What is the principle function of this system?
- Focusing on question: What questions are emerging for you as we think our way through this issue? What is the key question in this chapter: What is the key question in this section of the chapter?
- Focusing on information: What information did the authors use in coming to these conclusions? How can we check to see if this information is accurate? How was the information obtained?
- Focusing on inference: What can we logically conclude based on the information presented in this chapter? What conclusions did the authors come to? Were these conclusions justified given the evidence? Is there a more reasonable interpretation of the evidence than the conclusions these “experts” have come to?
- Focusing on assumptions: What do these authors take for granted in reasoning through this issue? Should we accept these assumptions or question them?
- Focusing on concepts: What are the key concepts presented in the chapter (or in the text as a whole)? How would you elaborate your understanding of the concepts we have been discussing?
- Focusing on implications: If we accept or reject the author’s reasoning, what does that commit me to?
- Focusing on point-of-view: What are the authors focused upon in this chapter, and how are they seeing it? What point of view do you bring to reading? To what extent does one’s point of view reflect the way we interpret problems, questions and issues?
| In his 1899 book, The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman warns of the dangers of superficial learning and, reciprocally, argues for the need for learning substantively. “A man may hear a thousand lectures, and read a thousand volumes, and be at the end of the process very much where he was, as regards knowledge. Something more than merely admitting it in a negative way into the mind is necessary if it is to remain there. It must not be passively received, but actually and actively entered into, embraced, mastered. The mind must go half-way to meet what comes to it from without.” | |
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