Long-Term Professional Development
Plan Six: 2-day Workshops Over A Three Year Period
Or Develop a Plan Workshop-by-Workshop

Critical thinking is not an isolated goal unrelated to other important goals in education. Rather, it is a seminal goal which, done well, facilitates the development of higher order thinking skills that cross disciplines and contexts. It is best conceived, therefore, as the hub around which all other educational ends cluster. For example, as students learn to think more critically, they become more proficient at historical, scientific, and mathematical thinking. They develop skills, abilities, and values critical to success in everyday life. All of this assumes, of course, that those who teach have a solid grounding in critical thinking and in the teaching strategies essential to it.

But to develop a deep understanding of the foundations of critical thinking involves a long-term approach to learning and applying those foundations. James Stigler, coauthor of the book, The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World’s Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom, comments on the importance of long term staff development. He says, “professional development . . . should be long term. It should be ongoing – part of a faculty’s workweek, not something tacked on. And it should be curriculum based…so that it helps faculty help their students master the curriculum at a higher level.” Stigler goes on to say “professional development has been largely divorced from practice . . . It has been haphazard . . . (involving) idiosyncratic kinds of professional development . . . not only do we need to implement high-quality programs, but we also need to give faculty the opportunity to learn how to participate in these programs. That’s going to take time.”

We agree. It is clear that there is no way to bring critical thinking successfully into instruction across the curriculum with a stand-alone one or two-day workshop. At best, a one or two-day workshop can do three things: 1) function to heighten the awareness of faculty to the challenge of bringing critical thinking substantively into instruction, 2) provide some strategies for up-grading the effectiveness of instruction, and 3) lay a foundation for follow-up workshops.

But a long-term approach to critical thinking professional development enables faculty to internalize and apply the fundamentals of critical thinking at a deep level. Through a long-term approach, faculty can restructure their courses so that students develop as inquisitive and disciplined thinkers and questioning minds. Its success depends on a number of variables. One develops as a critical thinker in a way similar to the way in which one learns to perform well in basketball, ballet, or on the piano. First of all, one must understand the basic principles. Secondly, one must regularly engage in self-monitored, self-evaluative practice (putting the principles to work in practice) progressively up-grading one’s understanding and skill thereby.

Faculty in a long range professional development program come to recognize explicitly that critical thinking is not just one of many divergent educational aims, but is rather a way of teaching and learning at a high level of effectiveness. They learn to use all other reform trends as a support for a high level of thinking in both the teaching and learning process. Commitment to critical thinking affects how one thinks through the design of instruction and how one thinks through the content one is learning. In short, over time instructors come to recognize that teaching in a critical manner is essential for:

• skilled reading, writing, speaking, and listening
  
  
• skilled reasoning within all subject areas
  
  
• skilled decision-making and problem-solving
  
  
• skilled analysis and evaluation of one’s emotions and values
  
  
• intelligent choices in human relationships
  
  
• skilled civic and personal choices, etc . . .

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