critical thinking

Regarding my previous post on the lack of accessibility of critical thinking information, even Carl Sagan’s Cosmos has this problem. Despite being hailed as supremely understandable for general audiences (both the book and the series), I found that it also posed too many challenges in its basic linguistic accessibility to …

Since “accessibility” has so many different meanings in education, let me start by clarifying that I am referring to students (and general audiences) being able to access the meaning of information they encounter. This seems to be a weak point in the skeptic, atheist, and critical thinking movements, and something …

This is part five (the end) of a rebuttal to this article. Part one can be found here. There are just two more points I need to address in Hendrick’s article before I am done with my rebuttal. I know, all two of you readers have been waiting with bated …

This is part four of a rebuttal to this article. Part one can be found here. I’d like to move on now to my next point (don’t worry, I’m nearly finished with this series), that Hendrick appears to misunderstand what schools’ purpose is. He says: Since the early 1980s, however, schools have …

This is part three of a rebuttal to this article. Part one can be found here. Hendrick’s next example is even worse than the Shelly one. He wrote: A physics student investigating why two planes behave differently in flight might know how to “think critically” through the scientific method but, without …

This is part two of a rebuttal to this article. Part one can be found here. One key issue I noted in Hendrick’s article is an odd disconnect from the way he is using the term critical thinking and the way it is used by people like Richard Paul, who …

There was an article that made the rounds last December titled “Why Schools Shouldn’t Teach Critical Thinking.” I read it, and saw various rebuttals online as well as some interesting discussions. I wanted to say something, but couldn’t really frame my thoughts adequately and so dropped it. However, I’ve been …

Once again, I am writing about Richard Paul’s work on critical thinking. He wrote a whole lot about it and had excellent things to say. I would strongly recommend checking out the source of what I am briefly touching on here, because he goes into much more detail and depth …

In my newfound love of Richard Paul’s excellent work on critical thinking, I bring you another short summary of some of his useful ideas in teaching: a taxonomy of Socratic questions. These can be very useful when thinking of what kinds of questions to ask students when you are trying …

Recently I’ve been familiarizing myself with Richard Paul’s work on critical thinking and reviewing some of the scientific literature on it. After reading the recent Stanford Study I realized I needed to step up my game when it came to teaching critical thinking. A definition seemed like a good place to …