Critical thinking is something we are all striving for in our classrooms. We want our kids to be able to take the knowledge and experiences they have acquired in one place, either in our classes or previously, and apply them to other problems. The website http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutct/define_critical_thinking.cfm defines critical thinking as: Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.(Scriven & Paul). This is a wordy definition that can be reduced to the concepts of asking why and how does something work or do what it does? When we think about critical thinking we are really talking about climbing Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid. It isn’t enough to know that warm air rises. You need to comprehend what is happening in warm air. You need to analyze what is happening in warm air. How do we know warm air is rising? What is an example of warm air rising?
The question is how can technology help with critical thinking? An easy way that comes to mind for me is the use of mind-mapping and/or flow charts. Sites such as Mindomo http://www.mindomo.com/ allow one to organize thoughts on a subject. Once those thoughts are displayed you can think about the logical order of those thoughts. As you are getting an order figured out you can reason why they are in that order. Why does this affect that? What makes A happen when I do B? Other examples are online simulations in which variables can be changed. Students can see a system and make assumptions about what will happen when to the system when one of the variables are changed. In short we are not just looking for our students to regurgitate numbers and facts we throw at them. We want them to be able to manipulate information they gather one day and be able to apply it to later lessons.
Taken from a presentation: 8th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer 1987. Retrieved November 2nd 2009, from The Critical Thinking Community http://www.criticalthinking.org/aboutct/define_critical_thinking.cfm
