Pennington Publishing Blog

As accumulated content knowledge is roughly doubling every five years now, we may need to take a hard look at the content that we impart in our classrooms. It’s not that our content is outdated or superfluous; it’s just that we may need to shift our instructional focus a bit. In other words, we should start being more concerned with teaching process skills that will enable our students to be better equipped to deal with the exponential increase in our knowledge base. This new process-centered design is commonly referred to as critical thinking.

This may run counter to the  standards-based movement, prevalent in most public schools. Standards-based education is primarily product-driven. We have end goals that we teach toward and we evaluate students by the degree to which they have attained mastery over these standards. Process-centered standards are few and far between, especially in English-language arts, history, and science.

Following are articles, free resources (including reading assessments), and teaching tips regarding how to integrate process-centered critical thinking skills into daily instruction from the Pennington Publishing Blog. Bookmark and visit us often. Oh, and don’t forget to copy down the 10% discount code found only on this blog to purchase the quality curricula and resources offered by Pennington Publishing.

Critical Thinking

How to Teach Critical Thinking

http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-critical-thinking/

If we are to equip Twenty-First-Century students with the tools they need to add to our “knowledge pool,” we need to re-evaluate how we spend our time in the classroom. Critical thinking openers can help a teacher teach a schema for thinking that students can learn, practice, and apply with the coaching assistance of their teachers.

How to Teach Logic

http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-teach-logic/

A basic understanding of logic is necessary to be able to read critically and write with coherence. Good critical thinking follow rules of logic to observe, interpret, apply, and revise ideas or problems. These rules of logic are not new. In fact, five key forms of logic were developed by the Ancient Greeks.

The Top 15 Errors in Reasoning

http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/the-top-15-errors-in-reasoning/

Good writers analyze the quality of written and spoken evidence as they read or listen to authoritative sources. Thinking, reading, and listening critically will allow you to debunk faulty reasoning and improve your ability to argue effectively. This list of fifteen errors in reasoning will teach you the pitfalls to avoid in your writing and help you spot fallacious reasoning.

Teaching Fact and Opinion: When, What, and How

http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/teaching-fact-and-opinion-when-what-and-how/

Helping students understand and apply the differences between fact and opinion is crucial to analytical reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Distinguishing between fact from opinion is key to interpreting information intelligently. It is one of the few “macro” skills that is, indeed, interdisciplinary. It is also a skill that is refined from elementary school up through post doctoral study. Furthermore, it is a skill of life-long learning and daily use. This article shares practical strategies about when to teach, what to teach, and how to teach fact and opinion.

More Articles, Free Resources, and Teaching Tips from the Pennington Publishing Blog

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Looking for a quick, no prep way to teach critical thinking and problem-solving skills to your 7^th-12^th grade students? You’ve found what you’re looking for with Critical Thinking Openers. This book provides 64 “openers” formatted for your LCD, Smartboard®, or overhead projector to teach metacognitive (thinking about thinking) strategies and problem-solving skills. Simply display the page and have students respond on binder paper or in their writers notebooks—plenty of opportunities for creative response and interactive discussion. Students observe, interpret, apply, and revise ideas from the greatest thinkers and writers of all time—from Plato to Einstein to Rowling. After all, great thoughts induce great thinking. This ten-minute activity requires absolutely no teacher prep. Get the attendance done and get into the conversation. These “openers” set the thoughtful and creative tone for the rest of your class. Also provided are instructional resources on the five forms of logic and errors in reasoning. Help your students think “out of the box” and improve analytical reading and writing skills with your purchase of this resource. Perfect for Advocacy, Leadership Classes, Advisory, and AVID. 76 pages

The writer of this article, Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, Teaching Essay Strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary and more ELA/Reading resources for the overworked teacher committed to differentiating instruction according to diagnostic and formative data. Perfect for EL/ESL and RtI instruction. For free diagnostic assessments, flashcards, and instructional materials, as well as his highly-recommended curricula, check out www.penningtonpublishing.com. Bookmark and refer back often to the Pennington Publishing Blog for insightful articles, free resources, and educational tips. Oh, and don’t forget the copy down the 10% discount code found only on this blog.

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Students, today, are bombarded with content. Knowledge increases exponentially, and the entire storehouse of human knowledge gained over the last six thousand years is now doubled every five years, or less. The old educational philosophy of filling empty heads with the cumulative wisdom of the ages is yielding to a new pedagogy. Knowledge as a product is now being replaced with knowledge as a process.

This is not to say that our accumulated knowledge is irrelevant. Quite to the contrary, it is essential. Without the inductive and deductive reasoning developed by the Ancient Greeks, and without the scientific method, refined by the Enlightenment thinkers, we would have no foundation upon which to build a new process-centered design, commonly referred to as critical thinking.

However, we must begin to practice what we preach. If we are to equip Twenty-First-Century students with the tools they need to add to our “knowledge pool,” we need to re-evaluate how we spend our time in the classroom. The standards-based movement, prevalent in many American schools today, is primarily product-driven. Despite much talk about differentiating instruction, according to the needs of students as indicated by diagnostic assessments, the primary delivery of knowledge in most classrooms remains product-centered. And all students learn the same product, the same way, and on the same timetable to perform (hopefully) the same way on standards-based assessments.  The pressures on teachers to conform to this antiquated model of knowledge acquisition are formidable.

Change Their Way of Thinking

One way to implement change is incremental. A small, but effective way to start introducing critical thinking into the classroom is with the traditional “opener” activities. These “bell-ringer” activities can establish an important framework for learning and a mind-set for the day’s activities, even if they are product-centered.

To accomplish their process-centered mission, critical thinking openers can help a teacher teach a schema for thinking that students can learn, practice, and apply with the coaching assistance of their teachers.

The word schema comes from the Greek word “σχήμα” (skēma), which means a mental planning process. The schema that I propose is not original, by any means. It involves four simple steps: Observation, Interpretation, Application, and Revision. Observation is What do you see? Interpretation is What does it mean? Application is How can it be used? Revision is How can it be changed?

Teaching Procedures

To provoke process-thinking, students need a context from which to explore the schema described above. One great way to stimulate young minds is with famous literary quotations from the greatest thinkers and writers of all time, including contemporary minds from all knowledge disciplines. The web is filled with great quotes (as are some of your students). Simply post the quote and explain the context and/or vocabulary as is necessary. Introduce the critical thinking schema one at a time.  Then, have students take time to think, write, and interactively discuss the components of the critical thinking schema in response to the literary quotation.

Explore individual responses, paired responses, cooperative group responses, whole class responses, and your own responses as teacher-coach. Combine instructional methods. For example, starting off with a teacher “think aloud” on the Observation will stimulate paired written responses on the Interpretation, which will provoke terrific whole class discussions on the Application, which will engender creative and original individual ideas on the Revisions.

Teacher Think Alouds

To learn the four critical thinking schemata, teacher modeling is essential.  Creative thinking and problem-solving is certainly not exclusively a natural process. Developing thinkers do not have a priori understanding about how to effectively observe, interpret, apply, and revise. Thus, teachers play a crucial role in helping to develop good thinkers.

Teaching students to carry on an internal dialog while they think is vitally important. As “talking to the reader” significantly increases writing coherency and “talking to the author” significantly increases reading comprehension, so does internal dialog significantly increase effective thinking. In fact, good thinkers are adept at practicing internal metacognitive strategies.  Students who consciously practice these self-monitoring strategies develop better problem-solving skills than those who do not. Students need to learn how to flexibly adapt these strategies by observing teacher modeling and then practicing what has been demonstrated.

Think Aloud Sample Lesson

1. Select a short, high interest literary quotation from a story familiar to all students. Post the quotation on the board, LCD, Smartboard®, or overhead projector.

2. Tell students that they are to listen to your thoughts carefully, as you read the quotation and that they are not allowed to interrupt with questions during your reading. Read the quotation out loud and interrupt the reading frequently with concise comments about the vocabulary, word choice, syntax, and historical context. Re-read difficult parts and make comments about the ideas that are presented. Ask questions of the author, especially about parts of the quotation that you do not fully understand. Some teachers like to use other voices for the internal dialogue and their normal voices for the reading.

3. After reading and thinking out loud, ask students if they think they understood the quotation better because of your verbalized thoughts rather than just by passively reading without active thoughts. Their answer will be “Yes,” if you have read and thought out loud effectively.

The writer of this blog, Mark Pennington, is an educational author of teaching resources to differentiate instruction in the fields of reading and English-language arts. His comprehensive curricula: Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, Teaching Essay Strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary help teachers differentiate instruction with little additional teacher prep and/or training.

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