My CCT Guidebook
Keeping the Critical and Creative Thinking Momentum Alive
Source Frangie, Mary T. "CCT Guidebook" 2004 / blf
Compiled by Mary T. Frangie
June 2004
Thank you
To Peter for your patience and inspiring guidance.
You have taught me to be patient with myself
To Jeremy for your support, and ever willingness to help
To Aza for being always prepared to share your knowledge with me
You are amazing role models and
have touched my thinking and my life forever.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1. Themes of Critical Thinking 2
2. Methodological Belief and Doubt 12
3. Multiple Intelligences 15
4. Problem Based Learning 24
5. Dialogue 33
6. Brainstorming & Generating Ideas 38
7. Graphic Organizers 54
8. Collaborative Groups 63
9. Research & Evaluation 72
Inspiration 85
6
Introduction
My CCT Guidebook is a compilation of critical and creative thinking tools whose sources include: books, articles, class notes, Internet, peer course work and professors notes/lectures/handouts etc. I have gathered and adapted this information but have not changed it. I have made my best attempt to accurately reference every author with their work, however it is possible that authors were unknown or a passage was erroneously cited.
This guidebook is my endeavor to retain and use some of the tools and knowledge I have been exposed to through the Critical and Creative Thinking Program at UMASS Boston and to support my thinking after I have left the program. You will find a collection of information – concepts, thinking tools, graphic organizers and strategies - that impacted me or helped transform my thinking. It is meant to be a reminder of information and processes I have already learned and will assist in keeping the critical and creative spirit alive within me.
Chapter 1: Critical Thinking
WHAT is it? - Critical Thinking is reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. This definition does not exclude creative thinking.
WHO is it for? - Any person in any profession or any circumstance of life can practice critical thinking. From science to arts, from business to teaching, critical thinking skills create a more efficient thinker and problem solver. Good thinkers explore, inquire, probe, into new areas, seek clarity, think critically and carefully, are organized thinkers. Use thinking powers in productive and probing ways.
WHY use this method? - We want to be clear about what is going on, to have reasonable basis for a judgment and make reasonable inferences. We want interaction with other people to be sensible and we want the dispositions to be operative.
Critical thinking involves both dispositions and abilities:
Source: Ennis (1987)
Critical Thinking Dispositions:
1. Seek a clear statement of the thesis or question
2. Seek reasons
3. Try to be well informed
4. Use and mention credible sources
5. Take into account the total situation
6. Try to remain relevant to the main point
7. Keep in mind the original and/or basic concern
8. Look for alternatives
9. Be open minded
a. Consider seriously other points of view (dialogical thinking).
b. Reason from premises with which one disagrees, without letting the disagreement interfere with one’s reasoning (suppositional thinking)
c. Withhold judgment when the evidence and reason are insufficient.
10. Take a position/change a position when the evidence and reasons are sufficient to do so
11. Seek as much precision as the subject permits
12. Deal in an orderly manner with the parts of a complex whole
13. Use one’s critical thinking abilities
14. Be sensitive to the feelings, level of knowledge, and degree of sophistication
Tendencies toward distinct patterns of thinking behaviors:
· Disposition to be curious and questioning
· Disposition to think broadly and adventurously
· Disposition to reason clearly and carefully
· Disposition to organize one’s thinking
· Disposition to give thinking time
Critical Thinking Abilities:
1. Focusing on a question
2. Analyzing arguments
3. Asking and answering questions of clarification and/or challenge
4. Judging the credibility of a source
5. Observing and judging observation reports
6. Deducing and judging deductions
7. Inducing and judging inductions
8. Making value judgments
9. Defining terms and judging definitions in 3 dimensions (a. form, b. definitional strategy, c. content)
10. Identifying assumptions
11. Deciding on an action
12. Interacting with others
* * * *
Critical Thinking stirs up thinking about current practices that are widely accepted and rarely questioned.
Source: Taylor (1999)
Deducing is concerned with whether something follows necessarily from something else while Inducing is inductive inference which includes generalizing and inferring to hypothesis that are supposed to explain the facts.
The preceding two definitions are confusing and need clarification. Deducing means “making a specific prediction based on a general principle believed to be true”. Inducing means “forming a general theory of explanation based on specific observations that have been made previously”.
Background knowledge is absolutely essential for critical thinking. You cannot expect someone who is ignorant to make a best explanation inference.
In a best explanation inference the conclusion must explain the facts and must be consistent with any facts. There must be no plausible alternative explanations and the conclusion should be plausible.
* * * *
Reasoning
Source: Taylor (1999)
Most arguments make both an internal and external claim. In the internal claim, premises connect with the conclusion - “Given the premise, the conclusion must be true” or “If the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false.” In the external claim, premises are consistent with fact -“Are all premises true? Have I overlooked any critical details?”
Arguments in which the internal claim is correct are said to be valid and incorrect internal claims are invalid. A sound argument is a valid argument (the internal assessment) with true premises (the external assessment). An unsound argument is a valid argument with one or more false premises. Unsound or invalid arguments could have true conclusions (but this would be luck!).
Good Reasoning:
< Comes from fact (established truth)
< Premises are independent of the conclusion (from reasons to conclusion)
< Premises and arguments relevant (conclusion must depend on premises)
< Premises adequately support their conclusion (conclusions exactly reflect strength of their premise)
< Premises are more accessible than the conclusion (the premises unfold the unknown, unclear etc. So much of the argument amounts to explanation)
< Goes somewhere (otherwise evasive, rambling)
< Is open (greater probability of the truth emerging)
Establishing Causality:
Causal argument is reasoning which purpose to test whether A causes B.
Particular – this individual thing causes something OR
General – this type of thing causes this other type
A caused B
A cured B
A prevented B
All causal
Also implied that the situation is one we have an interest in controlling. “A could cause B” “A did cause B” “A does cause B”.
Good causal arguments contain a congruence aspect; they state a connection between occurrences or phenomena. Also, a good causal argument always contains an exclusion aspect, a ruling out.
Analysis of information needs to be more focused on to help learners learn to think more critically and develop the analytical skills.
* * * *
Metacognition
Source: Costa (nd)
Metacognition is our ability to know what we know and what we don’t know. It is our ability to plan a strategy for producing what information is needed, to be conscious of our own steps and strategies during the act of problem solving, and to reflect on and evaluate the productiveness of our own thinking.
Major components – developing a plan of action. Marinating that plan in mind over a period of time, then reflecting back on evaluating the plan upon it’s completion.
Metacognitive Reflection
Source: Greenwald (1999)
The following kinds of questions promote the ability to learn, monitor and evaluate your own work. Using a journal to record your responses is helpful.
· What was I expected to do?
· What are some examples of what I did well?
· What parts of this process/assignment were difficult? Why?
· If I were to do this over again, what would I do differently?
· What specific strategies helped me accomplish my goal?
· What is an example of my being aware of using a particular kind of thinking?
· What are some connections between this learning and other subjects?
· How does what I have learned relate to other things I do?
· How has this problem helped me become a better problem solver?
· How well do I think I did for this assignment/project?
* * * *
Heuristics
Source: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/journey.html,
Heuristics are propositions that stimulate, orient or guide our inquiries yet break down when applied too widely. Critical heuristics are ones that place established facts, theories and practices in tension with alternatives. Critical heuristics intended to be easy for the audience to absorb and adapt. At the same time they open up issues pointing to greater complexity and to further work needed in particular cases.
* * * *
Constructivist Listening
Source: Weissglass. (1990)
· Constructivist Listening is a valuable critical thinking tool that enables the talker to flush out ideas through deep reflection. As the listener rephrases the talker’s ideas, the talker realizes where clarity is needed.
· For the benefit of the talker. Goals are to encourage talker to reflect on meanings of events and ideas; express and work through feelings that are interfering with clearer thinking; construct new meanings; and make decisions. Cognitive and affective processing are necessary for increased understanding and at times it is difficult to distinguish between the two.
· The goal of constructivist listening is to facilitate self-organization.
· It is not passive listening. Instead the listener actively thinks about the talker and helps the talker to explore extensively her thoughts and feelings by asking appropriate questions that focus the talker’s attention. Help the talker express and explore rather than intellectualize or retreat into superficiality.
* * * *
Seven Sins of Memory
Source: Schacter (2001)
Memory sins occur frequently in every day life and can have serious consequences for all of us.
Transience, absent-mindedness, and blocking are sins of omission: we fail to bring to mind a desired fact or idea.
Transience
refers to a weakening or loss of memory over time. It’s probably not difficult for you to remember now what you have been doing for the past several hours, but if I ask you about the same activities six weeks, six months, or six years from now, chances are you’ll remember less and less. Transience is a basic feature of memory, and the culprit in many memory problems.
Absent-mindedness
involves a breakdown at the interface between attention and memory. Absent-minded memory errors – misplacing keys or eyeglasses, or forgetting a lunch appointment – typically occur because we are preoccupied with distracting issues or concerns, and don’t focus attention on what we need to remember. The desired information isn’t lost over time, it is either never registered in memory to begin with, or not sought after at the moment is needed, because attention is focused elsewhere.
Blocking
entails a thwarted search for information that may be desperately trying to retrieve. We’ve all failed to produce a name to accompany a familiar face. This frustrating feeling happens even though we are attending carefully to the task at hand and even though the desired name has not faded from our minds – as we become acutely aware when we unexpectedly retrieve the blocked name hours or days later.
Sins of misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence are all sins of commission: some form of memory is present, but it is either incorrect or unwarranted.
Misattribution
involves assigning a memory to the wrong source: mistaking fantasy for reality, or incorrectly remembering that a friend told you a bit of trivia that you actually read about in a newspaper. Misattribution is far more common than most people realize, and has potentially profound implications in legal settings.
Suggestibility
refers to memories that are implanted as a result of leading questions, comments, or suggestions when a person is trying to call up a past experience. Suggestibility is especially relevant to the legal system.
Bias
reflects the powerful influences of our current knowledge and beliefs on how we remember our pasts. We often edit or entirely rewrite our previous experiences – unknowingly and unconsciously – in light of what we now know or believe. The result can be a skewed rendering of a specific incident, or even of an extended period in our lives, which says more about how we feel now than about what happened then.
Persistence
entails repeated recall of disturbing information or events that we would prefer to banish from our minds altogether: remembering what we cannot forget, even though we wish that we could. Everyone is familiar with persistence to some degree: recall the last time that you suddenly awoke at 3:00 am unable to keep out of your mind a painful blunder on the job or a disappointing result on something important. In more extreme cases of serious depression or traumatic experience, persistence can be disabling and even life threatening.
* * * *
The R’s of the CCT Experience
Each R is an element of Critical Thinking. Practicing all of them encourages your development as a critical thinker.
Source: http://www.cct.umb.edu/CCTRs.pdf
The Novice Sage Manifesto
Mary Frangie
Spring 1999
If there is one basic rule to critical thinking that I, as a novice, have learned it is DON'T BE AFRAID!
Don't be afraid to ask questions and test ideas, ponder and wonder. There are no wrong questions...but some questions are better than others. Pose questions that further thinking, give you a clear perspective, look for alternative ideas and open doors. Formulate questions that allow greater conversation and additional thinking and give reasons. Find ways to take another avenue when you think you've come to a dead end.
Don't be afraid to have a voice and use it! Listen to all the voices you have and give each of them a chance to be heard. Really hear what each voice has to offer you and the wisdom that comes from each. Give your voices the opportunity to listen to other voices and learn, explore and ask questions.
Don't be afraid to consider other perspectives and put yourself in some one else's shoes. Empathy with the world around you will create greater understanding for yourself. The more information you acquire the greater your knowledge base to forge ahead with new ideas and new thinking.
Don't be afraid to be open to the composite of ideas that surround you (if you look for them). Learning to really understand and empathize with other perspectives will give you a greater knowledge base from which to interpret your own world and formulate thoughts. Never rule anything out until you have sincerely thought it through and made decisions about it.
Don't be afraid to utilize help when you need it. Create a support system that is safe and encouraging. Share ideas in a nonjudgmental, creative and nurturing environment. Go to the 'experts' when you get stuck.
Don't be afraid to question the experts. Ask yourself questions about the expert's paradigm or agenda, but don't become completely skeptical. Learn to balance what you doubt with what you believe or you will find yourself going nowhere fast.
Don't be afraid to gain knowledge through reading, investigating and experiencing. Be as broad as possible so as to have the advantage of knowledge of many sides.
Don't be afraid to listen to the stories being told everyday. Suspend your biases and judgments and listen to those speaking. Encourage those who are not speaking to do so. Facilitate them to find their own voices and to speak freely about their experiences and emotions. Their knowledge becomes your knowledge and all of our knowledge collectively is worth more than any of us singly.
Don't be afraid to recognize your assumptions. Know that every person comes from his or her own unique point of view and learn be cognizant of yours. Allow yourself to confront and challenge your presuppositions in a constructive manner. We can never get away from having biases but confronting them creates a more conducive environment for critical thinking.
Don't be afraid to seek order through strategic thinking. Amidst all of this idea searching, open mindedness and novelty, create concrete ways to strategize, stay focused and clarify. Allow your self to have inner dialogues that reflect and evaluate.
Don't be afraid to re-conceptualize what you know to be true. Relish the epiphanies that will come to you as you begin this process of critical thinking. Tie yourself to your beliefs but allow the changes that will come to enhance your understanding rather than abandon it completely. Then again, if it makes sense to, discard old ideas and adopt new ones.
Do all of this in an atmosphere of reason and reflectiveness. Learn basic principles of logic and inference and learn to apply them to daily life. State arguments that are valid and sound and make connections to give credibility. Understand the difference between cause and correlation and always remember that correlation does not equal causality.
Without a solid and broad basis of knowledge you will be hard pressed to think critically about your environment. Allow your anxieties to explore truer meaning and then work with that new meaning to subdue the anxiety and to move to a next level of learning.
Above all, approach life as an explorer looking to capture all the information possible about the well known, little known and unknown and keep an open mind to what you uncover!