Teaching school children to think critically in language arts:
How and why?
Irene Y.Y. Fung[1], Michael A.R. Townsend, & Judy M. Parr
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference (16-18 September 2004), UMIST, Manchester, UK.
*This paper is a draft for discussion only, please do not quote or cite without contacting the authors first.
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Abstract
This paper reports a university-school collaborative action research project aimed to foster thinking critically in children at primary school. Based largely on the theoretical work of Richard Paul, researchers and teachers were working collaboratively to remodel the standard curriculum plans into ones that critical thinking principles, skills, and dispositions are incorporated into everyday classroom learning and instruction. The paper will overview the conceptual model, discuss the teachers’ experiences in translating the model into classroom practice, and present some findings on the effectiveness of this programme for the students – particularly with regard to the quality of their writing. Some implications and guidance for others wishing to use the model will also be presented.
Key words: critical thinking, thinking critically, creative writing, reasoning abilities, collaborative action research, infusion approach, enculturation approach, collaborative reasoning discussions
Introduction
Thinking Critically is an important achievement objective specified in the current national English curriculum for New Zealand schools. As a learning process that underpins all language functions – speaking, listening, reading, and writing, this achievement objective is central to the curriculum. However, it is clear from the international literature that there is confusion about what is meant by terms such as critical thinking and thinking critically. Further, few empirical studies can be found, both nationally and internationally, that inform teaching and learning critical thinking and thinking critically within school curriculum areas. Most research available in the literature is more relevant to teaching and learning at college and university levels, with unknown pedagogical implications for the primary classroom. It is, thus, not surprising that little is known about what school teachers could/should do to help their students to achieve this achievement objective. Nor is it surprising that teachers in New Zealand, and probably elsewhere, receive little support in terms of professional development, resources, or guidelines for teaching, monitoring and assessing student performance in Thinking Critically. It is likely that in many classrooms neither the teacher nor students know precisely what they mean when they refer to critical thinking or thinking critically, let alone have a shared understanding of how to facilitate student development in this respect. For these reasons, educational researchers have an important role to play in helping school teachers to clarify what it means to think critically; what skills are needed to think critically; and how teachers can monitor and evaluate student performance.
This paper reports a key part of the doctoral research project of the first author, which was a university-school collaborative action research that aimed to facilitate school teachers to foster thinking critically in primary school children. The conceptual model that guided student, curriculum, and teacher professional development was based largely on the theoretical work of Richard Paul and his colleagues at the Foundation for Critical Thinking. Collaborative action research was adopted as an inquiry method to examine the feasibility of translating the conceptual model into daily classroom practices. Specifically, the researcher and teachers worked together to remodel the standard curriculum plans into ones that critical thinking principles, skills, and dispositions are incorporated into everyday classroom learning and instruction. The paper will overview the conceptual model, discuss the teachers’ experiences in translating the model into classroom practice, and present some findings on the effectiveness of this programme for the students – particularly with regard to the quality of their writing. Some implications and guidance for others wishing to use the model will also be presented.
The Conceptual Model
The conceptual model that guided our university-school collaborative action research project is entitled Collaborative Reasoning: Critical Thinking Based Learning and Instruction (henceforth the model is referred to in its short form “CR-CT”). The CR-CT model (see Figure 1) has three key features. First, it espouses a substantive conception of critical thinking and critical thinking education. Second, its pedagogical approach is grounded in the current educational theories of effective teaching and learning. Third, it aims to guide student, curriculum, and teacher development in a consistent manner. The CR-CT model aims to achieve a set of macro- and micro-goals. Its macro goal is to develop students into better thinkers, learners, and persons. Its micro-goals include:
(1) to develop critical thinking skills and dispositions, language abilities, and content knowledge simultaneously so that they reinforce one another and enhance deep learning;
(2) to establish instructional coherence for students so that they can make sense of and see connection and order among the seeming randomness of various achievement objectives; and
(3) to communicate clearly performance expectations and standards to students so as to enable students to assess their own and their peers’ performance.
Student development towards both micro and macro goals is supposed to be facilitated by a synthesized instructional approach. The instructional approach adopted in the model is an integration of three components: (1) an infusion approach, (2) an enculturation approach, and (3) collaborative reasoning discussion as an interface for the integration of the first two components. An infusion approach emphasizes embedding critical thinking in content learning. An enculturation approach emphasizes creating and sustaining a social learning environment to instantiate the norms of language, values, expectations, dispositions, and skills of good thinking within the classroom and school. Learners are initiated into the culture, and supported to advance to their successful participation in the reasoned discourse and inquiry practices of the learning community. Collaborative reasoning discussions are important learning activities that provide participants the opportunities and platforms to engage in dialogical and dialectical thinking as they work collaboratively to resolve conflicting ideas or to solve complex problems. We believe that the three instructional components in the CR-CT model when integrated will compensate for each component’s shortcoming by the other two’s strengths.
Infusion Approach
An infusion approach aims to restructure the traditional way of curriculum instruction by embedding teaching of thinking and teaching for thinking into regular classroom content teaching and learning (Swartz & Perkins, 1989, p. 68), When critical thinking instruction is infused in subject-matter instruction, students are explicitly taught the general principles, skills and dispositions of critical thinking. Simultaneously, students are encouraged to apply to use the principles and skills to think critically as they learn the subject matter. The aim of this approach is to enhance deep, thoughtful, well understood subject-matter instruction (Ennis, 1989). Weinstein (2000) argues that critical thinking is most expediently introduced when it is embedded in school subjects already taught because “whatever the dispositions, skills, and strategies used, they need to be identified, contextualised, and exercised within the regular curriculum if critical thinking is to take a secure place in teaching and learning in the schools” (p. 40). The infusion component in the CR-CT model is based, in large part, on the version developed by Paul and his colleagues at the Foundation for Critical Thinking (Paul, Binker, & Weil, 1995). This version is selected because it is grounded in more substantive conception of critical thinking principles, skills and dispositions when compared with other versions articulated in the literature. A brief summary of Paul’s critical thinking principles, skills and dispositions is as follows.
Paul strongly emphasizes that good reasoning should meet some basic universal intellectual standards, for example, clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, logical reasons, depth, breadth, fairness, etc. Paul argues that these intellectual values, among others, are universal because they are embedded not only in the history of the intellectual and scientific communities but also in the self-assessing behaviour of reasonable persons in everyday life. Hence, these intellectual standards should be reasonable, defensible, objective, and appropriate to use to assess all kinds of reasoning (Paul, 1992; Paul, Elder, & Bartell, 1997; Paul & Nosich, 1992).
For analysing and assessing the quality of a reasoning process, Paul suggests we examine the eight elements of reasoning, which he considers to be universal because they are present in all reasoning of all subjects in all cultures for all time (Paul & Elder, 2001, p. 84). These eight elements of reasoning work together to shape reasoning and provide a general logic to the use of reason: (1) purpose, goal, or end in view, since all reasoning has a purpose; (2) question at issue or problem to be solved, since all reasoning is an attempt to figure something out, settle some question, or solve some problem; (3) point of view or frame of reference, since all reasoning is done from some viewpoint; (4) the empirical dimension of reasoning, since all reasoning is based on data, information, and/or evidence; (5) the conceptual dimension of reasoning, since all reasoning is expressed through and shaped by concepts and ideas; (6) assumptions, since all reasoning is based on assumptions; (7) implications and consequences, since all reasoning leads somewhere and has implications and consequences; and (8) inferences, since all reasoning contains inferences by which conclusions are drawn and meaning is given to data (Paul, 1992; Paul et al., 1997; Paul & Nosich, 1992).
Paul argues that we can slip into faulty reasoning just by one of the eight elements failing to meet the required intellectual standards. For example, if the reasoning is based on a faulty assumption, the whole reasoning process will only lead to a faulty conclusion, no matter how good the quality of the other elements of reasoning is. Similarly, the quality of the whole reasoning process is wanting if one fails to make it clear the purpose of his or her reasoning, or if one adopts an unrealistic or unfair goal. Hence, Paul recommends the use of intellectual standards to examine the quality of each of these eight elements of reasoning to enhance one’s ability to analyse and assess one’s own and other’s reasoning (Paul, 1992; Paul et al., 1997; Paul & Nosich, 1992).
Figure 1 Collaborative Reasoning: Critical Thinking Based Learning & Instruction.
Paul emphasizes that critical thinkers should be able to recognize the fallible nature of human thinking, and that strong-sense critical thinkers would consciously develop in themselves a set of intellectual traits: intellectual humility, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual empathy, and intellectual self-discipline, among others(Paul, 1995, p. 22). These intellectual traits are interdependent. Take the trait of intellectual humility as an example. To become aware of the limits of one’s knowledge, one needs the intellectual courage to face one’s own prejudices and ignorance. To discover one’s own prejudices, one must intellectually empathize with the reason within points of view with which one fundamentally disagrees. And one, typically, must persevere intellectually over a period of time, for reasoning within a point of view against which one is biased takes time and significant effort. One will not make that effort and time unless one both sees their justification and has the necessary confidence in reason to discern what is well-reasoned from what is not in the opposing viewpoint. Further, one must recognize an intellectual responsibility to be fair to views that one opposes. One must feel obliged to hear them in their strongest form to ensure that one is not condemning them out of ignorance or bias. At this point, one comes full circle back to where one began: the need for intellectual humility (Paul & Elder, 2001).
Instead of giving teachers a pre-package program, Paul et al.’s version of infusion approach encourages the teacher himself or herself to develop into a critical thinker by learning and using the principles and skills to enhance teaching practice (Paul et al., 1995). To do this, the teacher remodels his or her existing content lesson/curriculum plans to incorporate critical thinking principles and skills into everyday classroom learning and instruction (Paul et al., 1995). There are four steps to remodel a lesson/curriculum plan. First, the teacher reconceptualizes content learning as the learning of a distinctive mode of thinking that apprehends and assents to intellectual standards and values inherent in a specific discipline of inquiry. Second, the teacher examines his or her existing lesson/curriculum plans in terms of the topics and how they are covered, including questions and activities in which students are engaged. Third, the teacher critiques the original lesson/curriculum plans on the basis of his or her best understanding of the mode of thinking in that content area in terms of the eight elements of reasoning and their intellectual standard requirement as well as his or her best understanding of critical thinking principles and skills. Fourth, the teacher remodels the lesson/curriculum plans on the basis of his or her critique so that the learning activities and tasks can engage students in thinking and reasoning according to intellectual standings, and foster students’ self-assessment in their reasoning and exercising of judgment; so that they can master domain-specific content more proficiently, better produce and assess intellectual work, and act more reasonably and effectively.
The first author tried out this version of an infusion approach in her pilot study conducted in 2001 in a primary school in Auckland with a group of three teachers. She found that this approach relied too heavily on the individual teacher’s commitment to self-direct development of critical thinking in terms of its application to classroom practice. Without a sustained school-based professional development and support from a working environment within the school that valued critical-thinking-driven self-correction and self-improvement in teaching and learning, this approach was found to be extremely difficult to implement.
To address this issue, two modifications to Paul et al.’s infusion approach have been made. First, the modified version has incorporated two other components – enculturation approach and collaborative reasoning discussion. These are two well-researched methods for teaching thinking and learning. Second, it has turned teacher’s individual and haphazard remodelling work into a university-school collaborative action research project so the remodelled curriculum plans become more principle-driven, evidence-based, and more responsive to the constraints and affordances inherent in the school’s particular context. The authors agree that this modified version of infusion approach is more able to accommodate the third precondition for achieving our macro-goals, namely, promoting participation and contribution in the reasoned discourse of communities of critical inquiry and critical practice.