How do you Teach Critical Thinking?
Just as there are many reasons for teaching critical thinking there are varying methodologies to teach critical thinking skills ranging from teacher approaches, lesson planning, and school-wide initiatives.
- Classroom Approaches: The General, Infusion, and Immersion Approaches
- Bailin's Lessons Adapted for Critical Thought
- Kassem's CRTA School-wide Model
Classroom Approaches
Lessons
CRTA Model
Alongside individual efforts to teach critical thought there exist school-wide models. Kassem’s CRTA Model is one such approach where CRTA is an acronym that stands for “create the right climate, reflect about thinking skills and revise instructional objectives, teach thinking skills/dispositions explicitly, and assess critical thinking for real-life use (2000).” Kassem outlines and implements an inclusive approach to teaching critical thought that focuses on aspects within and outside individual classrooms while systematically altering how teachers and student view learning.
Create the Right Climate
The initial step for this model is to create a favorable culture, both in the class and in the staffroom. Paramount is the institution of a non-threatening environment for both students and teachers. Students must feel free to question and probe content without fear of reproach and teachers must be empowered to try new methods of teaching and structuring their classrooms. “Any teacher, no matter at what level, who simply agrees or disagrees, just demonstrates and explains, cuts off student responses, uses reproof rather than praise, shakes the learner’s confidence in the value of new ideas or uses basically only retrieval or recall types of questions inhibits thinking (Pithers & Soden, 2000).” Teachers must be sure to model positive attitudes and create classroom opportunities where students can successfully demonstrate their critical thought. From a teacher’s perspective, the most important aspect in creating the right culture is the adequate allotment of time and resources. Time and money must be invested in teaching the teachers suitable skills and theory so that they, in turn, can invest their own class time and resources effectively. By creating a conducive school climate, modeling, and investing resources a school can begin to implement the CRTA model.