July 19 2011Nishtha Pant

Module 5 Research

Critical Thinking Skills

Why Do High School Students need them

[Critical thinking is a] desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.

~ Francis Bacon (1605)

“Appropriately focused metacognitive instruction increases practical intelligence, thus enabling students to gain greater insights into their learning strategies”

(Flavell, 1979; Lambert, 2000)

Problem Statement

Lack of Critical Thinking Skills are impeding the growth of High School Students

What are Thinking Skills

Skills in problem solving Skills in making inquiries Skills in making decisions Skills in making judgments Skills in organizing and managing

Critical Thinking Skills -

Purposeful Should be taught Not just subject matters

Benefits of Thinking Skills

Solve problems Make decisions Adapt Be successful

President Obama’s vision

Promoting world-class academic standards and a curriculum that fosters -

critical thinking, problem solving, and the innovative use of knowledge to prepare students for college and career

Foundation for Critical Thinking

Socratic teaching- give students questions, not answers

Changing one’s habits of thought is a long-range project

(criticalthinking.org)

Research in critical thinking demonstrates

Critical Thinking is not presently being effectively taught at the high school, college and university levels, and yet

it is possible to do so.

Educator Research

Researches done in Universities in US, UK and Indonesia point towards the importance of teaching thinking skills to students.

The purpose of this research is to :

examine impact of teaching critical thinking skills on standardized test scores of students in science classroom.

help Educators improve student learning by incorporating thinking skills activities in every day class

Significance of study

Action research done by teachers in the classrooms

Control and experimental classes

Students interested in the study

Students motivated and ready to learn

Results from Benchmark

Group 1 Group 2 Group 356

58

60

62

64

66

68

70

72

74

DecFeb

CLASS

PERCENTILES

Conclusion

Benchmark test results showed marked improvement in scores

TAKS test results slightly better in “Nature of Science” problems than the control group

Bibliography Joseph, N. (2010). Metacognition Needed:

Teaching Middle and High School Students to Develop Strategic Learning Skills. [Article]. Preventing school failure, 54(2), 99-102

Guzzetti, B. (2009).Thinking Like a Forensic Scientist: Learning With Academic and Everyday Texts. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(3), 192-203

Sampson, V & Gleim, L. (2009). Argument- Driven Inquiry to Promote the Understanding of Important Concepts & Practices in Biology. The American Biology Teacher, 71(8), 465-471

Bibliography

Cosgrove, R (2010).Critical Thinking: Lessons from a Continuing Professional Development Initiative in a London Comprehensive Secondary School. University of Cambridge - Cambridge, UK .Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/research/index.cfm