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CriticalThinking.org - The Role of Questions in Teaching, Thinking and Learning - 1 views

  • Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions
  • every field stays alive only to the extent that fresh questions are generated and taken seriously as the driving force in a process of thinking
  • To think through or rethink anything, one must ask questions that stimulate our thought.
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  • thinking begins with respect to some content only when questions are generated by both teachers and students.
  • No questions equals no understanding. Superficial questions equals superficial understanding. Most students typically have no questions. They not only sit in silence, their minds are silent as well. Hence, the questions they do have tend to be superficial and ill-informed. This demonstrates that most of the time they are not thinking through the content they are presumed to be learning. This demonstrates that most of the time they are not learning the content they are presumed to be learning.
  • Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. Answers on the other hand, often signal a full stop in thought. Only when an answer generates a further question does thought continue its life as such.
    • Joy Quah Yien-ling
       
      An entirely radical and unique approach to assessment. I wonder if anyone has tried it before. It will be the most demanding exam ever.
  • Feeding students endless content to remember (that is, declarative sentences to remember) is akin to repeatedly stepping on the brakes in a vehicle that is, unfortunately, already at rest. Instead, students need questions to turn on their intellectual engines and they need to generate questions from our questions to get their thinking to go somewhere. Thinking is of no use unless it goes somewhere, and again, the questions we ask determine where our thinking goes.
  • It is possible to give students an examination on any subject by just asking them to list all of the questions that they have about a subject, including all questions generated by their first list of questions.
    • Diane Gusa
       
      HMMMMMMMM I would like to think about this and maybe try it.
    • Diane Gusa
       
      My sticky note got "stuck" in the wrong place...should be down by testing by students listing all the questions they had in course.
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    CriticalThinking.org - The Role of Questions in Teaching, Thinking and Learning
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    One of the reasons that instructors tend to overemphasize "coverage" over "engaged thinking" is that they assume that answers can be taught separate from questions. Indeed, so buried are questions in established instruction that the fact that all assertions - all statements that this or that is so - are implicit answers to questions is virtually never recognized. For example, the statement that water boils at 100 degrees centigrade is an answer to the question "At what temperature centigrade does water boil?"
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Critical Thinking Testing and Assessment - 0 views

  • Rubrics for assessing student reasoning abilities. A useful tool in assessing the extent to which students are reasoning well through course content.  
  • Critical Thinking Grid.doc
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    This is a great source for utilizing critical thinking in designing instruction as well as assessing students' critical thinking skills.
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CriticalThinking.org - Defining Critical Thinking - 2 views

  • Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
  • taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking andimposing intellectual standards upon them
    • Joan Erickson
       
      still vague
  • raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly andprecisely; gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas tointerpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems
    • Joan Erickson
       
      OK I get it
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    Describes all that we have been doing!
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http://www.criticalthinking.org/files/Criteria%20for%20CT%20Assignments.doc - 0 views

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    critical thinking assessment checklist We should write assessment questions with these elements in mind. They help foster students ability to think critically
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http://www.criticalthinking.org/files/Critical%20Thinking%20Grid.doc - 0 views

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    rubrics for assessing students' reasoning
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Hedy's reflective blog | Online course blog - 0 views

  • I feel like I have already learned a great deal.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      what did you learn?
    • Hedy Lowenheim
       
      To start with many new Web 2.0 tools, that pre-occupied me for a major part of the first week of class. No doubt I struggled with setting up the blog, learning diigo, voicethread, etc. But throughout the frustration, I really enjoyed learning how to use these new tools and very happy to now have them in my elearning toolset! It is very exciting to see all of the great interactive tools available on the web to aid with online teaching an learning!
  • http://ualbany.mrooms.net/file.php/242/readings/v8n3_pelz.pdf http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/the-role-of-questions-in-teaching-thinking-and-learning/524
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      hedy: can you make links live in your blog? they make interaction and reading your blog more engaging. : )
  • Maree’s post.
    • alexandra m. pickett
       
      self assessment???
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Research Findings and Policy Recommendations - 0 views

  • 1) Though the overwhelming majority (89%) claimed critical thinking to be a primary objective of their instruction, only a small minority (19%) could give a clear explanation of what critical thinking is. Furthermore, according to their answers, only 9% of the respondents were clearly teaching for critical thinking on a typical day in class.
  • 5) Although the majority (67%) said that their concept of critical thinking is largely explicit in their thinking, only 19% could elaborate on their concept of thinking.
  • 6) Although the vast majority (89%) stated that critical thinking was of primary importance to their instruction, 77% of the respondents had little, limited or no conception of how to reconcile content coverage with the fostering of critical thinking.
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    Research on Critical Thinking in Higher Education classrooms
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Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory - 0 views

  • We must recognize the importance of challenging our students — in a supportive way — to recognize both that they are thinkers and that their thinking often goes awry. We must lead class discussions about thinking. We must explicitly model thinking (e.g., thinking aloud through a problem). We must design classroom activities that explicitly require students to think about their thinking. We must have students examine both poor and sound thinking, talking about the differences. We must introduce students to the parts of thinking and the intellectual standards necessary to assess thinking. We must introduce the idea of intellectual humility to students; that is, the idea of becoming aware of our own ignorance. Perhaps children can best understand the importance of this idea through their concept of the "know-it-all," which comes closest to their recognition of the need to be intellectually humble.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      This is a great foundation for an icebreaker module.
  • recognize that they have basic problems in their thinking and make initial attempts to better understand how they can take charge of and improve it.
  • begin to modify some of their thinking, but have limited insight into deeper levels of the trouble inherent in their thinking. Most importantly, they lack a systematic plan for improving their thinking, hence their efforts are hit and miss.
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  • appreciate a critique of their powers of thought.
  • we must teach in such a way as to help them to see that we all need to regularly practice good thinking to become good thinkers.
  • We must emphasize the importance of beginning to take charge of the parts of thinking and applying intellectual standards to thinking. We must teach students to begin to recognize their native egocentrism when it is operating in their thinking.
  • since practicing thinkers are only beginning to approach the improvement of their thinking in a systematic way, they still have limited insight into deeper levels of thought, and thus into deeper levels of the problems embedded in thinking.
  • need for systematic practice in thinking.
  • Practicing thinkers recognize the need for systematicity of critical thinking and deep internalization into habits. They clearly recognize the natural tendency of the human mind to engage in egocentric thinking and self-deception.
  • regularly monitor
  • articulate the strengths and weaknesses
  • often recognize their own egocentric thinking as well as egocentric thinking on the part of others. Furthermore practicing thinkers actively monitor their thinking to eliminate egocentric thinking, although they are often unsuccessful.
  • intellectual perseverance
  • have the intellectual humility required to realize that thinking in all the domains of their lives must be subject to scrutiny, as they begin to approach the improvement of their thinking in a systematic way.
  • We must teach in such a way that students come to understand the power in knowing that whenever humans reason, they have no choice but to use certain predictable structures of thought: that thinking is inevitably driven by the questions, that we seek answers to questions for some purpose, that to answer questions, we need information, that to use information we must interpret it (i.e., by making inferences), and that our inferences, in turn, are based on assumptions, and have implications, all of which involves ideas or concepts within some point of view. We must teach in such a way as to require students to regularly deal explicitly with these structures (more on these structure presently).
  • Recognizing the "moves" one makes in thinking well is an essential part of becoming a practicing thinker.
  • Students should be encouraged to routinely catch themselves thinking both egocentrically and sociocentrically.
  • advanced thinkers not only actively analyze their thinking in all the significant domains of their lives, but also have significant insight into problems at deeper levels of thought. While advanced thinkers are able to think well across the important dimensions of their lives, they are not yet able to think at a consistently high level across all of these dimensions. Advanced thinkers have good general command over their egocentric nature. They continually strive to be fair-minded. Of course, they sometimes lapse into egocentrism and reason in a one-sided way.
  • develop depth of understanding
  • nsight into deep levels of problems in thought: consistent recognition, for example, of egocentric and sociocentric thought in one’s thinking, ability to identify areas of significant ignorance and prejudice, and ability to actually develop new fundamental habits of thought based on deep values to which one has committed oneself.
    • Irene Watts-Politza
       
      What do YOU believe in? How and why do you believe it?
  • successfully engaged in systematically monitoring the role in their thinking of concepts, assumptions, inferences, implications, points of view, etc., and hence have excellent knowledge of that enterprise. Advanced thinkers are also knowledgeable of what it takes to regularly assess their thinking for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicalness, etc.
  • critique their own plan for systematic practice, and improve it thereby.
  • articulate the strengths and weaknesses in their thinking.
  • reduce the power of their egocentric thoughts.
  • a) the intellectual insight and perseverance to actually develop new fundamental habits of thought based on deep values to which one has committed oneself, b) the intellectual integrity to recognize areas of inconsistency and contradiction in one’s life, c) the intellectual empathy necessary to put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them, d) the intellectual courage to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints toward which one has strong negative emotions, e) the fair-mindedness necessary to approach all viewpoints without prejudice, without reference to one’s own feelings or vested interests. In the advanced thinker these traits are emerging, but may not be manifested at the highest level or in the deepest dimensions of thought.
  • our students will not become advanced thinkers — if at all — until college or beyond. Nevertheless, it is important that they learn what it would be to become an advanced thinker. It is important that they see it as an important goal. We can help students move in this direction by fostering their awareness of egocentrism and sociocentrism in their thinking, by leading discussions on intellectual perseverance, intellectual integrity, intellectual empathy, intellectual courage, and fair-mindedness. If we can graduate students who are practicing thinkers, we will have achieved a major break-through in schooling. However intelligent our graduates may be, most of them are largely unreflective as thinkers, and are unaware of the disciplined habits of thought they need to develop to grow intellectually as a thinker.
  • have systematically taken charge of their thinking, but are also continually monitoring, revising, and re-thinking strategies for continual improvement of their thinking. They have deeply internalized the basic skills of thought, so that critical thinking is, for them, both conscious and highly intuitive.
  • As Piaget would put it, they regularly raise their thinking to the level of conscious realization.
  • Accomplished thinkers are deeply committed to fair-minded thinking, and have a high level of, but not perfect, control over their egocentric nature.
  • To make the highest levels of critical thinking intuitive in every domain of one’s life. To internalize highly effective critical thinking in an interdisciplinary and practical way.
  • Accomplished thinkers are not only actively and successfully engaged in systematically monitoring the role in their thinking of concepts, assumptions, inferences, implications, points of view, etc., but are also regularly improving that practice. Accomplished thinkers have not only a high degree of knowledge of thinking, but a high degree of practical insight as well. Accomplished thinkers intuitively assess their thinking for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicalness, etc. Accomplished thinkers have deep insights into the systematic internalization of critical thinking into their habits. Accomplished thinkers deeply understand the role that egocentric and sociocentric thinking plays in the lives of human beings, as well as the complex relationship between thoughts, emotions, drives and behavior.
  • Naturally inherent in master thinkers are all the essential intellectual characteristics, deeply integrated. Accomplished thinkers have a high degree of intellectual humility, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, intellectual empathy, intellectual autonomy, intellectual responsibility and fair-mindedness. Egocentric and sociocentric thought is quite uncommon in the accomplished thinker, especially with respect to matters of importance. There is a high degree of integration of basic values, beliefs, desires, emotions, and action.
  • For the foreseeable future the vast majority of our students will never become accomplished thinkers 
  • important that they learn what it would be to become an accomplished thinker. It is important that they see it as a real possibility, if practicing skills of thinking becomes a characteristic of how they use their minds day to day.
  • Thus it is vital that an intellectual vocabulary for talking about the mind be established for teachers; and that teachers lead discussions in class designed to teach students, from the point of view of intellectual quality, how their minds work, including how they can improve as thinkers.
  • in elementary school an essential objective would be that students become "beginning" thinkers, that is, that they will be taught so that they discover that they are thinkers and that their thinking, like a house, can be well or poorly constructed. This "discovery" stage--the coming to awareness that all of us are thinkers--needs to be given the highest priority. Middle school and High School, on this model, would aim at helping all students become, at least, "practicing" thinkers. Of course, students discover thinking only by discovering that thinking has "parts." Like learning what "Legos" are, we learn as we come to discover that there are various parts to thinking and those parts can be put together in various ways. Unlike Legos, of course, thinking well requires that we learn to check how the parts of thinking are working together to make sure they are working properly: For example, have we checked the accuracy of information? Have we clarified the question?
  • We are not advocating here that teachers withdraw from academic content. Rather we are suggesting that critical thinking provides a way of deeply embracing content intellectually. Within this view students come to take intellectual command of how they think, act, and react while they are learning...history, biology, geography, literature, etc., how they think, act, and react as a reader, writer, speaker, and listener, how they think, act, and react as a student, brother, friend, child, shopper, consumer of the media, etc.
  • to effectively learn any subject in an intellectually meaningful way presupposes a certain level of command over one’s thinking, which in turn presupposes understanding of the mind’s processes.
  • Thinking is inevitably driven by the questions we seek to answer, and those questions we seek to answer for some purpose. To answer questions, we need information which is in fact meaningful to us only if we interpret it (i.e., by making inferences). Our inferences, in turn, are based on assumptions and require that we use ideas or concepts to organize the information in some way from some point of view. Last but not least, our thinking not only begins somewhere intellectually (in certain assumptions), it also goes somewhere---that is, has implications and consequences.
  • Thus whenever we reason through any problem, issue, or content we are well advised to take command of these intellectual structures: purpose, question, information, inferences, assumptions, concepts, point of view, and implications. By explicitly teaching students how to take command of the elements of reasoning we not only help them take command of their thinking in a general way; we also provide a vehicle which effectively enables them to critically think through the content of their classes, seeing connections between all of what they are learning.
  • if I am to develop my critical thinking ability I must both "discover" my thinking and must intellectually take charge of it. To do this I must make a deep commitment to this end.
  • the human mind, left to its own, pursues that which is immediately easy, that which is comfortable, and that which serves its selfish interests. At the same time, it naturally resists that which is difficult to understand, that which involves complexity, that which requires entering the thinking and predicaments of others.
  • When we learn together as developing thinkers, when we all of us seek to raise our thinking to the next level, and then to the next after that, everyone benefits, and schooling then becomes what it was meant to be, a place to discover the power of lifelong learning. This should be a central goal for all our students--irrespective of their favored mode of intelligence or learning style. It is in all of our interest to accept the challenge: to begin, to practice, to advance as thinkers.
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Defining Critical Thinking - 0 views

  • Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.
  • Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.
  • Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor.
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  • Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way.  People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically.   They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked.  They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies.  They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking.  They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason.  They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest.  They strive to improve the world in whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society.   At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so.  They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others.  They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement.  They embody the Socratic principle:  The unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world. ~ Linda Elder, September, 2007
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    Different ways to conceptualize a definition for critical thinking.
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Universal Intellectual Standards - 0 views

  • Universal intellectual standards are standards which must be applied to thinking whenever one is interested in checking the quality of reasoning about a problem, issue, or situation. To think critically entails having command of these standards. To help students learn them, teachers should pose questions which probe student thinking; questions which hold students accountable for their thinking; questions which, through consistent use by the teacher in the classroom, become internalized by students as questions they need to ask themselves. The ultimate goal, then, is for these questions to become infused in the thinking of students, forming part of their inner voice, which then guides them to better and better reasoning. While there are many universal standards, the following are some of the most essential:
  • CLARITY: Could you elaborate further on that point? Could you express that point in another way? Could you give me an illustration? Could you give me an example? Clarity is the gateway standard.
  • ACCURACY: Is that really true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that is true?  A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in "Most dogs are over 300 pounds in weight."
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  • PRECISION: Could you give more details? Could you be more specific? A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise, as in "Jack is overweight." (We don’t know how overweight Jack is, one pound or 500 pounds.)
  • RELEVANCE: How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue? A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at issue.
  • DEPTH: How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you taking into account the problems in the question? Is that dealing with the most significant factors? A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is, lack depth).
  • BREADTH: Do we need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this question? What would this look like from a conservative standpoint? What would this look like from the point of view of . . .?  A line of reasoning may be clear accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth (as in an argument from either the conservative or liberal standpoint which gets deeply into an issue, but only recognizes the insights of one side of the question.)
  • LOGIC: Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that follow? But before you implied this, and now you are saying that; how can both be true? When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination, the thinking is "logical." When the combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory in some sense or does not "make sense," the combination is not logical.
  • FAIRNESS:  Do I have a vested interest in this issue?  Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints of others?  Human think is often biased in the direction of the thinker - in what are the perceived interests of the thinker.  Humans do not naturally consider the rights and needs of others on the same plane with their own rights and needs.  We therefore must actively work to make sure we are applying the intellectual standard of fairness to our thinking.  Since we naturally see ourselves as fair even when we are unfair, this can be very difficult.  A commitment to fairmindedness is a starting place.
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    I think this is helpful in assessing the quality of critical thinking.
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Distinguishing Between Inferences and Assumptions - 0 views

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    Articles on critical thinking
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Critical Thinking: Teaching Students How to Study and Learn (Part Four) - 0 views

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    How To Understand The Role of Questions in Thinking & Learning
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The Role of Socratic Questioning... - 0 views

  • Respond to all answers with a further question (that calls upon the respondent to develop his/her thinking in a fuller and deeper way)
  • Treat all thoughts as in need of development
  • Recognize that any thought can only exist fully in a network of connected thoughts. Stimulate students — through your questions — to pursue those connections
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  • Recognize that all thought reflects an agenda. Assume that you do not fully understand the thought until you understand the agenda behind it. (What are you trying to accomplish in saying this? What is your central aim in this line of thought?)
  • Recognize that all thoughts presuppose an information base. Assume that you do not fully understand the thought until you understand the background information that supports or informs it. (What information are you basing that comment on? What experience convinced you of this? How do we know this information is accurate?)
  • Recognize that all thought takes place within a point of view or frame of reference. Assume that you do not fully understand a thought until you understand the point of view or frame of reference which places it on an intellectual map. (From what point of view are you looking at this? Is there another point of view we should consider?)
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    SOcratic Method Ideas Recognize that all thought reflects an agenda. Assume that you do not fully understand the thought until you understand the agenda behind it. (What are you trying to accomplish in saying this? What is your central aim in this line of thought?)
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    One of the reasons that instructors tend to overemphasize "coverage" over "engaged thinking" is that they do not fully appreciate the role of questions in teaching content. Consequently, they assume that answers can be taught separate from questions.
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