Group items tagged

Scriven and Paul begin to define critical thinking as ‘‘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’’ (quoted in Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2009, para. 2).

Bloom (1956) offered one of the first comprehensive elaborations of these important skills. Since the conception of Bloom’s Taxonomy, his colleagues (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) have carried on his work and developed a two-dimensional taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing student learning outcomes. The Knowledge Dimension identifies four types of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. The second aspect of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the Cognitive Process Dimension, outlines six ways of thinking (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create) and their many subprocesses.

For the purposes of this article, critical thinking is defined as the practice and development of an active, conscious, purposeful awareness of what one encounters both in the classroom and in the outside world. It is a kind of thinking and learning that demands an investment in personal and communal learning on the part of the student and teacher. Critical thinking does not discount the emotional or gut responses that everyone has. Rather, it complements and enters into dialogue with them so that reasoned judgments are possible.

It is NOT Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, or any other online community that is the problem. It is the people who are out of touch with today's youth.

All I can say is AMEN! I blogged about this last year, as a matter of fact, because it ticks me off that we would have all of this great technology, but NOT use it for expanded educational opportunities that we might not have otherwise had. I love extended the teachable moment beyond the "year" that I'm given with a set of students. Just because they've come and gone doesn't mean my responsibility to continue to teach them if the opportunity presents itself is over. I am a teacher. Not from 7:30 to 2:30. Not just on the weekdays. Not just in my classroom. I am a teacher ALL. OF. THE. TIME. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, whether physical or virtual. We should be more worried about the teachers (and critics) who aren't nearly so well connected

"teachers should have have relations with students, not a relationship."