Critical Thinking

"Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder (2001) and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Professor Turkle received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University and is a licensed clinical psychologist. Professor Turkle is the author of Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud's French Revolution (Basic Books, 1978; MIT Press paper, 1981; second revised edition, Guilford Press, 1992); The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit (Simon and Schuster, 1984; Touchstone paper, 1985; second revised edition, MIT Press, 2005); Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (Simon and Schuster, 1995; Touchstone paper, 1997); and Simulation and Its Discontents (MIT Press, 2009). She is the editor of three books about things and thinking, all published by the MIT Press: Evocative Objects: Things We Think With (2007); Falling for Science: Objects in Mind (2008); and The Inner History of Devices (2008). "

"III. Research and Information Fluency \nStudents apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students: \n A. plan strategies to guide inquiry.\n B. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information\n C. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks. \n D. process data and report results. \n\nIV. Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making \nStudents use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, design and manage projects, solve problems, engineer solutions and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students: \n A. identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation. \n B. plan, design and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.\n C. collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.\n D. use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions. "

... not just any type of mistake in reasoning counts as a logical fallacy. To be a fallacy, a type of reasoning must be potentially deceptive, it must be likely to fool at least some of the people some of the time. Moreover, in order for a fallacy to be worth identifying and naming, it must be a common type of logical error. "Some years after I began to amass these files, I wondered just what I ought eventually to do with them, how best to organize the information within them, and in what form to make them available to others interested in fallacy studies. The present hypertext web version, The Fallacy Files, was first published on March 11th, 2001, and is the result of this score of years of research and fieldwork on the fallacies. "

Science News Share Blog Cite Print Email Bookmark Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis? ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2009) - As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles. See also: Mind & Brain Intelligence Educational Psychology Computers & Math Video Games Computer Graphics Science & Society Popular Culture Educational Policy Reference Computing power everywhere Webcast Computer-generated imagery Aptitude Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology, says Greenfield, who analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology, including research on multi-tasking and the use of computers, the Internet and video games. Her research was published this month in the journal Science. Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not, Greenfield said. How much should schools use new media, versus older techniques such as reading and classroom discussion? "No one medium is good for everything," Greenfield said. "If we want to develop a variety of skills, we need a balanced media diet. Each medium has costs and benefits in terms of what skills each develops." S

But what we admire and what we deliberately cultivate aren't the same. When researchers dig deeper, they find that many adults think of curiosity as a trait possessed by some but not others. Or they think that as long as the environment isn't too repressive, children's natural sense of inquiry will surface (Engel, 2011). In fact, when Hilary and I asked teachers to list which qualities were most important without giving them a list to choose from, almost none mentioned curiosity. Many teachers endorse curiosity when they're asked about it, but it isn't uppermost on their minds-or shaping their teaching plans.

Web 2.0 Tool correlated to Blooms and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences - share with teachers!

The News Literacy Project (NLP) is an innovative national educational program that mobilizes seasoned journalists to help middle school and high school students sort fact from fiction in the digital age.

 if you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say, "Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong."

 Ask the tough questions. Ask to see the evidence. Ask for the part of the story that's not being told. The answers shouldn't be simple, because the brain isn't simple. But that's not stopping us from trying to figure it out anyway.

Visible Thinking includes a number of ways of making students' thinking visible to themselves, to their peers, and to the teacher, so they get more engaged by it and come to manage it better for learning and other purposes. When thinking is visible in classrooms, students are in a position to be more metacognitive, to think about their thinking. When thinking is visible, it becomes clear that school is not about memorizing content but exploring ideas. Teachers benefit when they can see students' thinking because misconceptions, prior knowledge, reasoning ability, and degrees of understanding are more likely to be uncovered. Teachers can then address these challenges and extend students' thinking by starting from where they are.

"It's a pattern as old as time. Somebody makes an important scientific breakthrough, which explains a piece of the world. But then people get caught up in the excitement of this breakthrough and try to use it to explain everything." Good to read and raise your radar. Simplistic arguments for a complex topic. He offers 2 alternative views. What's that about?