Yes, a nutshell presentation would be good -- would give us the chance for comparison and comment
Janet
Dr. Janet Nepkie
Professor of Music
and Music Industry
State University College
Oneonta, NY 13820
ph: (607) 436 3425
fax: 607 436 2718
> ----------
> From: Koeddermann, Achim ([log in to unmask])
> Reply To: Teaching Breakfast List
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 7:42 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: RETHINKING CRITICAL THINKING - VALUES AND ATTITUDES
>
> Maybe we could get a "in a anutshell" presentation from those who teach it as a topic (comp 100 and critical thinking in philosophy come to mind: Roda, Patrone, Green and Koch are our philosophical experts....)
> Neat Idea
> Achim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greenberg, James ([log in to unmask])
> Sent: Mon 9/22/2003 1:33 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: RETHINKING CRITICAL THINKING - VALUES AND ATTITUDES
>
>
>
> I have often heard it said that one of our missions here at SUNY Oneonta is
> to get students to think critically. As a topic for discussion at our next
> Teaching Breakfast I would like to know what tips and techniques you think
> work toward this goal.
>
> Below is a recent posting about this to get your brains working on the
> topic. Please join us on Oct. 2 at 8AM for the next Teaching Breakfast
> where we will discuss this important topic.
>
> Jim Greenberg
>
> RETHINKING CRITICAL THINKING - VALUES AND ATTITUDES
>
> by Richard A. Lynch
>
> Posted here with permission...
>
> "What is the mark of a liberally educated person?" Many of the
> answers to this question converge upon a common theme: critical
> thinking. One 1981 study, for example, notes that "Critical thinking
> is perhaps the most general term for the intellectual abilities that
> are supposed to be characteristic of the liberally educated person."
> The problem, however, is that-like the term "liberal education"
> itself-"critical thinking" is understood to mean a wide variety of
> more or less closely related things. Winter, McClelland and Stewart,
> analyzing the different senses of the term in higher education
> literature, identify seven distinct qualities that are characterized
> as "critical thinking" (including "differentiation and discrimination
> within a broad range of particular phenomena" and "articulation and
> communication of abstract concepts"), that cluster around what they
> describe as "the skill of advanced concept formation" (pp. 12, 27).
> Another (undated, but post-1995) study employs a "mimimalist" concept
> of critical thinking: "The critical thinking tradition seeks ways of
> understanding the mind and then training the intellect so that such
> 'errors', 'blunders', and 'distortions' of thought are minimized.S
> [T]hose who think critically characteristically strive, for such
> intellectual ends as clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth,
> breadth, and logicalness."
>
> Something is lost when "critical thinking"-which we so often claim is
> one of the most important things students should learn-becomes
> reduced to these kinds of cognitive, often more precisely logical,
> functions. (Most university courses on "critical thinking," for
> example, are typically courses in informal logic.) This is
> unfortunate because, despite this tendency to reduce critical
> thinking to such a least common denominator, the term remains-and the
> activity is-both rich and provocative. Critical thinking is, to put
> it bluntly, much more than the ability to recognize a fallacy when
> you see one. But the hard part is to move beyond this and spell out
> what that "something more" is. I want to suggest two important
> aspects of a fuller understanding of critical thinking, which may
> inform how we approach our teaching: Good critical thinking is not>
> value-neutral, nor is it merely instrumental; it is intimately
> connected with both values and attitudes.
>
> How is critical thinking connected with values? In at least two
> ways. First of all, critical thinking presupposes values at the
> heart of its activity. How can one make a good judgment or
> assessment of virtually any of the problems and dilemmas that call
> for critical thinking, without an evaluative basis for that decision?
> But by itself, that is not enough: good critical thinking does not
> just accept a set of values "uncritically." So the second important
> way in which critical thinking is connected to values-without which,
> the first connection becomes a sham-is in challenging and
> reevaluating the very values that it takes as its basis for judgment.
> One important component of critical thinking, then, is some
> understanding of one's starting points-who one is, what one believes,
> and why. Critical thinking is thus both reflective and
> evaluative-and raises the possibility that both the critical thinker
> and her milieu will be challenged, unsettled, and perhaps changed.
>
> This reflexive-and potentially disruptive-feature reveals how
> critical thinking is intimately connected with attitudes. For
> Immanuel Kant, "Enlightenment," or "emergence from a self-incurred
> immaturity," meant the willingness to think for oneself, to think
> critically. This willingness is an attitude that opens things up to
> challenge. Perhaps most fundamentally, good critical thinking
> entails what we might describe as an attitude of "reflective openness
> and challenge." What I mean here is a willingness to genuinely
> consider new perspectives-to try to understand them from the
> inside-and, at least for a little while, to step outside of one's own
> views and acknowledge that one's perspectives, assumptions, and
> outlook are vulnerable, perhaps even mistaken or incomplete. A
> critical thinker is willing to turn that criticism upon both these
> new approaches and herself, and sometimes even to change what she's
> doing or what she believes in light of these critical insights. This
> core attitude may in fact be what makes critical thinking
> "critical"-without it, critical thinking becomes a hollow shell, a
> mere analytic tool applied to externally determined ends.
>
> Warren Nord offers a compelling redefinition of critical thinking,
> that moves it, I think, closer to these deepening relationships with
> values and attitudes: " Critical thinking is not just a matter of
> applying the rules of logic (much less scientific method). It is a
> matter of thinking and feeling empathetically with others, of
> engaging one's imagination, of having access to a wealth of facts
> about the possible effects of alternative actions, of discerning
> patterns of meaning in experience, of looking at the world from
> different perspectives." Scientific method and logical reasoning
> can be good examples of critical thinking, and are important aspects
> of it, but are not adequate in themselves-both can be done in rote,
> unreflective ways, ways that aren't really open. For students to
> develop as critical thinkers, they must be willing to reflect upon
> and articulate their own starting beliefs and assumptions (whether
> these are scientific, moral, cultural, etc.), genuinely open
> themselves to other approaches or worldviews, to new ways of
> understanding what they took for granted, and then carefully consider
> the consequences of this reflection.
>
> Critical thinking, then, is not a merely logical exercise, but is a
> practice richly imbued with a set of values and attitudes. Nord
> notes that, "Of course, all of this makes critical moral thinking
> difficult and controversial." It also underscores the need to begin
> rethinking, and deepening, the ways in which we teach "critical>
> thinking." We should not be content to teach logical reasoning
> skills but must also work to encourage self-reflective, challenging,
> yet open attitudes on the part of our students. Helping students to
> develop these attitudes ought not be the province of "critical
> thinking" courses, but should be an aim of just about any course in
> the undergraduate curriculum. "Teaching attitudes" like this must
> not be confused with "indoctrination." For we will not be telling
> our students that they must subscribe to any particular outcome or
> belief; rather we will help them to develop a full set of tools for
> drawing their own conclusions, for what Kant called "Enlightenment."
> The task may be difficult and controversial, but in a diverse and
> complex society, it seems essential.
>
> (1) D. Winter, D. McClelland, and A. Stewart, A New Case for the
> Liberal Arts (Jossey-Bass, 1981), p. 27
> (2) R. Paul, L. Elder, T. Bartell, " Study of 38 Public Universities
> and 28 Private Universities To Determine Faculty Emphasis on
> Critical Thinking In Instruction: Executive Summary"
> http://www.criticalthinking.org/schoolstudy.htm
> (3) I. Kant, "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)
> (4) W. Nord, Religion & American Education (University of North
> Carolina Press, 1995), p. 346.
>
>
>
|
