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TEACHING AND LEARNING CONCEPTS

The most distinctive feature of the Smart School will be a teaching and learning

environment built on international best practices in primary and secondary

education. This entails aligning the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and

teaching-learning materials in a mutually reinforcing, coherent manner.

Critical Thinking Teaching Strategies and Classroom Techniqes

Critical thinking cannot be taught by lecturing. Critical thinking is an active

process, while, for most students, listening to lectures is a passive activity. The

intellectual skills of critical thinking--analysis, synthesis, reflection, etc.--must be

learned by actually performing them. Classroom instruction, homework, term

papers, and exams, therefore, should emphasize active intellectual participation

by the student.

Lectres!nhancement of critical thinking can be accomplished during lecture

by periodically stopping and asking students searching and thoughtful !uestions

about the material you have "ust presented, and then wait an appropriate time for

them to respond. #o not immediately answer such !uestions yourself$ leavesufficient time for students to think about their answer before they state it. %f you

constantly answer such !uestions yourself, students will !uickly realize this and

not respond. &earn students' names as !uickly as possible and ask the !uestions

of specific students that you call upon by name. %f an individual cannot answer a

!uestion, help them by simplifying the !uestion and leading them through the

thought process( ask what data are needed to answer the !uestion, suggest how

the data can be used to answer the !uestion, and then have the student use this

data in an appropriate way to come up with an answer.

La"oratories! )any science courses have laboratories connected with them.

Science laboratory exercises are all excellent for teaching critical thinking. The

reasons should be obvious. *ere, the student learns the scientific method by

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acually practicing it. This method of teaching critical thinking is so clear and

obvious that it seems odd that critical thinking is not promoted more in primary

and secondary education by simply beginning science instruction in the first

grade and re!uiring that students take more science courses. +ou will have to

decide for yourself why this isn't the case. Since laboratories automatically teach

critical thinking to some degree, we will spend no more time on this topic.

Home#ork! %nnumerable opportunities exist to promote critical thinking by

homework assignments. or reading homework, #r. illiam T. #aly recommends

that you provide students the general !uestions you want answered before they

begin reading, and insist that they organize their notes around these !uestions.

e!uire that students transform the information and make it their own byre!uiring them to paraphrase, summarize, or outline all reading assignments. *e

suggests that you can grade their written efforts with oral !uizes that can be

structured to re!uire abstract conceptualization and graded as students speak,

for most students will prepare carefully in order to avoid failing repeatedly in

public. +ou may also, of course, collect, grade, and return their written efforts.

$antitati%e E&ercises!/roblem solving is critical thinking$ thus, courses such

as mathematics, chemistry, and physics, that re!uire the solution of various

mathematical problems, automatically teach critical thinking to some extent "ust

by following the traditional curriculum. hen students are re!uired to solve math

problems, they are practicing critical thinking, whether they know it or not.

)athematics, chemistry, and physics problems belong, of course, to only a

limited subset of critical thinking, but this subset is an important one. %ndeed, all

science courses--including those that do not traditionally re!uire mathematical

problem-solving skills at the introductory level, such as biology, geology,

oceanography, astronomy, and environmental science--should begin to

incorporate some mathematical problems in the curriculum. 0sking students to

solve math problems in a science gets them thinking about nature and reality in

empirical and !uantitative terms, key components of critical thinking.

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Term Pa'ers! Term papers promote critical thinking among students by

re!uiring that they ac!uire, synthesize, and logically analyze information, and

that they then present this information and their conclusions in written form. Term

papers are not traditionally re!uired in math and science courses, although they

may be and perhaps should be. e math and science instructors really don't

re!uire that students write very much and, when we do, don't re!ure that they

use correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, and syntax. 0t the very least, we

should allow term papers as extra credit to give students a means to make up

poor exam grades. Students who are doing poorly always ask if there is anything

they can do to make up their grade$ tell them from the first day that an optional

term paper--of appropriate style, content, and length--will enable them to improve

their grade in the course. Tell them that poor spelling, grammar, punctuation,

syntax, and form will result in lesser credit. This techni!ue can be used in any

math or science course and is strongly recommended as a way to improve

students' critical thinking skills. /erhaps as they research and write it, they will

begin to think critically about the benefits of keeping up with lectures and

studying for exams.

E&aminations! xaminations should re!uire that students write or, at least,

think. or written exams, short- and long-answer essay !uestions are the obvious

solution. or example, #r. 1ames T. *unter, a biology professor, typically uses a

few short-answer essay !uestions on each exam that test the ability of students

to analyze information and draw conclusions. This commonly-used techni!ue, by

itself, helps to teach critical thinking