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NAP
INITIATIVESCritical thinking and technology
Antonella Poce
Is there a possible successful link?
Welcome!
Warm up
questions
•Could you define critical thinking?
• Do you consider it a mandatory 21st century skill?
Why critical thinking skills are essential?
Creativity and
innovationdrivers
Critical thinking
skills
Young people - migration and socioeconomic situation (Eurostat)
Over a seven-year period, from 2007 to 2013, the proportion of young people NEET in the EU-28 increased significantly.
On average, the share of EU-born young people NEET in 2013 was 4.8 pp higher than the share in 2007.
The proportion of employed school early leavers decreased substantially from 2007 to 2013 for all groups of young people by country of birth, while at the same time the percentage of unemployed early leavers increased…
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Young_people_-_migration_and_socioeconomic_situation#NEET_by_country_of_birth
OECD report Investing in human and social capital recent trends show sharp increases in the demand
for task input requiring complex communication (…). Similar increases have occurred in the demand for non routine analytical skills, involving solving problems for which there are no rule based solutions, and requiring individuals to develop skills of problem solving and inquiry based learning throughout their education. (OECD, 2010, theme 2, p. 5).
Dicussion (1)Is CT a solution? Less discuss it!
Do you think CT can be thought?
If yes do you have experience in that?
Can you tell us more?
Education needs unemployed workers and people in
weak economic sectors are also looking to education and training opportunities to improve their position on the labour market and this caused a paradoxical situation where higher education and vocational institutions have to face a large demand with reduced resources.
Education needs some countries reacted introducing
specific measures to invest in skills development, research and innovation, being aware that budget cuts in education will harm those who are most vulnerable and are promoting policies to improve equity in learning opportunities (Belgium, France, Germany) (Cinque, 2016)
Education needslearning organizations (Laurillard, Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 2008, p.35), places which promote tools concerned with the improvement of individual and, consequently, the same organization learning …
Education needs Formal education should enter working places and the other way round: “in the nations where work is organized to support high levels of employee discretion in solving complex problems, the evidence shows that firms tend to be more active in terms of innovations developed through their own in house creative efforts” (OECD, 2010, theme 1, p. 10)
According to your experience, can you see a role for TECHED to foster such abilities?Do you know about initiatives/projects regarding CT development on line?
Discussion (2)
Research
Research activity carried out at LPS DE*
Critical thinking abilities
Development of an ad hoc model
Structured didactic project
*Laboratory for Experimental Research - Department of education – University Roma Tre
Critical thinking abilities Paul and Elder (2002, p. 230) state:
“each one of us thinks, it is in our nature. Most of our thoughts are, however, distorted, partial, non uniform or influenced by bias. And yet, the quality of our life, and what we produce, do, build, depends on the quality of our thoughts. Excellence of thoughts must be systematically culturally nourished.”
• to define a critical technology, through the preparation of teaching material to be provided online, according to a well-defined design
• to organize and coordinate guided discussions on a dedicated virtual space, provided to students for the above activity
• to collect the insights of the online discussions and analyze them with lexicon-metric tools
• to measure the students’ critical thinking skills via an adapted Newman, Webb, Cochrane (1997) model, already used within the sphere of other projects carried out within the department. This activity was implemented by:
1.asking students, at the beginning of the education proposal, to undertake a short essay test on a certain topic that is related to their studies2.repeating the short essay test at the end of the
learning activity, and assessing, via the same analysis model, whether an increase in critical thinking is found3.collecting the data and preparing the research report
Objectives
Analysis path
Pre and post tests
Online interviews
on the experienc
e
Onlineshort essay
cooperative
writing
• Content analysis
(Newman et al. adaptation)• Lexicon metrics
analysis
Content analysisNewman Webb and Cochrane (1997)
(20 pairs of indicators)
CT= (X+-X-): (X+
+X-)
Relevance, importance, width of understanding , justificationnovelty and
so on
More than 200 students, attending the master (pre-service) level university degree in Primary Education – Roma Tre University
Students participated in the online lecturing, as part of the compulsory module in Educational research methodology
After taking part in the course, they had to carry out an evaluation, according to the ad hoc model devised by LPS
Methodology
Students' background variables questionnaire administration
OERs completion Evaluation form, defined according to specific
indicators created to assess the impact of OERs on Higher Education teaching and learning
Final questionnaire on the experience
Methodological plan
An innovative qualitative research tool
relevance and importance
contains indicators linked to formal characteristics
of course content
breadth of understanding, argumentation and
justificationconsists of a series of statements. Students indicate how far they
agree with them
critical evaluationstudents were asked to
critically assess content, proposing issues for
discussion and reflection
novelty(open ended section) The aim is to enable students
to reflect and express their own
opinion/evaluation, adding elements on already identified
indicators Adaptation of categories taken from the model for the assessment of critical thinking skills by Newman, Webb, Cochrane (1997)
four section
s
The tool Quality Evaluation – Relevance and importance (indicators relate to characteristics of course content)
The tool Content Analysis – Width of comprehension, argumentation and justification of solutions content
The tool - Critical evaluation (skills acquired)
The model under investigation Focus: relation, if any, between the
employment of the traditional lecturing mode (distinctio, divisio textus, collatio, questio) and the ability of reasoning
The hypothesis to be tested concerned mainly the verification of the impact of classical lecturing on students’ reasoned production
Technology helps the limitation of employing traditional lecturing in contemporary large contexts and allows that individual intercourse everyone of us might need while deepening a certain topic of study.
Final remarksContemporary society show a vital need for enhancement of critical
thinking skills, especially for those who are attending higher levels of
education. This study is an attempt to
demonstrate that technology, if used as a tool and adequately inserted in a
strong didactical structure, can represent a valid solution for
improvement
Discussion (3)
Impressions on the experience?Do you have similar experiences to discuss?How do you think results can be improved?
