Making and Critical Thinking

In my first blog I asked you to think about a time during childhood or more recently, when you made, invented, or altered something. Perhaps you baked a cake, repaired a broken faucet, put together a shelf, or designed an outfit? Now think about a challenge that may have occurred during this making experience. What steps did you take to overcome this challenge? Did you weigh the pros and cons? Did you speak to someone for advice? Did you play out multiple scenarios that could lead to different outcomes? Perhaps, you reflected on an experience to help you reach a final decision? In any case, you most likely followed a process that required you to use some capacity of critical thinking.

Learning While Making

Now more than ever, do we as educators have an obligation to prepare our students for life beyond the walls that separate school from our communities. It has become my mission to communicate the importance of allowing students of all ages, backgrounds, and intellectual abilities to Learn While Making in the classroom setting.

Learning While Making is a method of teaching that I have created that encompasses targeted and purposeful hands on making experiences that are designed to engage the students in learning through a multi-sensory and interdisciplinary approach. It empowers students to take on the role as a maker where they build, create, design or produce in tandem with developing transferable skills that will improve learning across all disciplines. While I have observed remarkable results: an improvement in student performance and motivation; a desire to advocate for social issues; and students see the value in their work and are excited to come to school to learn, the next step in my journey is to determine if learning while making improves the critical thinking skills of a sample of students from my classroom.

Defining Critical Thinking

While the definitions of critical thinking have been redefined over the years, these definitions share the common theme of being a reflective process that involves problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. According to Critical Thinking Cooperation (2006), “critical thinking is the identification and evaluation of evidence to guide decision making. A critical thinker uses broad in-depth analysis of evidence to make decisions and communicate his/her beliefs clearly and accurately.”

My research I outline below are driven by these three thoughts:

1. What exactly does one do to be considered a critical thinker?

2. How do we organically embed critical thinking into the classroom?

3. How can we measure if students are critical thinkers?

I chose to focus my research on critical thinking because cultivating this invaluable skill is what will help students thrive in this complex, demanding, and ever-changing world. As schools strive to have their students proficient in 21st century learning skills, my school Van Ness Elementary, is paving the way for how this could look at the school level. Critical thinking is one of Van Ness’s Student Graduate Aims. Our Student Graduate Aims are the skills and traits we believe our students should take with them to middle school and beyond as they graduate 5th grade. It is our hope that students will leave elementary school being critical consumers of information and able to approach problems using a variety of strategies and resources to be successful.

Characteristics of a Critical Thinker

What exactly does one do to be considered a critical thinker?

Critical thinkers are those who research, question the state of the information, analyze and synthesize their information, and are aware of their thinking process to derive at a construction or solutions (Karakoc. 2006, pg.82).

Educational consultant Wabisabi Learning states, “…we can begin to assess critical thinking by breaking it down into more basic components, and then determining criteria you can use with your learners.” The following is a comprehensive list of the 10 traits Wabisabi Learning has identified in a critical thinker:

Curiosity

Compassion

Awareness

Decisiveness

Honesty

Willingness

Creativity

Perseverance

Objectivity

Reflective Capacity

Critical Thinking in the Classroom

How do we organically embed critical thinking into the classroom?

Research stresses the importance and need to help students develop critical thinking due to the demands of 21st century society, especially when students first face the job sector. Many argue that the primary purpose of education is to teach students how to think and be prepared for unpredictable situations in both personal and work-place experiences (Emir, 2009).

Critical thinking can be taught through a variety of methods. Critical thinking can be explicitly taught, intertwined into the lessons and curriculum, or it can be taught in a mixed approach (Karakoc. 2006, pg.82). Regardless of the approach, the first step is for teachers to recognize what critical thinking is, that it can be taught, and then select the best method of integrating this skill into the classroom.

According to The Critical Thinking Consortium, the following strategies support fostering a classroom learning environment grounded in critical thinking:

· Encourage students to offer sound reasons or explain their thinking.

· Turn student questions back to them (“What do you think? How could we find out?)

· Draw the class together after a problem-solving session to share, discuss and analyze the various approaches they used.

· Together develop guidelines for working collaboratively in active, hands-on and scientifically meaningful investigations.

· Encourage iterative thinking where students revisit initial ideas and share their evolving thinking through conversations, class discussions and written reflections.

Learning While Making is a method of teaching I use in the classroom to support the development of critical thinking. Learning While Making has allowed me to integrate the recommended strategies to support critical thinking in the learning environment since it encompasses targeted, purposeful hands-on making experiences that are designed to engage students in multi-sensory and interdisciplinary learning. During my research study, I will be investigating if providing my students with the opportunity to work on their own “authentic self” making projects will foster three traits that research identifies as a critical thinker: willingness, perseverance, and reflective capacity. I look forward to sharing how I specifically will measure these targeted characteristics through making stages on my next blog!