Develop 21 st Century Critical Thinking Skills With Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking

1. Develop 21st Century Critical Thinking Skills With Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking

2. What is Critical Thinking? • Problem solving • Thinking outside the box • Teaching kids to think for themselves • The ability to analyze and understand • Forming ones own opinion • Knowing how to make decisions • Defining what you want to know or find

3. Locating Credible, Relevant Information Clarifying issues, conclusions, or beliefs Explain ideas and statements to make them clearer. Developing criteria for evaluation: clarifying values and standardsIdentify factors that are used to make decisions and judgments. Analyzing arguments, interpretations, beliefs, or theoriesExamine and investigate ideas in greater detail. Identifying assumptionsRecognize ideas, beliefs, and theories that are not stated by an author. Recognize ideas, beliefs, and theories that are not stated by an author.Making plausible inferences, predictions, or interpretationsProvide a reasonable explanation, forecast, or conclusion from information. 18 Critical Thinking Skills Comprehending Information Evaluating the credibility of information sourcesFind sources of information that can be relied on to be accurate, trustworthy, and authoritative. Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant factsExamine sources of information to determine their usefulness for a specific question or topic. Distinguishing fact from opinionEvaluate a statement to determine if the statement is a personal judgment. Recognizing contradictions Identify conclusions that are inconsistent or disagree with cited facts and events Recognizing bias Identify unfair preferences, prejudices, prejudgments, or dislikes. Evaluating Sources of Information

4. Analyzing Information 11. Analyzing or evaluating actions or policies Examine the consequence of an undertaking or plan in great detail. 12. Comparing analogous situations: transferring insights to new contexts Recognize the similarity between two events; use knowledge of one event to understand another event. 13. Recognizing cause and effect Identify how one event makes another event happen. . Synthesizing and Applying Information 14. Demonstrating reasoned judgment Show that an opinion or conclusion is based on evidence and logic. 15. Identifying alternatives List different possible conclusions, courses or action, or beliefs to choose between. 16. Exploring implications and consequences Identify the possible effects of different courses of action. 17. Generating or assessing solutions Develop answers and explanations for problems. 18. Drawing and testing conclusions Reconsider a decision based on an analysis of its effects and consequences 18 Critical Thinking Skills

5. Blooms Taxonomy Evaluation: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole Application:  Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing Synthesis:  Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.  Comprehension:  Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages Knowledge: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory Analysis:  Breaking material into parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose Source: http://www.coe.uga.edu/epltt/bloom.htm

6. Critical Thinking In The News • "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century”, Time, Dec 18, 2006 • “The workforce readiness crisis: we're not turning out employable graduates nor maintaining our position as a global competitor. Why?” Technology & Learning, Nov 2006  • “Leaders for high school reform: school leaders must be involved in reforming our high schools so they can help all students become productive adults who are equipped with 21st century skills”, Leadership, May-June 2006 Articles found in General Reference Center Gold

7. The Challenges in Teaching Critical Thinking • Regarded as highly important and tested on most high-stakes exams • Teachers struggle to find the time to integrate such an approach AND cover all content area objectives required in the state standards. • The approach required to develop critical thinking skills is time-consuming and often difficult for teachers. New teachers may lack appropriate training to cultivate these skills.

8. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking • Encourages students to interact with, argue about and analyze issues and concepts, encouraging the next step of learning – beyond rote memorization. • Promotes the development of 21st century skills (information and communication skills, thinking and problem-solving skills, etc). • Develops media literacy in distinguishing between reliable and unreliable information and assisting students in knowing how to manage, interpret, validate and act on information.

9. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking is a dynamic, online library of current event topics, featuring: • the facts • the arguments • the pros • the cons • references to support each perspective Based on the acclaimed Opposing Viewpoints series by Greenhaven Press, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking delivers a safe and reliable Internet resource in which to find: • balanced • unbiased • authoritative content • statistics and government data placed in context, • core reference content from multiple credible sources on the issues that intrigue students most.

10. Interactive Features of Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Critical Thinking The interactive features of OVRC: Critical Thinking engage students and teachers in learning and research while promoting the development of 21st century skills. OVRC: Critical Thinking benefits the whole school by increasing usage of library resources through a natural collaboration among classroom teachers and school librarians. OVRC: Critical Thinking … • Provides leveled materials that meet the differentiated needs of various learners • Meets the needs of all students (including special needs students) with various learning modalities and special features, such as MP3 audio files • Empowers teachers and librarians with a rich arsenal of 750 short assessments on 250 topics. • Saves valuable time for the teaching staff with inquiry-based lessons that are standards-aligned, integrate extension activities, and provide formative assessment to gauge student progress.

11. Features and Benefits: Assessment • Features: • Available offline and online • Multiple choice and open-response questions • Online grading of multiple choice assessment questions • Individual student reflection upon completion • Benefits: • Teacher’s can quickly check individual student AND classroom comprehension and application of critical thinking skills • The student can self-check their work • Offline availability accommodates learning environments where there aren’t enough computers for each student • Online availability enables students to work from any Internet connection and increases student engagement • Online assessment and grading provides student with immediate feedback on performance and areas for improvement

12. Features and Benefits: Interactive Audio • Features: • Vocabulary in context • Audible articles and key vocabulary terms • Articles downloadable in MP3 format • Benefits: • Helps students develop better communication skills; increases vocabulary • Meets different learning modalities: This is an auditory generation. Audio gives all students one more avenue to understand subject matter. • Many students will likely listen to an article before they read it. Audio is motivating for many kids. • Application with special needs populations (English language learners, auditory processing delay, etc) • Anticipate universal appeal among students

13. Features and Benefits: Teachers’ Guide • Features: • Blackline masters that are 3-hole drilled with perforated pages • Includes lesson plans and a final lesson assessment (with answer key!) • Each lesson is aligned to a specific critical thinking skill area • Consistent format for lessons and activities • Benefits: • Saves teachers time with pre-packaged, standards-aligned lessons and assessment • Easily reproducible among educators • Continuity in the presentation of lesson components makes it easy for teachers to move from lesson to lesson.

14. Instructional Strategies • As a tool for vocabulary development • A starting point for discussing social issues or current events • Support for expository writing, such as pro/con papers • Integrate leveled articles and assessment into required daily reading practice • Practice summarizing, inferences, cause/effect – all skills that are tested on the high stakes exam. • Out-of-the-box solution for less tech-savvy teachers that need to integrate technology in their lessons • Preparation for debate and extemporaneous speech activities