CRITICAL THINKING

By: Ashley Sulla

Critical Thinking: A skill
that all Americans need to
survive in the 21
st
century.
Why are critical thinking
skills important in education?
They prepare all students for college and/or
careers.
What are the most effective ways to
incorporate and promote critical
thinking strategies in secondary
education Social Studies
classrooms?
Use of the Internet

Classroom Debates

Higher-Level Thinking Questions
Implementing Critical
Thinking Skills Through the
Use of the Internet.
To teach or to limit?
How can you teach students to assess
a websites accuracy and validity?
Whos providing the information?
If this site deals with a controversial issue, is more
than one side of the argument presented?
When was the data in the document collected?
Consider These Questions:
Developing Critical Thinking
Skills through WebQuests
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson
format in which most or all of the information
that learners work with comes from the web.
Learning Through Investigation
Development of Critical Thinking
Skills through Classroom Debates
The only way to teach democracy is to have the
students experience democracy in the
classroom.
Education is dialogue.
Instead of transmitting the information, give
the students background information and
have them form their own opinions about the
issues.
Using Questions to Promote Critical
Thinking in the Social Studies
Classroom.
Historical thinking occurs in students when
using/pondering the questions that historians
would consider while reading a primary
source.
Historians
Big Ideas
Educators
Essential Questions
to
Blooms Taxonomy vs. Spencer Kagan
Blooms Taxonomy

Level I: Knowledge

Level II: Comprehension

Level III: Application

Level IV: Analysis

Level V: Synthesis

Level VI: Evaluation
Spencer Kagan

Applying
Analyzing
Categorizing
Comparing/Contrasting
Defining
Generalizing
Interpreting
Investigating
Making Analogies
Planning
Prioritizing
Reflecting/Metacognition
Summarizing
Synthesizing
Symbolizing

Assessing
Augmenting/Elaborating
Connecting
Decision-making
Drawing conclusions
Evaluating
Predicting
Problem-solving
Reducing/simplifying
Relating
Role-taking/Empathizing
Substituting
Development of Critical Thinking
Skills through Student Collaboration
Students should ask each other higher-level
thinking questions in small groups to increase
the interactions they have with the content
and with each other.
Your Exit Slip
What did you learn from this
presentation that you can
implement into your classroom?
How would you do it?