Critical Thinking is a term used by educators to describe forms of learning, thought, and

analysis that go beyond the memorization and recall of information and facts. In common
usage, critical thinking is an umbrella term that may be applied to many different forms of
learning acquisition or to a wide variety of thought processes. In its most basic expression,
critical thinking occurs when students are analyzing, evaluating, interpreting, or
synthesizing information and applying creative thought to form an argument, solve a
problem, or reach a conclusion.
Critical thinking entails many kinds of intellectual skills, including the following
representative examples:
Developing well-reasoned, persuasive arguments and evaluating and
responding to counterarguments
Examining concepts or situations from multiple perspectives, including
different cultural perspectives
Questioning evidence and assumptions to reach novel conclusions
Devising imaginative ways to solve problems, especially unfamiliar or complex
problems
Formulating and articulating thoughtful, penetrating questions
Identifying themes or patterns and making abstract connections across subjects
 CONCEPT OF CRITICAL THINKING

Critical thinking is a central concept in educational reforms that call for schools to
place a greater emphasis on skills that are used in all subject areas and that
students can apply in all educational, career, and civic settings throughout their
lives. Its also a central concept in reforms that question how teachers have
traditionally taught and what students should be learningnotably, the 21st
century skills movement, which broadly calls on schools to create academic
programs and learning experiences that equip students with the most essential and
in-demand knowledge, skills, and dispositions they will need to be successful in
higher-education programs and modern workplaces. As higher education and job
requirements become competitive, complex, and technical, proponents argue,
students will need skills such as critical thinking to successfully navigate the
modern world, excel in challenging careers, and process increasingly complex
information.
Critical thinking also intersects with debates about assessment and how schools
should measure learning acquisition. For example, multiple-choice testing formats
have been common in standardized testing for decades, yet the heavy use of such
testing formats emphasizesand may reinforce the importance offactual
retention and recall over other skills. If schools largely test and award grades for
factual recall, teachers will therefore stress memorization and recall in their
teaching, possibly at the expense of skills such as critical thinking that are vitally
important for students to possess but far more challenging to measure accurately.
Underlying Strategies

(The three underlying strategies are Reflection, Reasons, Alternatives

(RRA):

1.Urge students to be Reflective, to stop and think, instead of making snap

judgments, or accepting the first idea that comes into their heads, or
automatically accepting whatever is presented in the media.

2.Gently ask such questions as How do you know, "What are the reasons?"
and Is that a good source of information? thus prodding them to have
good Reasons for their views and to seek reasons for others' views.

3. Emphasize alertness for Alternative hypotheses, conclusions, explanations,

sources of evidence, points of view, plans.

Fundamental Strategies

4. Use a defensible conception of critical thinking with which you feel

comfortable.

5. Provide for many guided opportunities in varied contexts for students to

practice critical thinking in application of critical thinking principles to
examples, including a number of opportunities in realistic situations that
they see as significant.

6. More specifically, where transfer is desired, teach for the transfer of

critical thinking principles to everyday life and to other subjects by giving
much practice with examples, some of which call for transfer. Call students
attention to how the critical thinking principles and criteria apply in a
transfer situation, and if feasible, arrange for students to practice transfer
applications.

7. Sometimes ask the question, Why?, when you agree with your students,
as well as when you don't -- and when you are unsure yourself -- or are trying
to find out what they mean. "Why?" is sometimes threatening, but is the most
concise way to draw out the reasons. A less aggressive question is, "Would
you say a little more about that?"

8. Emphasize their seeing things from others' points of view and being open
minded including being willing to reconsider, if other reasons and evidence
arise.
9. Assess what is important in critical thinking using tests or other
assessment procedures that are sufficiently valid and reliable in the
situation; except for special circumstances, incorporate the results in the
course grade and/or any other report that matters to the students; and
discreetly make sure that students are aware of this incorporation. Lastly,
make sure that the assessment procedure fits the critical thinking
instruction; this often requires thinking about assessment well in advance of
its use.

10. Students do not need to become subject-matter experts before they can
start to learn to think critically in a subject. These things can proceed
together, each helping the learning of the other. Students will remember best
the subject matter they use (e.g., in making decisions). But ultimately, of
course, being well informed and familiar with the topic and the situation
calling for critical thinking are essential for critical thinking.

11. In a subject-matter course, the time required for infusion of critical

thinking is often justified, not only for the critical thinking learned, but also
for an enhanced deeper understanding of the subject. (Consider how much
you have retained of the subject matter to which you were exposed as a
student in lecture courses compared with seminars calling for reflective
participation.)

12. Infusion here refers to the embedding of critical thinking in subject-

matter instruction that ensures that the principles of, and criteria for, critical
thinking are explicit, whether stated by students or the teacher. Immersion
refers to the embedding in which critical thinking principles are not made
explicit by anybody. Of course some cases lie in between. Infusion in subject-
matter instruction is more likely to succeed than immersion because knowing
principles promotes learning, whether it be learning to think critically in the
subject (in subject-specific instruction), or transferring critical thinking
learning to other subjects or everyday life.

Tactics

13. Sometimes ask students to address questions to which you do not

know the answer, or that are controversial. The question should seem
significant to them and be interesting.

14. Give them time to think about questions and situations. If you wait
long enough, someone will offer an answer. In other words, provide
wait time.
15. In a discussion, label a students statement (or thought, answer,
hypothesis, position, point, objection, question, etc.) with the student's name,
so that the student receives attention and assumes some
responsibility. Write the statement on the board, or screen. (Do not worry
that you might be wasting time doing this. It gives students a chance to think
about the statement or thought.) Invite them to help formulate what you
write. Encourage them to speak to each other's positions, giving reasons.
Provide wait time.

16. Have them write down their positions, giving reasons to support what
they think, showing awareness of opposing positions and the weaknesses of
their own positions. Limit the length to a few sentences, one page, or two or
three pages, etc., depending on their maturity and the time available.

17. Provide a set of criteria for judging papers, reports, letters, proposals, or
sentences in which they take positions. The criteria should reflect the critical
thinking principles that you have been telling them are important.

18. Have them read each other's written statements or position papers,
applying these criteria and making suggestions. Then get them to revise --
and revise again, in the light of still other comments or further thought.

19. Have them work on issues or questions in groups, with each group
reporting to the entire class, and each person showing the others what he or
she has done. Students are eager to do well in the eyes of their peers (just
like the rest of us).

20. Be ready to postpone an assignment, if the content of the previous

assignment is not understood. Understanding, not coverage, is the goal.
It is the 21st Century. Traditional teaching and learning is changing to keep up
with the rapid developments and changes with digital technologies and ever
expanding online learning environments. Students today are faced with a
differentiated set of skills, attitudes and actions that they will need in order for
them to be prepared for, be successful in and meet the challenges of a digital
economy

To be an effective teacher in the 21st century, teachers need to be able to engage

and interact with a wide variety of information from an ever increasing range of
sources. suggests that the media environment educators are currently faced with
can become vastly disruptive to traditional teaching methods. Teachers today need
to become lifelong learners in an information society where information flows freely,
is instant and infinite For this to occur, teachers and students alike need to develop
strategies for engaging with, working with and constructing new knowledge, or
as describes, moving from being just knowledgeable to knowledge-able.

Another essential point in evaluating the need for teachers to become modern
knowledge workers for the 21st century is the idea that knowledge workers desire
different working environments They are ambitious and yearn for self management:
they have to have autonomy When teachers take control over their own learning
through developing a PLN this autonomy in what they want to learn and how they
want to learn becomes apparent. Through this versatile and autonomous learning,
they are developing higher skills, leveraging and building knowledge and
continuing self-development Importantly, emphasizes that teacher autonomy,
through continuous lifelong learning needs to be a skill practiced and mastered
before applying similar concepts with students.

Continuing innovation as a teacher, knowledge worker, in 21st century teaching

and learning environments means taking risks. This is crucial for the future of
education and a significant catalyst for change In order to teach creative and
innovative thinking, teachers must have the skills to think differently themselves.
They need creative spaces and tools and a range of frameworks that help to develop
their own criteria of achieving quality and success Taking risks and generating
change is attune to what is known about entrepreneurs Teachers, knowledge
worker are self-reliant, highly optimistic, they embrace and lead change, they
generate new ideas, they innovate.
The need for teachers to become productive, modern knowledge
workers in 21st century teaching and learning environments is
essential. Given the fast paced digital, information and knowledge
based society in which traditional educational paradigms are being
challenged, teachers need to change and keep up so they can best
prepare students for the future. Developing the skill sets to become
knowledge workers allows teachers to embrace the changes and
challenges they are faced with. Teachers who commit to ongoing and
dynamic further learning mindsets, making the most of the
affordances of social learning methodologies and cultivate a desire to
embrace change and think differently are modern and productive
knowledge workers. once described a productive knowledge worker as
one that works hard to improve and is valued as a capital asset.
Thinking in this way, teachers as knowledge worker could have the
potential to become the most powerful and valuable assets for the
future of education.