Teaching Students to Read and Critically Analyze Primary 學生在閱讀教學與批判性分析原發(fā)性

1、Critical Thinking:Higher Order Thinking That UnifiesCurriculum, Instruction, and Learning1.Let us Begin With the Question: What is Critical Thinking?thinking about thinking while thinking in order to make thinking better. thinking that assesses itself. 2.The Three Dimensions of Critical Thinking 3.T

2、hroughout the rest of the talk, this concept of critical thinking should be understood as what is meant by higher order thinking.4.ThesisEducation, as a concept, defines a set of higher order goals, but actual school learning typically culminates in a set of lower order results.How can we narrow the

3、 gap between goals and results?5.so that in math classes students learn to think mathematically,so that in history classes students learn to think historically, so that in science classes students learn to think scientifically, How can we make high order goals a practical reality?6.students begin to

4、 think critically in a disciplined, self-directed fashionA major obstacle we face is that most teachers make assumptions about instruction, knowledge, and learning that are incompatible with high order results. and so that in general7.We need long-term commitment to this process because of the deep-

5、seated nature of the changes needed and the depth of resistance that can be expected. We need a new set of assumptions. 8.there is too little connection and depth. fragmented lists dominate curriculafragmented teaching dominates instructionfragmented recall dominates learning The fundamental problem

6、s in schooling today at all levels are fragmentation and lower order learning. 9.What is missing is coherence, connection, and depth of understanding.10. The bottom line, as we all well know, is not what is taught but what is learned. Students are learning something very different from what we think

7、 we are teaching them.11.This dichotomy leads Alan Schoenfeld, the distinguished math educator, to conclude that math instruction is on the whole “deceptive and fraudulent.” He uses strong words to underscore a wide gulf between what math teachers think their students are learning and what in fact t

8、hey are learning. 12.“All too often we focus on a narrow collection of well-defined tasks and train students to execute those tasks in a routine, if not algorithmic fashion.Then we test the students on tasks that are very close to the ones they have been taught. If they succeed on those problems, we

9、 and they congratulate each other on the fact that they have learned some powerful mathematical techniques.”13.“In fact, they may be able to use such techniques mechanically while lacking some rudimentary thinking skills. To allow them, and ourselves, to believe that they understand the mathematics

10、is deceptive and fraudulent.”14.Schoenfeld cites a number of studies to justify this characterization of math instruction and its lower order consequences. He also gives a number of striking examples, at the college, as well primary and secondary levels:15.“At the University of Rochester 85 percent

11、of the freshman class takes calculus.Roughly half of the students see calculus as their last mathematics course. Most of these students will never apply calculus in any meaningful way (if at all) in their studies, or in their lives.” 16.“They complete their studies with the impression that they know

12、 some very sophisticated and high-powered mathematics. They can find the maxima of complicated functions, determine exponential decay, compute the volumes of surfaces of revolution, and so on.”17.“But the fact is that these students know barely anything at all. The only reason they can perform with

13、any degree of competency on their final exams is that the problems on the exams are nearly carbon copies of problems they have seen before; the students are not being asked to think, but merely to apply well-rehearsed schemata for specific kinds of tasks.” 18.Tim Keifer and Allan Schoenfeld studied

14、the math comprehension of students who received high grades in calculus. They focused on the student abilities to deal with pre-calculus versions of elementary word problems such as the following:An 8-foot fence is located 3 feet from a building. Express the length L of the ladder which may be leane

15、d against the building and just touch the top of the fence as a function of the distance X between the foot of the ladder and the base of the building.Only 19 of 120 attempts at such problems (four each for 30 students) yielded correct answers, and only 65 attempts produced answers of any kind.19.Sc

16、hoenfeld documents similar problems at the level of elementary math instruction. He reports on an experiment in which elementary students were asked questions like this: “There are 26 sheep and 10 goats on a ship. How old is the captain?” 76 of the 97 students “solved” the problem by adding, subtrac

17、ting, multiplying, or dividing.” 20.including a study that demonstrated that “word problems”, which are supposed to require thought, tend to be approached by students mindlessly with the key word algorithm. He focused on reading problems like “John had eight apples. He gave three to Mary. How many d

18、oes John have left?” The students looked for words like left to tell them what operation to perform.Schoenfeld cites many similar cases,21.As Schoenfeld puts it, “ the situation was so extreme that many students chose to subtract in a problem that began Mr. Left.” This tendency to approach math prob

19、lems and assignments with robotic lower order responses becomes obsessive in most students.22.This results in a kind of global self-deception that surrounds teaching and learning, often with the students clearer than the teachers about what is really being learned. Robotic lower order learning is no

20、t, of course, peculiar to math. It is the common mode of learning in every subject area.23.Many students, for example, realize that in their history courses they merely learn to mouth names, dates, events, and outcomes whose significance they do not really understand and whose content they forget sh

21、ortly after the test. Our stated goal may be to prepare students to think historically when dealing with public and private issues and problems, but that is not what typically happens. 24.In other words, though education by its very nature comprises a set of higher order goals, actual school learnin

22、g, given established practice, culminates in a set of lower order results. The issue that emerges from these harsh realities is unambiguous: How can we re-conceptualize and restructure what we presently do to narrow the gap between goals and results, to make higher order goals a practical reality, t

23、o reduce lower order goals to what they should be: mere means for higher order ends?25.The Root of the Problem Is Our Confidence in Didactic Teaching26.We need to realize that we can improve student performance only by improving student thinking. We can improve student thinking only by creating oppo

24、rtunities and incentives for them to think.27. We can provide them with opportunities and incentives to think only if their teachers have time to thoughtfully redesign instruction. 28.We can give teachers time to thoughtfully redesign their instruction only if they do not feel compelled to cover hug

25、e amounts of subject matter. We can reduce the obsession to cover huge amounts of subject matter only if the curriculum is restructured to focus on basic concepts, understandings, and abilities.29. We can restructure the curriculum to focus on basic concepts, understandings, and abilities only if we

26、 understand why such a focus is essential to higher order learning. 30.We will understand why such a focus is essential to higher order learning only if we clearly understand the profound differences between the present didactic model of education, which confuses acquiring knowledge with memorizatio

27、n, and the critical model of education which recognizes that acquiring knowledge intrinsically and necessarily depends on higher order critical thought.31.In education the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We need to forge connections that shape the parts to form a coherent educational who

28、le. To achieve this, nothing is more important than a clear conception of education explicitly embedded in curriculum, professional development, and instruction. No significant reform of education can occur unless we face the didactic lower order conception of education that is common practice today

29、.32.Present instruction implies that parroting information is equivalent to the acquisition of knowledge. Hence, teachers often feel compelled to cover information, even though they realize their students do not really understand and will soon forget it.33.Behind this practice is a network of uncrit

30、ically held assumptions that need to be made explicit and unequivocally refuted, namely:34.that students learn how to think when they know what to think,that knowledge can be given directly to students without their having to think it through for themselves,that the process of education is, in essen

31、ce, the process of storing content in the head like data in a computer,35.that quiet classes with little student talk are evidence of student learning,that students gain significant knowledge without seeking or valuing it,that material should be presented from the point of view of the one who knows,

32、36.that superficial learning can later be deepened,that coverage is more important than depth,that students who correctly answer questions, provide definitions, and apply formulae demonstrate substantial understanding, and that students learn best by working alone.37.One who understands and values e

33、ducation as higher order learning holds a very different set of assumptions, namely:that students learn what to think only as they learn how to think,that one gains knowledge only through thinking,that the process of education is the process of each student gathering, analyzing, synthesizing, applyi

34、ng, and assessing information for him or herself,38.that classes with much student talk, focused on live issues, is a better sign of learning than quiet classes focused on a passive acceptance of what the teacher says,that students gain significant knowledge only when they value it,that information

35、should be presented so as to be understandable from the point of view of the learner, hence continually related to the learners experiences and point of view,39.that superficial learning is often mis-learning and stands as an obstacle to deeper understanding,that depth is more important than coverag

36、e,that students can often provide correct answers, repeat definitions, and apply formulas while not understanding those answers, definitions, or formulas, andthat students learn best by working together with other students, actively debating and exchanging ideas.40.These contrasting assumptions abou

37、t education, knowledge, teaching, and learning have contrasting implicationsfor how textbooks should be written, how teachers should teach, and how students should go about learning.Indeed they have very different implications for every dimension of school life. 41.We must make a paradigm shift from

38、 a didactic to a critical model of education to make higher order thinking a classroom reality. 42.This shift is like a global shift in our eating habits and lifestyle. It cannot be achieved in a one-day inservice or by any other short-term strategy. It must come over an extended period of time and

39、be experienced as something of a conversion, as a new way of thinking about every dimension of schooling. 43.Let us now consider some of the basic changes that must be made to effect this shift.44.Reconceive and Redesign the CurriculumCurricula play a significant role in school life. Instruction ari

40、ses from goals and objectives stated in them. 45.when higher order objectives are vaguely defined, when assessment is tied to content recall and lower order skills, a didactic conception of education, complete with extensive lower order teaching and learning, results.46.As things now stand many teac

41、hers are usually without knowing it obsessed with the notion that they must cover so much content that they have no time to focus on depth of understanding at any point along the way, let alone at every point along the way. 47.This compulsion blocks redesign of instruction. Teachers feel they have n

42、o time to focus on higher order learning and therefore on what has been called “high” content the most basic ideas and issues within a content area approached in such a way that students must think them through for themselves.48.Only through an explicit shift to a critical conception of education, w

43、ith an explicit critique and rejection of the assumptions of didactic education, can we achieve significant reform. 49.Consider one of the conclusions of the studies conducted at the National Center on Effective Secondary Schools concerning teaching effectiveness in higher order thinking. These stud

44、ies focus on high school social studies departments which have made an explicit commitment to teaching higher order critical thinking. They found, among other things, that even in departments with a special interest in higher order thinking numerous teachers lapse into didactic teaching and end up f

45、ocusing more on coverage than depth. 50.Results of this sort underscore the need to attack the didactic model directly and explicitly. Subconscious habits of thought and instruction, internalized over many years of schooling, are not easily changed. Even with careful critique, ingrained habits of th

46、ought and behavior can only be abandoned by degrees as new ones take their place. 51.The shift from a lecture-drill-recall paradigm to one focused upon engaged deep-processing can only be achieved through long-term evolution. 52.A major emphasis needs to be put on a detailed formulation of philosoph

47、y, one which highlights the essential role of thinking in the acquisition of knowledge, and contrasts lower order with higher order learning.53.Higher order learning can be cultivated in almost any academic setting. By designing instruction so that students explicitly grasp the sense, the logicalnes

48、s, of what they learn, we can make all additional learning easier for them.54.Higher order learning multiplies comprehension and insight; lower order rote memorization and performance multiply misunderstanding and prejudice. Higher order learning stimulates and empowers, lower order discourages and

49、limits the learner.Good teaching focuses on high content, basic ideas and issues taught in ways which actively engage student reflection and thought. 55.We often talk of knowledge as though it could be divorced from thinking, as though it could be gathered up by one person and given to another in th

50、e form of a collection of sentences to remember. When we talk in this way we forget that knowledge, by its very nature, depends on thought. 56.Knowledge is produced by thought, analyzed by thought, comprehended by thought, organized, evaluated, maintained, and transformed by thought. Knowledge exist

51、s, properly speaking, only in minds that have comprehended and justified it through thought. 57.And when we say thought we mean critical thought58.When we think critically, we realize that:Knowledge must be distinguished from the memorization of true statements. People can easily blindly memorize wh

52、at they do not understand. A book contains knowledge only in a derivative sense, only because minds can thoughtfully read it and, through this analytic process, gain knowledge.59.All knowledge exists in and through critical thought. All the disciplines mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geogr

53、aphy, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and so on are modes of thinking.60.When we teach each subject in such a way that students pass courses without thinking their way into the knowledge that these subjects make possible, students leave those courses with no more knowledge than they ha

54、d when they entered them. When we sacrifice thought to gain coverage, we sacrifice knowledge at the same time. 61.Paradigmatically, lower order learning is learning by sheer association or rote. Hence students come to think of history class, for example, as a place where you hear names and dates and

55、 places; where you try to remember them and state them on tests, where you read that this event had this cause and that result.62. Math comes to be thought of as numbers, symbols, and formulas, mysterious things you mechanically manipulate as the teacher told you to get the right answer. Literature

56、is often thought of as uninteresting stories to remember along with what the teacher said is important about them. Science means measuring, counting, and filling out graphs.63.Give Teachers Time to Thoughtfully Redesign Their InstructionAs teachers become increasingly aware of the difference between

57、 a didactic and a critical conception of education, and have a curriculum which articulates a coherent understanding of and commitment to higher order learning and high content for all students, they need the time and the incentive to thoughtfully redesign or remodel their own instruction. 64.This i

58、s no simple, one-shot task. It must address deep-seated teaching habits and ways of thinking. It requires incremental change. It requires on-going critical thinking on the part of teachers and administrators. It requires long term planning. It requires a set of strategies for transforming instructio

59、n as well as an understanding of the nature of higher order thinking and of the conditions under which it can occur. Here is a list of five interrelated ideas that converge on higher order teaching and learning:65.1)On the first day of class, spell out as completely as possible what your philosophy

60、of education is, how you are going to structure the class and why, why the students will be required to think their way through it, why standard methods of rote memorization will not work. Name, explain, and involve the class in thinking within the mode of thinking at the focus of instruction.66.2)