What is meant by critical thinking? Critical thinking is the type of thinking that helps you to think critically about any statement, not to take anything on faith without evidence, but to be open to new ideas and methods. Critical thinking – a necessary condition for freedom of choice, the quality of prediction, responsibility for their own decisions. Critical thinking, therefore, is essentially a certain tautology, a synonym for qualitative thinking. It is rather a name than a concept, but it is the name that precisely accompanied a number of international projects that introduced into our life the technological methods we will present below.
The constructive basis of “critical thinking technology” is the basic model of the three stages of the learning process:
- At the stage of recall, existing knowledge and ideas about what is being studied are “summoned” from memory, personal interest is formed, and the goals of considering a particular topic are determined.
- At the stage of comprehension (or realization of meaning), as a rule, the student comes into contact with new information. Its systematization takes place. The student gets an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the studied object, learns to formulate questions as the old and new information correlate. His own position is formed. It is very important that already at this stage with the help of a number of techniques it is already possible to track the process of understanding of the material independently.
- The reflection stage is characterized by the fact that students consolidate new knowledge and actively restructure their own primary ideas in order to incorporate new concepts.
While working within this model, students learn different ways to integrate information, learn to develop their own opinions based on comprehension of different experiences, ideas, and notions, build inferences and logical chains of evidence, and express their thoughts clearly, confidently, and correctly in relation to others.
Functions of the Three Phases of Critical Thinking Technology
Challenge
Motivational (encouragement to work with new information, awakening interest to the topic)
Informational (bringing existing knowledge of the topic “to the surface”)
Communicative (conflict-free exchange of opinions)
Content perception
Informational (acquisition of new information on the topic)
Systematization (classification of the acquired information into knowledge categories)
Reflection
Communicative (exchange of opinions about new information)
Informational (acquisition of new knowledge)
Motivational (encouragement of further expansion of the information field)
Evaluative (correlation of new information and available knowledge, development of one’s own position, assessment of the process)