critical thinking into instruction by providing fifty easy-to-implement strategies that lead to high levels of student engagement that deepen learning. States, districts, and even individual schools all have valid ideas and systems in place they believe will serve student interests, but ultimately, it comes down to teachers.
As researchers Robert J. Marzano and Michael D. Toth (2014) write:
If we hope to move students to these higher levels of skills and cognition, it’s imperative that we equip teachers with the “how,” those essential teaching strategies that will scaffold students to problem-solve and make decisions in real-world scenarios with less teacher direction. (p. 11)
Seventy-six percent of educators state they don’t have sufficient knowledge and training to nurture creative problem solving (Adobe Systems, 2018). Similarly, in a large-scale study of teachers applying for National Board Certification, a key element differentiating those who earned and didn’t earn certification was their ability to plan curriculum that transitions students from understanding to deeper learning outcomes (Smith, Baker, Hattie, & Bond, 2008). Possessing the ability to design tasks with high-cognitive-level outcomes is an advanced teaching skill.
This book will help you enhance your ability to design these high-cognitive tasks in the following ways.
• Chapter 1 fully defines critical thinking and cognitive engagement, details ways to involve students in deep-level processing strategies, and provides guidelines on establishing a thinking classroom culture.
• Chapter 2 focuses on Bloom’s taxonomy revised (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), describing each level of its cognitive processes while also providing numerous classroom examples to highlight how you engage students at the levels most likely to engage their critical-thinking skills.
• Chapter 3 establishes the criteria for this book’s strategies organization. It also clarifies the three supporting components of the strategies that produce the engagement necessary to allow critical thinking to happen.
• Chapters 4–7 contain the fifty strategies for critical thinking at the heart of this book. Chapter 4 provides strategies that emphasize the Understand level of Bloom’s taxonomy revised (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001); chapter 5 highlights strategies at the Analyze level; the strategies in chapter 6 align with the Evaluate level; and chapter 7 provides strategies that produce the highest and most demanding kinds of thinking, the Create level. These higher levels on Bloom’s revised taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) challenge students to think critically and problem solve, better preparing them for life outside of school.
• Chapter 8 wraps up this book by outlining several key aspects of a thinking classroom culture. The knowledge in this chapter is the cement that will hold all the strategy bricks together.
Each chapter ends with a series of Discussion Questions and a Take Action section that provides activities you can use to put this book’s ideas and strategies to work.
When you consider the vital importance of thinking skills to students’ future prospects, the need for all teachers to cultivate a classroom culture high in cognitive engagement is clear. If you’re ready to make this essential transition, you need only turn the page.
CHAPTER 1
Understanding Cognitive Engagement and the Thinking-Based Classroom
Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
—Roger Lewin
Should education focus on ensuring acquisition of knowledge (that is, information, facts, and data) or building skills (creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking)? Traditionally, the behavioral or transmission model emphasized that learning required reciting and reproducing information. This model focuses on transmission of knowledge through delivering content, not on the learner (Koenig, 2010). A thinking-based classroom looks remarkably different. It centers on building students’ skills and their thinking processes (see table 1.1). It is a path to deeper learning, which is a high-leverage strategy to propel learning as students engage in complex tasks.
This all begs the question of what thinking is in the context of learning. To be sure, thinking covers a variety of categories and cognitive levels from information analysis to problem solving and effective collaboration skills. Bloom’s taxonomy revised (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) is a key part of all this, and we’ll cover those connections in detail in chapter 2 (page 11), but in this chapter, we start with a focus on two broad-based concepts that succinctly establish the core aspects of the thinking-based classroom—critical thinking and cognitive engagement.
Table 1.1: Transmission Model Versus Thinking Model
| Transmission Model | Thinking Model |
| • Teacher-centered classrooms • One right way to answer a problem • Focus on grades • Testing culture • Students not allowed to talk • Speedy answers encouraged | • Learning-centered classrooms • Divergent ways to solve a problem • Focus on the learning process • Learning culture • Student discussions of diverse ideas and solutions • Authentic, intellectually demanding work |
Source: Adapted from Ritchhart, 2015.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a common descriptor in modern education, but it’s not always one that teachers truly know how to define. Critical thinking is a reasoned approach to problems, decisions, questions, and issues. This kind of thinking is skillful and a precursor to all learning.
We can all identify times in our lives when we didn’t think critically about a problem, decision, question, or issue. Maybe a few of these examples will resonate with you.
• Dated someone for superficial reasons (such as having nice hair, pretty eyes, or a cool car)
• Decided to go on vacation without considering possible consequences
• Took part in a class or professional development session without focusing on its content or mission
• Took a stance on an issue with little evidence or support
• Considered evidence from an unreliable source
By
