Supporting Critical Thinking in eLearning

We live in an age of advertising slogans, sound bites,talking points, and other bits of pre-digested dogma, straw men, andurban myths. Is researcher Gwen Dewar (see References) right when shesays that people are getting the idea that “fractured attention and superficialthinking are acceptable ways to get along”?

There is an antidote to fractured attention and superficialthinking. Critical thinking skills are perhaps more essential for success todaythan ever before. Do you have a strategy for using eLearning to help peopledevelop critical thinking skills? Does your eLearning help people develop theability to mindfully apply what they learned instead of merely enabling them torecall information?

Methods for doing these things in the physical classroomexist and can be highly effective. Should we just go offline, back to thephysical classroom for this work, or should we just make the effort to usetechnology appropriately to extend the opportunity to learn? In my opinion, theanswer is, “Take it online!”

I’ve searched out ideas from experts on ways to deal withthese questions, and I’ve looked at ways to implement those ideas in eLearning.Here’s a brief compendium of what I came up with, and I hope you find it useful.

What does “to think” mean?

“Teaching people to think” sounds like a worthy goal, but alittle reflection shows that the phrase doesn’t mean much without defining what“think” means.

In his article in the References, M.S. Katz recalls that JohnDewey discussed two common meanings or synonyms of the word: to recollect and torecall. Nobody has to be taught how to do either of those. Another sense Katzdescribes consists of reveries, dreams, and mental wandering. These are notcontrolled, they are not going anywhere, and they are not productive ofanything worth keeping. These non-reflective meanings of “thinking” are notsignificant as far as learning is concerned.

“Thinking” can also mean “believing,” and belief frequentlyleads to action, which is usually the goal of an eLearning experience. But whenthe learner takes action, analysis of the outcome is also desireable: did itwork? What could the learner do differently next time to improve the results? Thekey to belief and effective action is to support learning to think critically,to analyze, to concentrate, and to reflect. How does an instructional designerget that to happen?

Methods

At this point, we might look to neuroscience and currentbrain research. Neuroscience has found ways to understand how neurons and thebrain work to store information and to move it around from short term memory tolong term. It is also giving us clues about the role that emotion and activityplay in this process, about timing, and about the effect of learning on thephysical brain (it grows brain cells and increases and modifies interneuronconnections). Dr. Judy Willis has published an excellent guide to applying whatresearchers have discovered, and you will find a link to this in theReferences.

However, much of what is known to date relates to efficientteaching for the purpose of storing and recalling information, not so much formindful application of that knowledge. We know that the most successfulstrengthening of neural networks is associated with guided instruction andpractice with frequent corrective feedback, for example.  The expectation is that research willcontinue to provide more information about the relationship between learningexperiences and maximizing the brain’s learning and proficiency.

For the moment, then, we need to look at what educators havelearned over the years about ways to develop and support critical thinking.Let’s start with the process in children.

Teaching critical thinking to kids 

Professor William Klemm suggests that you can help developcritical thinking in younger students by:

• Requiring them to defend their ideasand their answers to questions
• Modeling critical thinking by showinghow to think about alternative answers
• Rewarding good thinking with attentionand recognition

Klemm provides links to sites that show how to do thesethree things when teaching children. 

Professor Klemm’s suggestions can form the basis for workingwith adults, although the execution of them will need to be adjusted to matchthe experience and life skills of adults. Here are two specific approaches that are known to be effective.

Critical Incident Dialog

A favorite technique of mine is an adaptation of theCritical Incident Method, originally designed to assist researchers andinvestigators in identifying specific behaviors that contribute to success orfailure in specific situations. The adaptation is a huge improvement overtraditional roleplaying in that it takes the pressure off of the individuals playing the parts, and requires the learners who are watching to do somecritical thinking about applying a policy or procedure.

Identify a hypothetical situation that might arise whensomeone applies, for example, a particular policy or procedure that you areteaching. Write up a short script for a dialog between two people in thehypothetical situation. The script should give learners enough informationabout the situation that they would be able to apply the policy or procedure,but it should not lead them to a pat answer—the last line in the dialogmust be the point at which a decision is called for.

Select two learners to read the dialog parts. When theyreach the last line, call “Stop” and ask the other learners some questions thatdo not have “yes” or “no” answers, such as:

• What could happen (would happen) if thissituation were not handled correctly?
• What should the (person responsible for takingaction) do next?
• What words could the (person responsible fortaking action) use?

Have the group discuss the responses and try to improve onthem.

Problem-based learning (PBL)

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a highly effective approach tolearning, often employed in training doctors. However, PBL will be useful forany topic where learners must master thinking strategies and knowledge about adomain.

PBL is a student-centered strategy involving collaboration andreflection. Students work in small groups under the guidance of a tutor,who does not teach. Students direct their own learning as the means ofobtaining new information.

You can support theentire process by using a discussion board, perhaps supplemented with a wiki and web conferencing. PBL is a simple strategy, butit takes some planning before implementation.

Developing critical thinking is at the very heart of PBL. Researchshows that PBL is effective, including when used with middle school- and highschool-age students.

A discussion of problem-based learning is beyond the scopeof this article. If you are notfamiliar with PBL, or lack experience with it, there are a number of resourcesavailable on the web:

• Study Guides and Strategies https://www.studygs.net/pbl.htm
• Problem-Based Learning Faculty Institute https://www.pbl.uci.edu/whatispbl.html
• IMSA’s PBL Teaching and Learning Template https://pbln.imsa.edu/model/template/index.html
• The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-BasedLearning https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ijpbl/

Venues and solutions for critical thinking in eLearning

As you can anticipate, strategies for using eLearning tohelp people develop critical thinking skills rely heavily on sociallearning/collaboration and on virtual classrooms or video conferencing. Most ofthe methods discussed on the sites linked in this article will work in virtualspaces with little or no modification.

Virtual classrooms/video conferencing

• Google+ Hangouts
• Adobe Connect; WebEx; GoToMeeting with HDFaces;others (Google “video conferencing multiple video feeds”)
• Skype (only practical for two-person discussions)

Online discussion

• Google+ Private Communities (all partiipants needGoogle/Gmail accounts)
• Yammer or other enterprise social network
• Basecamp or similar online collaboration tool
• Twitter chats

Online and blended course designs

• MOOC
• Flipped classroom

Summary

Technology constantly brings new tools and channels forcommunication to a state in which designers can use them to support effective,engaging dialog. Use an appropriate mix of these to clearly express theexpectation of critical, creative thought and to provide opportunities for it.This also means setting up venues for learners to express and defend theirideas, conclusions, and opinions.

References

Dewar, Gwen. “Is High-Tech Multitasking Making UsDangerously Stupid?”; Making Humans column, PsychologyToday, September 13, 2012. Recovered 1/18/2013 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/making-humans/201209/is-high-tech-multitasking-making-us-dangerously-stupid

Katz, M. S. “Two Views of ‘Teaching People to Think’’”; Educational Theory, Volume 26, Issue 2, pages 158-164, April 1976; publishedonline 2 April 2007 in the Wiley Online Library. Recovered 1/18/2013 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1976.tb00722.x/abstract(payment required for access to full article)

Klemm, William. “Teaching Children to Think”; Memory Mediccolumn, Psychology Today, October,2011. Recovered 1/18/2013 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201110/teaching-children-think

Willis, Judy. “How the Memory Works in Learning”; TeachThought,January 1, 2013. Recovered 1/18/2013 from https://www.teachthought.com/learning/how-the-memory-works-in-learning/