Blog 6 - Emerging Technology that Supports Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Critical thinking is something that we all desire of our students. However, it's something that requires so much preparation on the part of the teacher. We have to lead our students towards creating good critical thinking skills. In her book, Egbert (2009) outlines ways in which we can help to create "critical thinking opportunities" for our students (pg. 107).
1. Egbert (2009) prompts teachers to "ask the right questions" (pg. 107) if we are to hope for critical thinking. Surface questions (ie: what is an integer?) merely serve to see if the student can recall a piece of information. However, they need to answer questions which require them to "meet standards for critical thinking such as clarity, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, and logic" (Egbert, 2009, pg. 107). Rather than asking students "What is an integer?", we might ask students "What are examples of where integers are used in the world?".
2. Egbert also suggests that, in order to prod our students to think critically, we should "use tasks with appropriate levels of challenge" (Egbert, 2009, pg. 107). I think that this is something that, whether we do it or not, teachers certainly know to be true. We want to ensure that tasks are "neither too challenging nor too easy for the student" (Egbert, 2009, pg. 107). Through the use of grouping, technology, types of tasks, variety of questions, expectations, and differentiation, we can provide these challenging, but manageable, tasks for students.
3. As a way to help our students develop their critical thinking skills, Egbert (2009) suggestions that we should "teach strategies" (pg. 107) that help our students to think about their own decision making. By helping students learn to question themselves, we are teaching them to think critically about the world around them.
4. The final guideline offered by Egbert in order to develop critical thinking skills is to encourage the curiosity of our students. As Egbert explains, children often think critically through their own curiosity about the world; "however, in classroom settings they are often ignored, whether due to curricular, time, or other constraints" (Egbert, 2009, pg. 108). We have to allow students to keep asking questions of the world around them .

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.