4 ms·

> Should need to teach how to think. Do you know if there is any sort of consensus on this topic on how to do it? It looks like a very popular belief, but do

by hkpack 4y ago

> Should need to teach how to think. Do you know if there is any sort of consensus on this topic on how to do it? It looks like a very popular belief, but do anyone actually knows how to think, and even more, how to teach how to think without making it just a different kind of propaganda?

bluGill 4y ago
Here I'm focused on the skills of making an easy to read/nice too look at paper, and not the much more broad skill of critical thinking in any situation. (though that is the real goal of school, I have no idea how to teach it - see the other reply) As such what we need to teach is when to change font size, when bold/italic is good, when column layouts are good, how to format table of contents, and many other things that you would do. Any word processor can do all of the above. Then a similar list of things for the other tools in an office suite. That is how to think about office documents. Once you know what you want to do any tool can do that.
lupire 4y ago
Teaching is always propaganda. What matters is what you are propagandizing. Robert Fulghum figured it out decades ago. The teacher should were two message buttons on their shirt: "Trust me; I'm the teacher" "Question Authority"
Loughla 4y ago
So not really. There are broad strokes ways to teach critical thinking skills, but (believe it or not) critical thinking is a very higher order skill that is difficult to transfer across domain areas. It follows a few steps: teach the scientific process, analyze analogies to whatever it is you're approaching, identify appropriate and relevant sources for information and how to assess their reliability/trustworthiness, identify biases including self-biases, and fostering open-mindedness and an ability to evaluate points from multiple perspectives. When you are critically thinking about things, these are the steps you take - quickly, and not in any order that you can identify. But you are doing that. That being said, because these are higher order, abstract skills for the most part, they are very hard to apply across disciplines. You need a level of base knowledge of the area to be able to sort through these steps appropriately. For example, it is easy for me to analyze statements and assess articles related to farming, education, and depression, because I have massive experience with these things. Whereas, I absolutely could not even get through evaluating appropriate sources when it comes to programming languages; I have no experience with them. In other words, it is possible, but it takes a concerted effort in nearly every aspect of the child's life. This is not something we can do JUST in the classroom, especially when parents, often, do not want true critical reasoning in their children; my experience is that if a child can do this effectively s/he is very difficult to keep 'under control'.

by hkpack 4y ago

bluGill 4y ago

Here I'm focused on the skills of making an easy to read/nice too look at paper, and not the much more broad skill of critical thinking in any situation. (though that is the real goal of school, I have no idea how to teach it - see the other reply) As such what we need to teach is when to change font size, when bold/italic is good, when column layouts are good, how to format table of contents, and many other things that you would do. Any word processor can do all of the above. Then a similar list of things for the other tools in an office suite. That is how to think about office documents. Once you know what you want to do any tool can do that.

lupire 4y ago

Teaching is always propaganda. What matters is what you are propagandizing. Robert Fulghum figured it out decades ago. The teacher should were two message buttons on their shirt: "Trust me; I'm the teacher" "Question Authority"

Loughla 4y ago

So not really. There are broad strokes ways to teach critical thinking skills, but (believe it or not) critical thinking is a very higher order skill that is difficult to transfer across domain areas. It follows a few steps: teach the scientific process, analyze analogies to whatever it is you're approaching, identify appropriate and relevant sources for information and how to assess their reliability/trustworthiness, identify biases including self-biases, and fostering open-mindedness and an ability to evaluate points from multiple perspectives. When you are critically thinking about things, these are the steps you take - quickly, and not in any order that you can identify. But you are doing that. That being said, because these are higher order, abstract skills for the most part, they are very hard to apply across disciplines. You need a level of base knowledge of the area to be able to sort through these steps appropriately. For example, it is easy for me to analyze statements and assess articles related to farming, education, and depression, because I have massive experience with these things. Whereas, I absolutely could not even get through evaluating appropriate sources when it comes to programming languages; I have no experience with them. In other words, it is possible, but it takes a concerted effort in nearly every aspect of the child's life. This is not something we can do JUST in the classroom, especially when parents, often, do not want true critical reasoning in their children; my experience is that if a child can do this effectively s/he is very difficult to keep 'under control'.