BEGINNING THE DIALOGUE: THOUGHTS ON PROMOTING

CRITICAL T·HINKING

Classroom Assessment for Critical Thinking

Thomas A. Angelo BostO/1 College

What IS critical thinking? Despite years of debate, no inglt.: definition is Widely accepted. Noneth less. Kurfiss (19 8) cast a net wide en ugh to capture many, when he defined cmical thinking as follows:

an mv~tlgn110n whose purp06e IS co explore a situ, [Ion, phen men n, question, r problem to arrive at n hYrothc'j" or conclu: ion ")1Out ir (hm integrates all availablc informa­tion and that can therefore be convincingly jusrified. In cn[lcal rhll1kll1g, all a umptiol are open t qu .ti n. di­vergent \'\ 'W. arc uggresloively sought, anJ he inquiry I'

nor bia. d in favor of a particular outcome. (p. Z)

M ~L form I deftnitions characterize criLical thinking as (he intentional applicauon of rauunal, higher order think­ing skills, ,uch ~ analysis, synthe:. is , problem recognitiun and pr blcm .o!vmg, mferencc, and evaluation. Much eVI­dence indicaLes that these higher order skills are unlikely to develop simplv ~ a result of matul'"iltion. Equally clear is the f,let that students typically find these skills difficult to learn, even when pr vided with direct instruction. AmI, wi alever th ir personal definitions may be, most college faculty would probably agree that critical-thinking -kill' are m totio Iv dlflkult to leach and develop.

Thcy are difficult to teach. but not imp sible. There is Wide agreement Lhar college student leam more and bener whcn they (a) are actively engaged and personally ij)\'~teJ, (b) receive c mprehen'ibte and timely feedback, and (c) W( rk cooperatively with peers and teachers. McKcachie. Pintnch. Lin, ~ nd Smith (19 6), in " review of the rc"carch litcrature n colleg' teaching and learning, con ludeJ that three Leaching approaches can improve tudentl;' criuc,,1 thinking: student discussion, explicit emphasis on pr blem . lving, and verbalizati n f metacognitivc strmegi s.

All thi. uggesLs that critical thinking is likely LO improve when tca heT (a) provlde time for well phmned. focused. and interactive 'tudent dbcussion: r!\;-Jl connect pri rand -ub~equent assignments; (b) expliCitly te-<lch pr blern-~tv­

ing methods and procedures, provide guided practice, and then <l.sse studel1ls' ability to solve problems and explain how they solv pr blcms; and (c) Lalk through and model v,lri 1I, sLrmegi : LO direct and control attention anti think­ing (metacognition), provide practice in these strategies. and

then assess students' self-a\\rarcness and usc of mctacognitive strategie .

T help stud nts develop critical-thinking skills, then, faculty need to monitor IC<lrning continuously throughout the tenn, nOl ju.~t at midterm and finals. Also, learners need regular practice in ass . ment to bee me elf-monitoring and independent. CI<l:isroom assessment is one simple, stmi 'htforward approach faculty can ~ to find out what how much, and how well thcir students arc learning (Angelo & Cross. 1993). Faculty u e simple feedback devices, re­ferred to as c1, il'oom asse menr techniques (CATs), to

collect dam on their students' learning. After a quick. usu­ally informal analysis of the data, faculty u~ Lhe information gl aned from classroom assessments to infonn and refocus their teaching an to help students make thei~ learning more effective. To complete the cla' 'room assessment, fac­ulty give the class as a whole feedback on what they gleaned from thc cI, room assessment, how they intend to respond as teachers, and h w they hope students will respond.

Alm:JSt all CATs requirc students to reflect on and ex­plain their !c,lrning, usually by writing brief, anonym us r po es r imple questions or prompts. This focus on making ~)ne's own learning explicit can promote metacog­nition :lnd critical thinking. For example, the Minute Paper, one of the si mplc. tATs, asks studen~ somc variant of the fI 1I0wing tw que 'lion': Wh t WflS the most important thing y u learned in toJay's class? What question related t rhi' se: ion remains uppermc st in y ur mind? In rcsIX>nse to the Minute Paper, tudenr write .hon, anonymous answers, USU:1l1y during rhe last few minutes of class. The teacher collects their r ponsc', looks (or patterns, and pr~pare' to rc.'p nd. Closing the feedback loor-givmg thc class limely. focu.sed feedback on their responses--i.- vital in clasHoom assc -·menl. To do [hi. al the beginning f the nexr cl(1s~ . c~sion, the in [ructer may quickly liSt CI handful of imporwnt IJeas studenL~ had menti ned that he or he wanted to reinlor e, then point ut important ,tems thal students mi:s cd. Next, the instrucLor may brieflv respond to [he III l commonly raised questions--or ask members of the cla~ La tecklc Lhem. To s,wc class time, the teacher may respond with a handouL or "export" the response to " dl-cussion or review 'ession led hy (I teaching assi.st<lnt-

Teaching of Psychology 6

NUffiCr( u CAT- have been developed, and mtmy of these simple l chnlquL's can be adapted to assess analysis, ynth ­sis, pr~)blel1l solving, inference, memcognition, and Other asp cr- of Crltlc,ll thinking (Angelo & Cr ,199,). Walker (1991) provided a detailed and instructive account of c1ass­ro m as e 'm 'm applied to an mtrcxlucl ry psychology COUJ"l>C.

In the end, of course, it is n t the dassr m assessment itself but the tach r's and students' re;,pon es to the ass .-­mem re ult.:. th.lt CLm lead to improved cntical thmking. If fa ulty rcguLlrly re:opond to the results of classroom as­s mem- by xplicitly mo.:icling the thinking and problem­

lving ·kills lhey are hoping t develop and by engaging learners in focused, interactive discus 'ions about the assess­m nl results, college students ar m re lilel)' to become effective critical thinkers. Frequ m use of simple CATs pro­vides tudenr.:. WIth guided practice in -elf-a e',ment and melacognition within the di ciplinary context. When link d cl~ly to instruction, classroom assessment am be a powerful mean f level ping critical thinking.

References

Angelo, T. A.. & lU'>S, K. P. (I 993). Classroom assessment tecJmj(Jltfs: A 1ul11f1bcxJ< far college reachers. ';m FrancISCO: J . y-lhs.

Kurfiss, J. G. (1988). Critical chinking: Theory, re-~ard1. pmctice. aruI pos.libilicie~ (ASHE-ERlC Higher EduQuion Report No.2). Wash· ington, CC: Association (or the tudy of Higher Educmion.

McKeachie, W., Pintrich, P., Lm, Y., & Smith, D. (1986). Teaching aruI learning in rhe ollege d,cs.sroom: A retie~' of rk research lireraOI1'e. Ann Arbor, MI: National Cc-mer for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning.

Walker, C. J. (1991). Classroom research in p ychology: Assess­ment techniques [0 enhance rcachmg and learning. In T. A. Angelo (Ed.). Classroom research: Early lenms fram success (pp. 67-78). 5.ln Franci 0: Jossey-Ba .

Note

Request for reprints should be sent t Thomas A. Angelo, Aca­demiC Devel pmcnt Center, Boston College. Ow·tnut Hill, MA 02167-3810.

Cooperative Learning and Critical Thinking

James L. Cooper California State U"iversrty, Domillguez Tlrlls

In many way', 'olleoe teaching ha r mained largely unchanged m e the days of the medieval university. Thi. article recommends c rerative learning as one alternative to the lecture method, which has dominated coll~ge PCU<l­ogy during the Ia.:.t few hundred years, ano suggestS poSSible

reasons why cooperative learning may fosler the critical­thinking skill that appear to be lacking in m ny of our student. The ,ugge tion are tentative for several reasons. Fin, there i n generally agreed-on definition of critical rlunkin (Kunl s. 1988). S cond, the main effect of coopera­tive learning on numerous student outcome me ures has been replicated in hundreds of studies (D. W. Johnson & R. T. Johnson. 19 9), bur problem.:. exist in adJres~ ing how cooperal ive le;lrning may be caus lly linked to increases in critical thinkinn am,mg college students. At lcast five prop­crtie define cooperative learning, and systematic res arch on the effic<lCy of each in promoting positive srudent oulcomes iS,till quite. carel', particularlyon college populations. Third, coop >ralive I arnlOj! is not a unitary rechnique; there arc at

Vol. 22, No.1, February 1995

least 50 different forms of cooperalive lC}1rning, ranging from rudenr-dir~cted totcflcher- tructured methods (Kagan. 1992).

Cognitive Disequilibrium

In most cooperative-learning stnlCturCS, heterogeneous teams of students work n a comm n problem. This ap­proach oft~n leae\:; lO cognitive di quilibrium, which may ~ roducc what D. W. Johnson. R, T. J hnson, and Smith (199Ia) called el>istemic curiOSily, as 'tudents ,-eek out infor­marion t help them rc olve the conflict. The confluence of diffcring approaches to an issue may lead students to move fTOm what Perry (1970) called egocen rric, dualiStic chinking t more matur , rclmivistic thinking. If cooperative learning i.s pn perly tnlcrurcu, it cfln (0 rer divergent think­ing much rn re than the leclllre technique. In lectures, tu­dents often hear <l highly skilled problem olver res lve complicated issues withour hearing the diveniity of Ideas thar went into the lecturer's ultimate resoluti n. Too often,

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