Rethinking Critical Thinking With the Help of Carl Sagan

Let’s face it, when more than half of undergraduates believe that a full moon causes people to behave oddly, when two-thirds of them believe that Bigfoot exists, and when students of all ages have a “dismaying” inability to tell fake news from real news, it’s obvious that critical thinking education is failing. Students are being sent out into a modern world rife with misinformation without the needed skills to tell fact from faction.

more…

the paper

Strategies for Teaching Students to Think Critically

Critical thinking (CT) is purposeful, self-regulatory judgment that results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanations of the considerations on which that judgment is based. This article summarizes the available empirical evidence on the impact of instruction on the development and enhancement of critical thinking skills and dispositions and student achievement. The review includes 341 effects sizes drawn from quasi- or true-experimental studies that used standardized measures of CT as outcome variables. The weighted random effects mean effect size (g+) was 0.30 (p < .001). The collection was heterogeneous (p < .001). Results demonstrate that there are effective strategies for teaching CT skills, both generic and content specific, and CT dispositions, at all educational levels and across all disciplinary areas. Notably, the opportunity for dialogue, the exposure of students to authentic or situated problems and examples, and mentoring had positive effects on CT skills.

Carl Sagan’s book

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=The+Demon-Haunted+World%3A+Science+as+a+Candle+in+the+Dar

Do they have a ref for that bigfoot thing?

dv said:

Do they have a ref for that bigfoot thing?

Dunno ?

You would have to contact the authors.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Let’s face it, when more than half of undergraduates believe that a full moon causes people to behave oddly

In the days before street lights it did. The full moon was when people had enough light to go hunting at night. And you know that Hitler used night speeches to make people behave strangely.

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Let’s face it, when more than half of undergraduates believe that a full moon causes people to behave oddly

In the days before street lights it did. The full moon was when people had enough light to go hunting at night. And you know that Hitler used night speeches to make people behave strangely.

Not just hunting but meeting for dances and trances and other important social exchanges. And going for long walks across the plains of a transfigured night.

given the industrial-scale associationism people are imbued of courtesy media (internalized, habituated), involving exploits of ancient social instincts, and that education so lending to hypercomparison, well, good luck.

half a step from envy, always, even when avoiding it.

welcome reality as social construction, there will be no nature, no relief from the work of minds.