LadyAngelika
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Joined: 7/4/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: domiguy
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyAngelika
Domi, you can believe what you want. Between you and a meta analysis on the question (not to mention everything else I read while I did my Master's Degree in Education), I think I'll go for the research.
I will say that some people are naturally more predisposed to being able to think critically and make logical deductions.
- LA
Let me prattle on. I believe that it is innate. But some behavior can be changed. Rarely. You see it out here on a rather routine basis. The birthers. the people that have no problem rushing into war. Teabaggers. The religious right. The conservatives.
Every now and again someone will do an about face. Rarely. How often after knowing all of the facts and then making a sound decision do you then change your mind? Rarely?
I learn by watching people you learn from your studies.
I have a sound basis for reaching my decisions that is based upon personal experience....I am a critical thinker.
Well actually Domi, you are watching adults. When I talk about critical thinking that can be taught, I'm talking about during the formative years. That is why in my response to Des, I wrote that while I found it commendable that they were teaching critical thinking in her daughter's highschool, it was probably too late. In fact, a fellow researcher's findings when observing college students concluded that it was too late to teach them then.
A number of researchers have proposed that our human cognitive architecture may contain up to five different memory systems: procedural, perceptual representational, primary (working memory), semantic (generic-knowledge), and episodic (autobiographical).
In addition, it is thought that memories are either "inceptive" -- representations of the world stored in the way they were encoded at their inception (the time at which they were first experienced) or "derived" -- higher level representation that was derived from inceptive memory stores but was computationally transformed to supply information in a form that minimizes the need for further processing by the decision rules that use it.
Thus, to reach Piaget's Formal period, one would more than likely need all memory systems fully functional, in addition to being able to transform inceptive memories into derived memories. According to Piaget, one of the requirements for proof of higher level conceptional thinking was the ability to withstand challenges (probing) designed to confuse those who do not have a firm grasp of the new concept. Thus, this type of thinking is often approached in stages: 1) be able to verbalize the concept, 2) indicate understanding when probed by others, and 3) readily accept counter-arguments by not readily backing down and/or reverting to lower-level concepts.
A couple of techniques that seem to help conceptional/abstract thinking is requiring collaboration when there is disagreement and playing devil's advocate (pretend that one's belief is opposite to their real one).
Part of the problem about this level of thinking is when exactly are children ready (called "readiness")? Piaget theorized that it was about at the age of twelve, others have theorized it is much earlier. One thing appears to be certain -- readiness needs to be "forced." I know "force" appears to be a heavy-handed term, yet it is perhaps the best one. Why? Well, one thing is for certain -- very few individuals reach the formative stage, thus sitting around and waiting for them reach it on their own is doing absolutely no good at all.
I bolded the last paragraph for emphasis. (Source: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/creativity/criticalthinking.html)
- LA
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Une main de fer dans un gant de velours ~ An iron hand in a velvet glove
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RE: Critical Thinking & Logical Deduction Are Becoming ... - 
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