In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today. In a series of short, accessible, and enlightening essays, hooks explores the confounding and sometimes controversial topics that teachers and students have urged her to address since the publication of the previous best-selling volumes in her Teaching series, Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community. The issues are varied and broad, from whether meaningful teaching can take place in a large classroom setting to confronting issues of self-esteem. One professor, for example, asked how black female professors can maintain positive authority in a classroom without being seen through the lens of negative racist, sexist stereotypes. One teacher asked how to handle tears in the classroom, while another wanted to know how to use humor as a tool for learning. Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today.

This practical teaching resource has been designed to give children aged 9–12 the basic tools required to challenge some of the conflicting information which they may encounter in everyday life. With increasing exposure to modern information technology and social media, amongst other things, children are increasingly exposed to misleading information that can seriously influence their worldview and self-esteem. The sooner they are helped to approach some of this material with a critical eye, the better they will be able to make independent judgements and resist undue persuasion. Key features of this book include: • Short texts designed to give opportunities for critical examination, created to be points of discussion with individuals, groups or whole classes • Topics covering seven areas of critical thought, ordered in level of difficulty, including finding contradictions, and detecting bias and fake news • Supporting teacher prompts and questions, as well as photocopiable resources without prompts The ability to question and evaluate information is an essential life skill, as well as a key skill for academic learning, yet it remains one of the most challenging aspects of comprehension to teach. This is a vital text for teachers, teaching assistants and other professionals looking to develop critical thinking skills in their students.

"Critical thinking is the essential tool for ensuring that students fulfill their promise. But, in reality, critical thinking is still a luxury good, and students with the greatest potential are too often challenged the least. This bestselling book introduces a powerful but practical framework to close the critical thinking gap, gives teachers the tools and knowledge to teach critical thinking to all students, empowers students to tackle 21st-century problems, and teaches students how to compete in a rapidly changing global marketplace. Colin Seale, a teacher-turned-attorney-turned-education-innovator and founder of thinkLaw, uses his unique experience to introduce a wide variety of concrete instructional strategies and examples that teachers can use in all grade levels. Individual chapters address underachievement, the value of nuance, evidence-based reasoning, social-emotional learning, equitable education, and leveraging families to close the critical thinking gap. In addition to offering examples for Math, Science, ELA, and Social Studies, this timely, updated second edition adds a variety of new examples and applications for Physical Education, Fine Arts, Foreign Language, and Career and Technical Education"--

An insightful guide to the practice, teaching, and history of critical thinking—from Aristotle and Plato to Thomas Dewey—for teachers, students, and anyone looking to hone their critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is regularly cited as an essential 21st century skill, the key to success in school and work. Given the propensity to believe fake news, draw incorrect conclusions, and make decisions based on emotion rather than reason, it might even be said that critical thinking is vital to the survival of a democratic society. But what, exactly, is critical thinking? Jonathan Haber explains how the concept of critical thinking emerged, how it has been defined, and how critical thinking skills can be taught and assessed. Haber describes the term's origins in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and science. He examines the components of critical thinking, including • structured thinking • language skills • background knowledge • information literacy • intellectual humility • empathy and open-mindedness Haber argues that the most important critical thinking issue today is that not enough people are doing enough of it. Fortunately, critical thinking can be taught, practiced, and evaluated. This book offers a guide for teachers, students, and aspiring critical thinkers everywhere, including advice for educational leaders and policy makers on how to make the teaching and learning of critical thinking an educational priority and practical reality.

Learning how to be critical and how to think for oneself are vital elements of becoming an independent learner. Critical thinking could be thought of as a tool box of skills which enables us to think more deeply, clearly and logically about our beliefs; providing a platform for making sound and valid decisions. Not only will this book help you to develop your students, but it will also further develop your own critical thinking. Each chapter contains an illustrative story to help apply the abstract ideas, such as rational thought and moral and ethical reflection, to concrete, everyday situations. There is also a complete children's story at the end of the book to help you introduce philosophy to children. This book explains the essential elements of critical thinking and why it is integral to the lifelong process of becoming educated.

Help students meet today’s literacy demands with this new book from Terry Roberts and Laura Billings. The authors show how a seminar approach can lead students deeper into a text and improve their speaking, listening, and writing skills, as recommended by the Common Core State Standards. Roberts and Billings provide easy-to-follow information on implementing Paideia Seminars, in which students discuss a text and ask open-ended questions about it. When teachers use this lesson format, students are exposed to a wide range of increasingly complex texts. They also learn how to collaborate, talk about, and reflect on what they’re reading, to make meaning independently and together. Seminars can be done in English class and across the curriculum, using social studies documents or math problems as the texts under discussion. Teaching Critical Thinking also offers an array of practical resources: teacher lesson plans student samples a list of possible ideas and values for discussion a guide to asking good questions during a seminar six full seminar plans (including the texts), covering literature, social studies, and science topics

In spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor’s degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they’re born. Almost everyone strives to go, but almost no one asks the fundamental question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates really learning anything once they get there? For a large proportion of students, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s answer to that question is a definitive no. Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year. According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college. As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise—instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list. Academically Adrift holds sobering lessons for students, faculty, administrators, policy makers, and parents—all of whom are implicated in promoting or at least ignoring contemporary campus culture. Higher education faces crises on a number of fronts, but Arum and Roksa’s report that colleges are failing at their most basic mission will demand the attention of us all.