Week:-4 (Critical Thinking for Language Studies)

What is Socratic questioning and how does it differ from other types of questioning?

Socrates:

This article is about the classical Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens. Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher. He was credited as one of the founders of western philosophy. Socrates did not write philosophical texts, the knowledge of the man, his life, and his philosophy is entirely based on writings by his students and contemporaries. Foremost among them is Plato; however, works by Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes also provide important insights. His notable ideas of Socratic Method and Socratic irony.

What is Socratic Method?

Socratic most important contribution to Western thought is his dialogical method of enquiry, known as the Socratic Method, which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and was first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father and fountainhead for ethics or moral philosophy, and of philosophy in general.

What is Socratic Questioning?

Socrates is a Greek philosopher with a teacher. A Socratic approach to teaching is based on the practice of disciplined, rigorously thoughtful dialogue. Socratic Questioning is a disciplined questioning that can be used to take your thought in many directions and for many purposes. Socratic Questioning used thought and many ways including such as; 
to explore complex ideas, to get to the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts, to distinguish what we know from what we don’t know, to follow out logical implications of thought or to control the discussion. 
Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined, deep and usually focuses on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues or problems.

Socratic questioning, the teacher is a model of critical thinking who respects students' viewpoints, probes their understanding, and shows genuine interest in their thinking. The teacher poses questions that are more meaningful than those a novice of a given topic might develop on his or her own. The teacher creates and sustains an intellectually stimulating classroom environment and acknowledges the value of the student in that environment.

Socratic questioning helps students to think critically by focusing explicitly on the process of thinking. During disciplined, carefully structured questioning, students must slow down and examine their own thinking processes (i.e., reflective thinking).

R.W. Paul's six types of Socratic questions:

(1) Questions for clarification,

(2) Questions that probe assumptions,

(3) Questions that probe reasons and evidence,

(4) Questions about viewpoints and perspectives,

(5) Questions that probe implications and consequences,

(6) Questions about the question.

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                                             Week:3- Blooms' Taxonomy

                     

                                      *   Blooms Taxonomy:

     Blooms’Taxonomy is ‘a classification of learning objectives’ within education proposed in 1956 by a committee of education by Benjamin Bloom. It means of expressing qualitatively different kinds of thinking. Who also edited the first volume of  the standard text, Taxonomy of educational objectives: the classification of educational goals. It refers to a classification of the different objectives that educators set for  students learning objectives.

 Blooms’ Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three “domains”:

            1)    Cognitive, 2) Affective, 3) Psychomotor.

Sometimes loosely described as knowing/head, feeling/heart and doing/heads.A goal of Blooms’ Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education. ‘’Taxonomy ‘simply means “classification”, so the well known taxonomy of learning objectives is an attempt to classify forms and levels of learning. It identifies three “domains” of learning, each of which is organized as a series of level or pre-requisites. It is suggested that one can’t effectively- or ought not to try to- address higher levels until those below them have been covered. Thus in the Cognitive domain, training for technicians may cover knowledge, comprehension and application, but not concern itself with analysis and above, whereas  full professional training may be expected to include this and synthesis and evaluation as well.

·                         *  Cognitive:

The most used of the domains, refers to knowledge structures. It can be viewed as a sequence of progressive contextualization of the material. (Based on Bloom, 1956).

                                                       

       * Cognitive Domain

                                     

                                     
                            Evaluation ------------------------ Creating

                            Synthesis---------------------------Evaluating

                            Analysis-----------------------------Analyzing

                            Application-------------------------Applying

                            Comprehension----------------Understanding

                            Knowledge-----------------------Remembering

(Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001)                               (Revised taxonomy of the cognitive domain following 

(Significant modification)                                       Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001)

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.

·      

                           *  Criticism of the Taxonomy:

               As Morshead pointed out on the publication of the second volume, the classification  wasn’t a properly constructed taxonomy, as it lacked a systematic rationale of construction. This was subsequent acknowledge in the discussion of the original taxonomy by Krathwohl in the revision of the taxonomy and the taxonomy reestablished on more systematic lines. It is generally considered that the taxonomy played in systematizing a field was more important than any perceived lack of rigor in its construction.

           Some critiques of Blooms Taxonomy admit the existence of these six categories, but question the existence of a sequential, hierarchical link. Also the revised edition of Blooms Taxonomy has moved Synthesis in higher order than Evaluation. Some consider the three lowest levels as hierarchically ordered, but the three higher levels as parallel. There say that it is sometimes better to move to Application before introducing concepts. This thinking would seem to relate to the method of Problem based learning.

·       

          *Revised Blooms Taxonomy:

(1)Creating

Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things

Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing.

(2) Evaluating

Justifying a decision or course of action

Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging

(3) Analyzing

Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships

Comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding

(4) Applying

Using information in another familiar situation

Implementing, carrying out, using, executing

(5) Understanding

Explaining ideas or concepts

Interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining

(6) Remembering

Recalling information

Recognizing, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding   

  * Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives:-

  At the present time it is sufficient to state that instructional objectives are concrete    statements of the goals toward which instruction is directed. They play an important  role in the process of learning and instruction.

  

When developing instructional objectives, providing instruction, and evaluating student performance, it is important to keep in mind that there are different levels or outcomes of learning. Distinguishing among different levels and outcomes of learning is important. If teachers are unaware of different levels of learning, they are likely to focus on one level to the detriment of others. For example, a teacher may teach a vast amount of factual information but never get around to teaching students to apply and synthesize this information. Or a teacher may teach higher level thinking skills without realizing that these skills require the prior learning of basic skills that must be integrated into these higher order skills.

          In addition, it is not unusual to see a teacher who wants her students to learn higher order thinking skills give examinations that require only lower level skills. Under such circumstances, the students are likely to put their efforts into the lower order skills. Skills at different levels must be taught (and tested) in different ways; and therefore it is important for teachers and other instructional designers to take into account the different levels and outcomes of instruction.

          Bloom's (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is the most renowned description of the levels of cognitive performance. The levels of the Taxonomy and examples of activities at each level are given in Table 3.3. The levels of this taxonomy are considered to be hierarchical. That is, learners must master lower level objectives first before they can build on them to reach higher level objectives.

·       * Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives:-

1. Knowledge (Remembering previously learned material)

Educational Psychology: Give the definition of punishment.

Mathematics: State the formula for the area of a circle.

English / Language Arts: Recite a poem.

2. Comprehension (Grasping the meaning of material)

Educational Psychology: Paraphrase in your own words the definition of punishment; answer questions about the meaning of punishment.

Mathematics: Given the mathematical formula for the area of a circle, paraphrase it using your own words.

English / Language Arts: Explain what a poem means.

 3. Application (Using information in concrete situations)

Educational Psychology: Given an anecdote describing a teaching situation, identify examples of punishment.

Mathematics: Compute the area of actual circles.

English / Language Arts: Identify examples of metaphors in a poem.

4. Analysis (Breaking down material into parts)

Educational Psychology: Given an anecdote describing a teaching situation, identify the psychological strategies intentionally or accidentally employed.

Mathematics: Given a math word problem, determine the strategies that would be necessary to solve it.

English / Language Arts: Given a poem, identify the specific poetic strategies employed in it.

5. Synthesis (Putting parts together into a whole)

Educational Psychology: Apply the strategies learned in educational psychology in an organized manner to solve an educational problem.

Mathematics: Apply and integrate several different strategies to solve a mathematical problem.

English / Language Arts: Write an essay or a poem.

6. Evaluation (Judging the value of a product for a given purpose, using definite criteria)

Educational Psychology: Observe another teacher (or yourself) and determine the quality of the teaching performance in terms of the teacher's appropriate application of principles of educational psychology.

Mathematics: When you have finished solving a problem (or when a peer has done so) determine the degree to which that problem was solved as efficiently as possible.

English / Language Arts: Analyze your own or a peer's essay in terms of the principles of composition discussed during the semester.

      *Concusion:-        

Bloom's Taxonomy need not be applied exclusively after course goals have been defined. Indeed, Bloom's Taxonomy and the words associated with its different categories can help in the goals-defining process itself. Thus, Bloom's Taxonomy can be used in an iterative fashion to first state and then refine course goals. Bloom's Taxonomy can finally be used to identify which classroom assessment techniques are most appropriate for measuring these goals.

           
      Week-2: Paraphrasing (Critical Thinking for Language Studies)

w

                 *  Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory

“Practicing thinkers have enough skill in thinking to critique their own plan for systematic practice, and to construct a realistic critique of their powers of thought. Furthermore, practicing thinkers have enough skill to begin to regularly monitor their own thoughts. Thus they can reflectively articulate the strengths and weaknesses in their thinking.”

Linda Elder with Richard Paul

                *   My Paraphrase:

Stage four The Practicing Thinkers have potential to review their thinking for systematic practice and they can review the power of their thought holistically. Their thoughts are in a logical flow. They are able enough to find out the strengths and weakness of their own thinking. When people explicitly recognize that improvement in thinking requires regular practice and adopt some regimen of practice, then have they become what we call thinkers? There are many potential ways, some better and some worse.

·     
                     *  Personal response to this paragraph:

Critical thinking is an important element in many fields such as education, politics, business, science and arts. It’s very important in thinking skill process in a system for teaching and the result is too much confusing for both teachers and students. There are also many programs that focus on thinking. Knowledge is a product of thinking.

Ex:

Bloom’s taxonomy classification of ‘cognitive’ domain. Bloom’s revised taxonomy original terms and new terms.

Origin terms                         New terms

Evaluation                               Evaluating

Synthesis                                  Creating

Analysis                                    Analyzing

Application                             Applying

Comprehension                    Understanding   

Knowledge                              Remembering

Taxonomy reflects different forms of thinking and thinking is an active process verb and was more accurate.

            

Week-1: A brief History of the idea of critical thinking

 What is thinking?

 Summary:-2

Generally the meaning of thinking is judgment, intelligent and process. The process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something. Thinking is, most simplify, where an individual, start a process that something modifies or strengthens their world view beliefs, opinions, attitudes, behaviors. Simply the thinking means trying to understand how people think and learn is in some ways an impossible challenge. Some of the different sense in which term 'thinking' is used.

·        Dewey's (1933) classic introduction to "How We Think" different senses of 'Thinking' and 'Reflective thinking'.

ü Thinking is a Stream of consciousness.

ü Thinking is an imagination or mindfulness.

ü Thinking as synonymous with believing expressed in statements.

ü Reflective thinking as a chain of thought leading, through enquiry, to a conclusion. Reflecting thinking is the basis of both rationality and action.

Thinking as “a stream of consciousness" is the popular product of the 20th century. The phrase of “stream of consciousness" was first used by William James in his book 'principle of psychology'.

Sometimes thinking as an Imagination or mindfulness. The most important goal of education. In educational reference, thinking is a goal-directed process that involves remembering, forming concepts, and reasoning, solving problems, considering opinions, making decisions and judgments and generating new perspectives. When we want to achieve something but we get fuss whether we will be able to achieve it or not, thinking becomes much more important at that time.

·        There are three way strategies of thinking as:

(1) Psychological Perspectives:-

In psychological perspectives the pioneering works of Bloom and associates, psychologists and educational list of cognitive processes as a improving teaching, learning and assessment.

Ex.:-
 Bergson's theory of Time and Probing of human consciousness.

Among the psychologists, Bergson's theory of time has been reaching significance in this connection. He divided into the Time:

- "Inner time" or "psychological time"

- "clock time" or "mechanical time"

- "Inner time"

And division into the past, present and future as artificial and mechanical. The past lives on in the present (future as artificial and mechanical), The past lives on in the present (In memory and its consequences).

 Interest in cognitive enhancement has become a worldwide phenomenon. South Africa sees the teaching of thinking as a valuable means of raising educational levels and developing social inclusion. China and Singapore believe that such approaches may address students’ limited creative and problem solving abilities in order to develop better productivity in the global economy. 

   (2) Sociological Perspectives:-

Sociological Perspectives say, thinking always takes place in a context that has social influence and interaction and the individual's thinking. The several of different contexts may be benefit to learners.

  (3) Philosophical Perspectives:-

Philosophical issues have a bearing upon the aspects of thinking and learning. Particularly aspects of epistemology, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language and related theory meaning. The way we think, know and learn. Educational philosophy general aspects of thinking are identified in different contexts.

        

Week-1: Critical Thinking for Language Studies
( A Brief History of the idea of Critical Thinking)

 - Foundation for Critical Thinking

Summary:-1

In this article talking about Foundation for Critical Thinking. Normally the critical means chemistry and physics, but in this article relates to critics or criticism and characteristic of critical stages (critical skills). Critical thinking has been defined;

“The mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesis, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion."

Sometimes critical thinking is an individual and sometimes group engaged in a strong way of critical thinking. Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, true or false. It can be described in the west to ancient Greece with its Socratics method in East to ancient India. Critical thinking is an important components of many fields such as; education, politics, business, science and arts.

ü 'Foundation for Critical Thinking' in this article many ideas of the literary critical thinking are presented. Firstly the intellectual roots of critical thinking are as its etymology, traceable, ultimately, teaching practice and vision of Socrates by a method of questioning people and justify their confident claims to knowledge. Socrates established the fact and importance of asking deep questions. The agenda for tradition of critical thinking and Socrates practice was followed by the critical thinking of Plato and Aristotle the Greek skeptics, emphasized the surface (delusive appearance) to the way they really are beneath the surface (the deeper realities of life).

ü In the term 'Renaissance' means 'a new birth' or 'rebirth'.

The Renaissance began in Italy around mid- 14th century, slowly moving and it's over all of Europe and reaching England around 16th century. The Renaissance is associated with a variety of areas like; architecture, painting, visual arts, religion, human nature, law, and freedom. However, the intellectual and cultural aspect of commonly considered the Renaissance period in English literature, has several social, economic and political contexts that are important to the study of Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Machiavelli and others. Some of the central features of the Renaissance are:

                                      - Quest for Knowledge,

                                      - The Rise of Civility,

                                      - The New Religion,

                                      - The New World,

                                      - The New Science,

Critical thinking in life and in education:

Criticism is the examination and test of propositions of any kind. The critical faculty is a product of education and training. Its mental resources and power. It's a basic condition human welfare that men and women should be trained it. Education is good but gives freedom of the students and creativity the new idea for education and it can be truly said that it makes good Education.

ü The result of the collective contribution of the history of critical thought is that the basic questions of Socrates:

- Ends and objectives,

- The status and wording of questions,

- The sources of information and fact,

- The mode of judgment and reasoning possible,

- The concept that make that reasoning possible.

The fundamental elements of critical thinking are thought and reasoning. If students have clarity in thought and consistency in logic, they can be taught critical thinking moves in any subject. They do not need to be taught a particular subject simply but it should have a touch of reasoning. Classes can be organized in a way that students learn to think with reference to subject and develop skills and abilities. The tools and resources of the critical thinker have been increased virtue of the history of critical thought. In educational purposes critical thinking is most important.