subject: How To Instill Critical Thinking In Young Minds [print this page] The need to impart analytical thinking is not recent. Students today have an easy access to the vast pool of information but what they lack in is the skills to extract the essential information to grasp and incorporate in their work. Therefore, the students are lagging in problem solving and critical thinking skills which is quite apparent with their low performance in critical subjects like mathematics and Science.
Though duly tried by the teachers, critical thinking cannot be imparted via textbooks and courses, rather the right grasping and application skills are what the students require. Rather than prompting to cram, the students should be motivated to analyze, compare, question and evaluate the content subjects. Furthermore, let us discuss few techniques which can be adopted by the teachers to motivate the students to think critically:
Analytical Reading: Reading plays an important part in analyzing the content. Thus, instead to mere reading, the teachers can motivate students to read critically which includes analyses of the content matter on the basis of facts and statements. Group discussions can be organized in the class on the recent topics and the students should be motivated to come forth with their understanding. Literature also instill the critical thinking in children. Somers once stated that literature provides the students with an opportunity to consider the ideas raise questions and think ethically.
Learn by writing: It has been proved that students think, analyze and reflect more while writing. The writing exercise can be divided into two categories. The first category consists of the first-hand writing. In this, the students are urged to do free writing without being concerned of logic. Thus, the students can be more intuitive and creative with the flow of thoughts. This is to be followed with the second-hand writing, where the students can strongly analyze the logic and concept behind every point. Few international schools like Cognita have understood the effectiveness of this technique and thus, motivate its student to write down their random thoughts.
Classification techniques: The most credential part of an efficient critical thinking lies in the classification skills of a child. While some of the activities like asking them to classify between different categories of fruits are already used by the teachers, little enhancement in the techniques can readily multiply the results. The verbal analogies like asking them to figure out the difference between the diamond and an egg can further enhance their classification skills.
Longer retention: The longer retention is hugely based on the effective classification and categorization of the students. Thus, the techniques like Schema theory can be helpful for the students. The schema theory categorizes the new information with respect to their attributes and places them with the similar information in the memory. This technique is not only effective for enhanced retention but also facilitates the students with faster recalling of the information whenever required. These days, the schools have effectively understood this concept and few of them like Cognita readily implements it in their classroom teachings.
