CRITICAL THINKING & TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS [1999]

CRITICAL THINKING & TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS [1999] by Chow Teck Seng (ZHOU Decheng) Nanyang Technological University (National Institute of Education) Introduction This article briefly discusses the correlation between critical thinking and the transfer of knowledge and skills, and the two different aspects of their combination, in making up the coherent learning process. The two aspects are: a) Critical thinking as a skill to be transferred in different learning experiences; b) The role of “Critical Thinking” as a vehicle in maximizing transfer and ensuring a positive transfer of knowledge and skills In the second part of the article, two strategies, which demonstrate how critical thinking can enhance the transfer of knowledge and skills in the learning process of Chinese language, are addressed. PART 1 1) Critical thinking as the skill to be transferred in a learning experience Very often, “ critical thinking ” might just be referred as “ good thinking skills”. What is good thinking? Interpretation varies from people to people. Some psychologists associate thinking with problem solving and creativity, others talk about evaluating evidence or making judgements (Woolfolk, 1995). Baron has seen good thinking as “thinking that achieves its goal” (1995).Woodlfolk have identified critical thinking as one of the major thinking skill in learning. Together, both critical and creative thinking are important and inter-dependent in the holistic process of good thinking. From the word “ critical ” , “people might assume that critical thinking is destructive, arrogant, and hurtful; it would seem to be a way to build up one’s ego by ridiculing others. But the root word behind ‘critic’, the Greek KRITHS, has neither 1 positive nor negative connotations; it means simply ‘ judge ’ , one who evaluates, distinguishes, decides, determines if something is right or wrong.”[1] Some might wonder, if critical thinking is an in-born intuitional ability or a skill that can be taught or learnt? I believe that these two perceptions do not contradict each other. As teachers, the belief that all learners can think is significant. Yet, this ability to think might not always be employed as a habitual skill to acquire new knowledge—the ability is not transferred in every future learning situation. Here the transfer of critical thinking can be understood as “ the process that makes possible the giving of previously learned (i.e. critical thinking) responses in new situations ” (Gage, 1975). “The role of an educator wishing to develop critical thinking skills in learners must therefore be that of a helper, facilitator and motivator. The educator’s role is to help learn, not to teach.” [2] Therefore a teacher can nurture good thinking skills in pupils through a non-judgmental environment, stimulating activities, higher-order thinking questions and positive feedback in their various learning experiences. We understand that the transfer of critical thinking skills would be different in deviant learning applications, but it can be generalized as a set of systematic thinking sub-skills, just as it is defined as the sets of skills needed to solve a problem: “In the problem-solving process, the person focuses on the problem. He then selects relevant information, and he organizes, analyses and integrates the data collected. He then generates various alternatives, considers the pros and cons of the alternatives in order to evaluate the most appropriate alternative solution. ” ( “ Towards Thinking Schools”, An MOE document) Although psychologists have not been able to agree on the skills that constitute critical thinking, but below is a representative list of critical thinking skills. (P. Kneedler, 1985): 2 Thus, critical thinking can be viewed in terms of arguments involved in developing and justifying beliefs. Or it can be analyzed into component cognitive processes, some of which is learnable. These critical thinking skills can include: Focusing, information gathering, remembering, organizing, analyzing, generating, integrating and evaluating. Bloom’s categories of thinking — 1.knowledge; 2.comprehension; 3. Application; 4. Analysis; 5. Synthesis and 6. Evaluation provide us an informal method of reasoning and evaluating our learning thinking process (Bloom, 1956). Critical thinking would consist of cognitive skills, which are of higher-order than knowledge and comprehension. Analysis, synthesis and application would be parts of the transferring cognitive process. You need to generalize what you have previously learnt (synthesis), you need to analyze the new situation where you decide a transfer should take place and you need to apply the generalized rule to gain new knowledge. Critical thinking can be learnt in 2 ways. First, to foster metacognition, ie “thinking about thinking”. Just as the “Mystery of the Dead Mouse” experiment that he had done (Swartz, Robert J, 1990), he noted that “there is more than just thinking about why the mouse died to this lesson” and “we want students to integrate the forms of thinking that we help them use in the classroom into their ways of thinking in 3 general. When this happens, real learning takes place.”(p 431) “Awareness” in the thinking process that they are undergoing is important. Next, to provide more practices or “examples” for the learners to apply critical thinking. The practices aimed at the learning of both the “content” and “good thinking”. Swartz have named this as “conceptual –infusion approach” to teaching for critical thinking (p 415). He said that “for the teaching of thinking to be successful, transfer must be accomplished. The more students become aware of contexts for the use of specific thinking skills and activities, and the more they use them in new contexts, the more transfer is facilitated” (p 437). 2) The role of “Critical Thinking” as a vehicle in maximizing transfer and ensuring a positive transfer of knowledge and skills Now we take a slightly different perspective in analyzing the correlation between critical thinking and the transfer of knowledge and skills, in the process of learning. Generally there are 2 kinds of transfer. One of them is low-road transfer, which “involves the spontaneous, automatic transfer of highly-practiced skills, with little need for reflective thinking”. One example is reading skills. High-road transfer, on the other hand, involves “ constantly applying abstract knowledge learned in one situation.” (Salmon G & Perkins D, 1989. P 118). One example is the learner’s attempt to apply the knowledge on “characterization” that he gained during literature lessons in a future composition. Now, what role does “critical thinking” play in the transfer of knowledge and skills? In the evolution of transfer theories, we witness the “theory of identical elements” replacing “the theory of formal-discipline”. The doctrine of identical elements held that transfer could occur from one learning to another as long as they had elements in common. (Thorndike, 1913) But this theory actually focused on mainly explaining lowroad transfer of highly practiced skills and not all learnings. The introduction of critical thinking in this type of transfer would normally associate with moral reasoning. In 1908, Judd proposed the theory of generalization as an explanation of transfer. In an experiment done by Hendrickson and Schroeder (Garrison, p 201), 3 groups of boys are tasked to throw darts in water----Group A received explanation of refraction, group B received explanation with extra information that the changing depth of water changes 4 the amount of refraction and group C no explanation. The amount of transfer varies in the following manner: B>A>C. It proves that generalization is a better high-road transfer theory, requiring generalization as a form of critical thinking (synthesis) to maximize transfer. According to the transposition theory, which can be seen as an extension to the generalization theory, transfer will take place to the extent that the learner recognizes significant relations in two situational patterns. It is at this point that the theory of identical elements tends to fuse with the theory of generalization, based upon subjectively observed identical patterns. The ability to observe identical patterns requires critical thinking skills such as focusing, analysing, generalizing and even evaluating as vehicles for knowledge transfer. Other interpretations of transfer theories, such as the ability of learners to generalize, intelligence of the children and the attitude/ mental set of the learner all have close relationships with the ability of critical thinking and they have important influence upon transfer. The lack of critical thinking in the transferring process would often lead to a zero transfer or even a negative transfer. Negative transfer, meaning that previous learning have somehow interferes with the later learning. The reason might most probably be the absence of critical thinking procedures which leads to a wrong application of learned knowledge, or the lack of critical thinking in the form of moral reasoning, which leads to inappropriate actions. In order to promote critical thinking as a mental catalyst to maximize positive transfer, the arguments held by constructivists and social- constructivists on learning processes, have provide an insight. Through deep dialogues and discussions, selfconstructed and shared-negotiated knowledge can be meaningfully obtained, through constructive critical learning. Learning takes place fastest when there are clear goals and rewards, time to assimilate and learners are free to risk, experiment and practice. Critical thinking is the shared language and the discussions avenues for knowledge transfer. It must also be emphasized that the above-mentioned two viewpoints are closelyrelated, with only a difference in focus. 5 PART 2 In this part of my paper, I would further illustrate how to go about developing students’ critical thinking skills with respect to the transfer of knowledge and skills, from the point of view of a Chinese Language teacher. The 2 strategies are as follows: A) Asking the Right Questions In the preparation of language lessons, teachers can pre-design questions, in accordance to the different cognitive levels, for the pupils to answer in classroom. For example, the teaching procedures of a Chinese reading comprehension lesson “The Kite”(see Annex 1), can be summarized as below: Subject: Chinese Level/ Stream: Sec 2 (express) Topic: Reading Comprehension Passage: “The Kite” by Lu Xun Teaching goals: Through guided reading, pupils can enhance their reading and comprehension skills and are able to answer the pre-designed questions of different cognitive levels. In doing so, it is hoped that desirable critical skills can be developed. Some of the questions would be: 5.3: Why do you think that the author want to emphasize on the sickliness of his brother in the writing? (Cognitive level: Interpretation) 5.4: Do you think what his brother had done is justified? (Cognitive level: analysis and evaluation) During questioning, we can use the WRAITEC model to help us obtain more critical and organized answers from the pupils. This model can help learners to think in different points of view: 1. What (What is the concept that you say?) 6 2. Reason (What is your reason in saying so, are there any evidences to support your answer?) 3. Assuming (when you make this claim, do you make any assumption or hypothesis?) 4. Inferences (What are the other possible inferences that you can make?) 5. True (Is your stand truthful? How do you evaluate?) 6. Example (Any examples to support your stand?) 7. Counter-example (Is your stand sound? Are there any counter-examples?) This would help the students to develop awareness of their thinking processes. Teachers can also design a composition (see Annex1 Qn 13) topic closely-related to this passage, so that there is an immediate practice for the transfer of critical thinking skills from reading/ answering to writing. Future questions of reading comprehension lessons would be designed in similar cognitive levels, so that a “thinking culture” can be created in the classroom. B) The use of discussion groups (Web board) on the Internet Web board, as a form of computer conferencing and tele-communication, can help overcome time and distance constrains. This is where students, including teachers, negotiate, make critical distinctions, build trust and share a special language. For example: Subject: Chinese Level/stream: Sec 2/ Express Topic: discussion/ debate on the evaluation of the controversial history character Emperor Qin (秦始皇) Physical settings: Home/ Computer labs Teaching goals: Through critical discussion, the learners are able to develop the ability to evaluate historic figures. In doing so, it is also hoped that they can learn a set 7 of general critical thinking skills and exercise it in carefully composed written sentences, paragraphs and essays, with a focus on the style of an argumentative language. The teacher can divide the class into two and each group would take different stands. They have to post at least 2 messages, of which one is in reply to others’ comments, up the web board as homework. During lessons, the teacher would doubleremind them to portray their answers to the four ideals of clarity, completeness, coherence and charity (fairmindedness). This discussion or debate can be held before or after a classroom lesson on Emperor Qin. A successful discussion would witness a positive transfer of knowledge guided by critical thinking process. Conclusion In the conclusion, I attempt to re-define transfer: Is it “knowledge or skills” that are transferred? It is an interesting question. On the other side, it can also be seen that during a learning process or a new problem-solving situation, new knowledge is created based on the old knowledge (rather than a transfer): It is the old information and the new context that supply the raw materials. Knowledge is closely related to intelligent action. It is something we, through critical thinking processes, make and keep within ourselves. 8 References 1. Davis, Andrew (1998). “Transfer, Abilities and Rules (chapter 6)” in Journal of Philosophy of Education- Special Issue: The limits of Educational Assessment, Vol. 32 Issue 1 March 1998. 2. Francis S. Bennett (1997). Critical Thinking. http://pr.erau.edu/~bennett/cteval.html 3. Frandsen, Arden N. (1961). Educational Psychology. New York: McGrawHill Book Company Inc. Chapter 10. 4. Gage, N.L. & Berliner, David C.(1975). Educational Psychology. Chicago: Rand Mc Nally College Publishing Company. Pp 162- 176. 5. Garry, Ralph (1965). The Psychology of Learning. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India . 6. Garrison, Karl C., Kingston , A.J. & McDonald A.S. (1964). Educatinal Pshychology (2nd Edition). New York : Appleton-Century-Crofts. Pp 196-222 & 441-736. 7. Goh Chok Tong, “ Thinking School , Nation”. http://155.69.45.11:8000/soe/think.htm 8. Goodwin, W.L. & Klansmeier, H. J. (1975). Facilitating Learning. New York : Harper & Row Publishers. Pp 428- 435. 9. Learning Student Grant, Grace E., (1988). Teaching Critical Thinking. New York : Praeger Publisher. 10. Skinner, B.F.,1968. “Teaching Thinking”(Chapter 6), The Technology of Teaching. New York : Appleton-Century-Crafts. 11. Swartz , Robert J., 1991. Structured Teaching Critical Thinking and Reasoning in Standard Subject Area Instruction, in Informal Reasoning and Education (Ed. by Voss, James F.). Hillsdale , New Jersey : Lawence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. 12. Woolfolk, Anita E.(1995).Educational Psychology(6th Edition). Boston : Allyn & Bacon. Chapters 7 and 8 9 [1] Ken Penner, 1995. [2] Ken Penner, 1995. 10