Critical Thinking in the Classroom:

Why and How?

Imane Nejjar
Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS, Rabat)
UM5R
 Presentation Outline:
A. Introduction
1. Nowadays students unmotivated to learn: Why?
2. A Mismatch between school practices & world realities

B. Some Definitions of Critical Thinking

C. Why is it important to develop Higher Order Thinking Skills

nowadays?

D. Why develop Thinking Skills in the Classroom?

E. How to develop Thinking Skills in the classroom?

Nowadays students are
unmotivated to learn!

Why?
• Studying at school can be seen as a boring experience.
• “Nothing” exciting actually happens inside the
classroom.
I don’t get it! They make us learn Reading, Writing &
Arithmetic to prepare us for a world of Laptops ,
Smartphones, Tablets & iPads…!!!
 ys
d a
wa
No

• In a world of high technology, kids no longer feel the need to

learn basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic.
• What is happening inside the classroom has become irrelevant /
obsolete / outdated compared to what the students experience
outside school.
• The outside world is a far more exciting world of high technology.
• It is an information-based world.
Learning is no longer viewed as cramming
one’s head with a lot of information.

Nowadays!!!
Nowadays…

• In this fast developing technological age, secondary

will be the content of information, but primary will
be thinking skills.
Nowadays…

• With the expanding explosion of information,

accessing data has become at the fingertip of
everyone!

• However, collecting information does not

necessarily mean acquiring knowledge!
• At school, students
are not often
encouraged to sense
the value of
developing the skill
of “thinking”.

• They don’t realize

that thinking is the
back bone of
successful studies.
 What about us
Teachers?
Aren’t we partly
to blame???
Traditional Teaching!
 Doesn’t our teaching at school
look somehow like the following?
• Unfortunately, teachers don’t always
encourage Higher Order Thinking Skills
(HOTS); they tend to give more value to
imitation & reproduction.
• They are more concerned with the what
rather than the how.
• Students spend many hours at school studying
much but learning little. This is because they
haven’t been trained in the development of
their thinking skills.
 A. Lower order thinking skills

• Nowadays most students’ activities are usually

limited to the practice of lower order thinking
skills.

• Literal comprehension is often emphasized at

the expense of higher order thinking activities.

• Students are merely expected to recall & report

what they have studied in class or collected
from research.
Yet…
What is the role of Education?
 So what is
Critical Thinking?
 Some Definitions of Critical Thinking

• It is both a frame of mind (disposition) and a

number of specific mental operations (abilities).
(Travers, 1993)
• It is the cognitive process of using reasoning skills
to question and analyze the accuracy and/or
worth of ideas, statements, new information,
etc.
 Critical Thinking…

• It is the disposition to provide evidence in

support of one's conclusions and to request
evidence from others before accepting their
conclusion.
Critical Thinking…
 It is the ability to generate,
combine, categorize, re-
categorize, evaluate, and
 It comprises the mental
apply information.
processes, strategies,
and representations
people use to solve
problems, make
decisions, and learn new
concepts.
(Stenbergh, 1985)
• It involves the use of Think
i ng Ou
tside
Higher Order Thinking the b
ox !
Skills. (HOTS)

• It is thinking which is
OUTSIDE the box.
 Thinking Outside the box
It is going beyond • It is relating the world of the
the prepared, classroom to the REAL world.
“canned”, • It is encouraging the students
“pre-packaged”, “to work locally and to think
“spoon-fed” globally.”
information
by the teacher.
 B. Higher order thinking skills
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels of
intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three
overlapping domains:

The Psychomotor
The Affective

The Cognitive
 The Cognitive Domain

 Within the Cognitive Domain, Bloom identified six

levels:
1. Knowledge 4. Analysis
2. Comprehension 5. Synthesis
3. Application 6. Evaluation

• These domains and levels are still useful today for

developing the Critical Thinking Skills of students.
Why is it important to develop

Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)

nowadays?
 Why HOTS Nowadays?

• Jobs are less static; people need to constantly

educate themselves, to update their skills and
knowledge base. It is an employability skill for an
increasing wide range of jobs.

• People are living longer and can expect to have more

than one career in their lifetimes.
 Why HOTS Nowadays?

• Thinking skills are fundamental characteristics of an

educated person.

• Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of

our thinking, left to itself, can be biased, distorted,
partial, uniformed or prejudiced.

• Yet the quality of our life and that of what we

produce, make, or build depends on the quality of
our thought.
 How to develop
Higher Order Thinking Skills
in the classroom?
 How to develop HOTS in the classroom?

• Teachers need to adopt the Pedagogy of

Questions rather than that of Answers.
(Kabilan, 2000)
• They should pose Qs that stimulate their Ss’
thoughts.
Teachers should ask stimulating questions…
Teachers should ask stimulating questions…
 How to develop HOTS in the classroom?

• They should not see themselves as providers

but as thinkers who constantly think of what
could be done to encourage creative & critical
thinking in their learners. (Kabilan, 2000)
Teachers should set a classroom environment
which is conducive to high level thinking:
 They should:
 use flexible groupings
 use Print-rich environment
 use Multi-level materials
 accept & celebrate diversity
 Hold High expectations
 Nurture risk taking
 Thank you
for your
time!

Imane Nejjar
Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS, Rabat)
UM5R