Education Design: Learning Theory
Critical Thinking in Medical Education
Critical thinking is crucial to any education effort, but it is arguably the most important skill to learn in the medical environment where issues can be unstructured, complex, and difficult to analyze. There are many ways to define critical thinking, and a number of different methods for applying critical thinking to specific issues and problems. There is no one single, “correct” way to think critically. However, several core principles are common to almost all models. In Critical Thinking: What it is and Why it Counts, Peter Facione identifies and explains these core principles and skills, and also defines several heuristics that we typically use when reasoning about topics. Recognition of these heuristics help identify weaknesses and biases in our thinking, and help us understand the importance and relevance of critical thinking to our everyday environments.
Critical Thinking: What it is and Why it Counts
A feature of western education throughout history has been the tendency of teachers to tell students what to think. From the earliest universities, students learned passages from classic texts by rote and were assessed on how well they could regurgitate that content. This form of education is valuable, but it is also rigid, and may hinder development of new knowledge because it so heavily weights established knowledge patterns and modes of thinking. At the start of his book Stirring Up Thinking, Ben Johnson describes his assessment of thinking and thinking critically, and challenges his readers to develop independent thinking. His introduction is presented below:
Thinking vs Thinking Critically
One of the central points of critically evaluating assumptions includes examining an issue from multiple viewpoints. In your work environment you will typically interact with individuals who will have a different cultural background, assumption set, and biases than your own. Frequently, you will have to overcome these hurdles to establish a working relationship for a given project.
Collison et al provide some insight into the function of critical thinking from the perspective of an instructor facilitating critical thinking among students. This reading identifies strategies to help sharpen the focus of a dialogue and to help participants deepen discussion of any given topic. While the focus of the paper is online threaded discussion, the principles can be applied to any mode of interaction – face-to-face, telephone, written/electronic; and to any type of interaction – instructor-student, professional-client, peer-to-peer, etc.
The ability to focus a discussion and to unpack key topic areas, perspectives, assumptions, and biases held by participants is critical to reach a consensus decision and drive any project forward. Click on the icon below to access:
From Critical Thinking Strategies from Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators by George Collison, Bonnie Elbaum, Sarah Haavind, and Robert Tinker (Atwood Publishing: Madison, WI, 2000).