Education Design: Learning Theory

Approaches to Fostering Critical Thinking

Bransford on expertise and its transferability

don't assume it, constant revisiting - "lifelong" in lifelong learning

Beyond specific interactions with a patient, administrator, or other coworker, any project will require adequate research on the project background and analysis of the requirements.
Once a particular project area is known, it is important to establish a cogent information set on its scope and the factors that will affect implementation. Richard Paul and Linda Elder present a structured process for critiquing one’s own reasoning and examining research in The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools. These processes are presented below. While rigorous application of these steps will at first seem time-consuming and perhaps a little awkward, just as with learning any new skill, over time they will become easier to apply and you will eventually apply these steps almost instinctively to the problems you are asked to address: 

A Checklist for Reasoning (Paul and Elder)

  • All reasoning has a purpose
    • State your purpose clearly
    • Distinguish your purpose from related purposes
    • Check periodically to be sure you are still on target
    • Choose significant and realistic purposes
  • All reasoning is an attempt to figure something out, to settle some question, solve some problem
    • State the question at issue clearly and precisely
    • Express the question in several ways
    • Break the question into sub-questions
    • Distinguish questions that have definitive answers from those that are a matter of opinion and from those that require consideration of multiple viewpoints
  • All reasoning is based on assumptions
    • Clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable
    • Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view
  • All reasoning is done from some point of view
    • Identify your point of view
    • Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses
    • Strive to be fair-minded in evaluating all points of view
  • All reasoning is based on data, information, and evidence
    • Restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have
    • Search for information that opposes your position as well as information that supports it
    • Make sure that all information used is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at issue
    • Make sure you have gathered sufficient information
  • All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, concepts and ideas
    • Identify key concepts and explain them clearly
    • Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions of concepts
    • Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision
  • All reasoning contains inferences and interpretations by which we draw conclusions and give meaning to data
    • Infer only what the evidence implies
    • Check inferences for their consistency with each other
    • Identify assumptions that lead to your inferences
  • All reasoning leads somewhere or has implications and consequences
      • Trace the implications and consequences that follow from your reasoning
      • Search for negative as well as positive implications
      • Consider all possible consequences

    Paul R, Elder L, Foundation for Critical Thinking. The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking : Concepts & Tools. 3rd ed. Dillon Beach, Calif.: Foundation for Critical Thinking; 2003.