The Pedagogy Of Critical Thinking; Object Design Implications For Improving Students' Thoughtful Engagement With Elearning Environments

In this paper, I describe how a model of teaching critical thinking coupled with the development of learning objects may help respond to broader calls for critical thinking both as a central goal in education and as a key aspect in the ecology of 21(st) Century eLearning environments. The model developed by the Canadian Critical Thinking Consortium is organized around a framework of four fronts and involves embedding five categories of intellectual tools into the teaching of curriculum content. These tools for thought include addressing the need to focus critical inquiry into relevant background knowledge, using criteria for judgment, explicitly addressing thinking concepts, using specific thinking strategies and supporting the development of certain habits of mind. This model is informing a development project focused on designing objects that I believe advance opportunities to teach critical thinking and better engage students. The project is part of on-going efforts to design objects that advance "Type II" and generative characterizations and that better engage students in critical inquiry into content; support active learning; provide an extensive range of acceptable responses; involve creative tasks and require extended periods of time to complete. Although the development project is in-progress and yet to be assessed, I offer a description of four of the objects while discussing implications of the conceptual model in their design. I also address the need to assess the efficacy of using such objects to support instruction by briefly outlining a companion project where we are developing new measures to evaluate use of these objects.