Summary of Stephen Brookfield's lecture

Mr Brookfield explains critical thinking as an attempt to identify assumptions (beliefs, decisions, actions, judgements, choices in life).Assumptions are classified as casual, prescriptive and paradigmatic. And then to check them out whether they are valid or well grounded and finally to take informed action about it. So, to take informed action is when we stand a chance of achieving, we base evidence or experience that can be justified, it can be viewed in different perspectives and finally, it can be enacted via multiple ways.

According to professor Brookfield, there are 4 keys of intellectual traditions that fit into critical thinking. The first one is the analytic one that is about a person who can construct or deconstruct and argument, he or she algo knows the difference between inferential and analogical reasoning, he or she knows what induction and deduction is and can recognize logical fallacies. As a second one, there is the natural science which is hypothetical deductive method that is about a creative process like generating hypothesis to explain a process. The third one which is the critical theory which takes critical thinkers as someone who has political consciousness about the way that moves within our society and micro realities of any kind of people. Last but not least, there is the paradigmatic key which is about someone who sees knowledge as something that is constantly reinvented.

Mr Brookfield asks his students at the beginning of each semester “what most helps students to think critically or creatively” he reached to the following findings: Teacher or instructor modeling as the greatest number of responses according to the question being asked in groups of 5 people. In this way, the first finding is about soliciting feedback from students in a regular basis and then, as teachers thinking about what the feedback means. Later on, there are the assumption inventories which are approaches and responding questions in different ways. Another finding is the activity of doing exercises with questions which is about saying here is what is unfinished and unanswer question that needs to be explore deeply in any area. The next finding he got was the chalk talk as a way to hold visual discussion where the instructor write a question in the middle of a board and make them be silent for 5 or 10 minutes and then, tell them to write any responses they might have according to the questions written on the board. Then, the instructor links comment or add any questions or reactions to it. The last finding he got was the Critical Incident questionnaire (CIQ) which is about moments when the learner was most engaged or most distanced, or actions that were helpful or confusing or what surprised the most.

Student say that they learn by having be provided with real world illustrations, by being the devil’s advocate which requires the listener to view both sides of a story not only one for convenience only. So, this person has the power to decide if they want to join another person who has different perspectives of a story or any other specific issue. Finally, there is the Speaking tongues response which is about understanding the same issue with different interpretations and we determine which represents the most to you or the one we better understand.