Four ways to explicitly teach critical thinking

Teach about brain function

Students should learn how the brain works.

• How do we think?
• How does memory work?
• What causes emotions?
• Why do we dream?
• How do we learn?
• How/Why do mental disorders occur?
• What happens when part of the brain is damaged?

Teach Metacognition

Encourage students to be conscious of their own thinking during problem solving.

• Have discussions about what is going on in their heads
• Compare different approaches
• Identify what is known, what needs to be known, how to produce that knowledge
• Think aloud
• Teach students how to learn, how to study for a test, how to ask effective questions
• Help students discover their learning style, and teach them how to tackle learning that is outside of their preferred style

Share Great Thinkers

 Expose students to role models who solve problems well, particularly those who have left a mark on society.

• Noteworthy scientists, artists and historians: Einstein, Van Gogh, Mozart, Da Vinci, Gandhi, Newton, Currie, Pasteur, Franklin, Edison.
• Those upon whom they depend: mechanics for their efficient and precise ways of repairing cars, parents for their ability to deal with irrationality by withholding impulsivity, entrepeneurs for their creative ability to offer innovative products and services and teachers, for their ability to plan, monitor and evaluate
• Apply critical thinking to everyday life: How would a critical thinker go to the supermarket? What about an ineffective thinker? How would a critical thinker read a newspaper? Choose a dentist? Buy a car? Do homework? Vote?

Study the thinking of varying disciplines

Study and compare the thinking methods of artists, scientists, scholars. Examine the differential processes of investigation, inquiry and creativity.

•  How does what scientists do differ from what artists do?
• What are the processes by which scientific truths are discovered and proven?
• What are the processes of inquiry used by anthropologists as they live with and study a culture?
• What goes on in a maestro's mind when they conduct an orchestra?
• How was Mozart able to 'hear' a total musical composition before writing it down?
• What is the process by which poets create?
• Why can't scientific inquiry be used to solve social problems?

Further Reading: Arthur L Costa, California State University, Sacramento