Dai Hounsell

Eighth Enhancement Themes Conference, 2-3 March 2011

Dai Hounsell TO CRITICAL THINKING AND BEYOND

Dai Hounsell

TO CRITICAL THINKING AND BEYOND



Graduate Attributes Framework (Hughes and Barrie, 2010)

GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES IN AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES



GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES IN SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES



CRITICAL THINKING

Has

critical thinking

had its day ?



THE LIMITATIONS OF ‘CRITICAL THINKING’

" '…. There is much more to university education than critical thinking. By itself, critical thinking is bad theory because it fails to grasp the meaning and required action in specific situations."

(Fullan and Scott, 2009)

" 'Critical thinking' means standing apart from the world and establishing reasons and causes. This is a necessary aspect of practical reasoning, but is not sufficient for responsible judgment. Education must also give students access to valued practices for engaging the world more mindfully"

(Sullivan and Rosin, 2008, p. 18)



CONTEXT AND MESSY UNCERTAINTY

contextual relativistic reasoning (Perry, 1970)

engagement with ill-structured problems

"Engagement with situations 'marked by uncertainty and complexity'. These are real contexts or imagined situations for which there is no single solution according to a clear set of rules. Instead, ill-structured problems open the possibility of many solutions, none of which is entirely sure to be correct".

King & Kitchener, 1994 as outlined in Sullivan & Roisin, 2008, p. 98)



CONTEXT AND MESSY UNCERTAINTY

"The problems the graduate is called upon to solve at work are often ill-defined, ambiguous, and open-ended, whereas those [..] presented in the curriculum were more often than not well-defined and fairly clearly prescribed, and students were rewarded for 'correct' answers. In the workplace, problem solving is inevitably bound up with input from multiple sources, deadlines, cost constraints, and most importantly, unpredictable human behaviour, all of which compound the complexity of the issue at stake. It is hardly surprizing, therefore, that the new graduate should feel confused and inadequate and is likely to falter in the transition from ivory tower to concrete jungle."

(Candy & Crebert, 1994, p. 579)



INFORMED JUDGMENT

BoudAssessment 2020(2009)



INFORMED JUDGMENT

Students need confidence and competence in making informed judgments about what they produce. They need to develop the ability to evaluate the quality, completeness and/or accuracy of work with respect to appropriate standards, and have the confidence to express their judgments with conviction. This requires deliberately managed assessment processes and practice that relates to judgments required in professional practice and mature community engagement

(Boud et al., 2009, p. 2)



REFLECTIVE JUDGMENT

KING AND KITCHENERDeveloping Reflective Judgment(1994)



REFLECTIVE JUDGMENT

"... People's assumptions about what can be known provide a lens that shapes how individuals frame a problem and how they justify their beliefs about it in the face of uncertainty. [...] Reflective judgments [begin] with an awareness of uncertainty. Such judgments involve integrating and evaluating data, relating those data to theory and well-formed opinions, and ultimately creating a solution to the problem that can be defended as reasonable or plausible."

(King and Kitchener, 1994, p. xvi)



PRACTICAL REASONING

SULLIVAN AND ROSIN

A New Agenda for Higher Education

(2008)



PRACTICAL REASONING

(Sullivan and Roisin, 2008, pp. xvi-xvii)

"Pedagogies of practical reason tend to emphasise certain common features of what it means to judge and act responsibly, especially what it means to interpret situations and draw analogies to prior cases, in order to reach a reasonable decision. Such reasoning is neither deduction from general principles nor induction from particulars to a universal concept. Instead, it requires moving back and forth between specific events and the general ideas and common traditions that might illuminate them, in order to interpret and engage the particular situation more fruitfully . . . [continued on next slide]



PRACTICAL REASONING

"... In this way, practical reasoning is never wholly complete. It is like the work of skilled professionals such as judges, physicians or educators. Cases and decisions always open up new possibilities, even as they resolve problems.

(Sullivan and Roisin, 2008, pp. xvi-xvii)

"Practical reasoning is reasoning from cases not to cases.[...] Well-analysed new experience precedes insight; behavioural change feeds into changes in belief. There is a role for theory, but it emerges 'properly through the consideration of practice, rather than the other way around' (Sullivan & Roisin, 2008, p. 70)."

Fullan & Scott, 2009, p. 52)



BEYOND CRITICAL THINKING

Contextual complexity and messy uncertainty

Resolution, decision-making and action

Reasoning-in-action and the wisdom of practice (Shulman)



REFERENCES

Boud, D. and Falchikov, N. (2006). 'Aligning assessment with long-term learning', Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31.4, pp. 399-413.

Boud, D. and associates(2009). Assessment 2020: Seven Propositions for Assessment Reform in Higher Education. Sydney: ALTC/ University of Technology Sydney.www.assessmentfutures.com

Candy, P., Crebert, G. and O’Leary, J. (1994) Developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education. Commissioned Report No. 28 (National Board of Employment, Education and Training, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service).

Candy, P. and Crebert, G. (1992). 'Ivory tower to concrete jungle the difficult transition from the academy to the workplace as learning environments'. Journal of Higher Educ 62.5, pp. 570-592

King, P. M. and Kitchener, K.S. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment. Understanding and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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