Laird R. O. Edman
46
Finally, perhaps one of the most difficult and important strategies for encouraging
metacognitive awareness and more sophisticated thinking in students is making the crite-
ria for good thinking explicit and regularly reinforced in the classroom. I know that far too
often my working definition of critical thinking is “Critical thinking is thinking the way
I think,” and students discern this very quickly. Thus, when my students begin sounding
like me in class discussions or in essays, I assume they must be thinking well. Instead of
this faulty, and potentially damaging, unreflective approach the appropriate alternative is
to make explicit the standards of thinking expected in student discussion and student
assignments and to model those standards for the students. Those standards should include
the appropriate skills expected, the criteria for judging evidence and reasoning, and the
dispositions expected of good thinkers (Bean, 1996; Edman, 1996).
Making the criteria for good thinking explicit and regularly reinforcing and reiterating
those standards may also be a key to helping students develop better self-evaluation
skills. Almost every definition of critical thinking available includes a “self-regulation” or
“self-reflection” component. For students to grow in their thinking and to transfer those
thinking skills across contexts they should be able to evaluate their own and other’s think-
ing. Without explicit standards by which to evaluate their thinking, students can only
glean the evaluative criteria from instructor comments and peer reactions.
Understanding our students’ developmental issues when we teach is basic to good teach-
ing. Faculty are often frustrated by the ways some students reduce complex issues and
problems to simple black-and-white terms, and how other students are so enamored by
multiple perspectives they cannot take a stand of their own. It is important for us to
understand how differently our students think from the kinds of thinking we take for
granted. To be effective, our pedagogy should take into account the developmental posi-
tion and path of the students in the classroom, the fits and starts and regressions of stu-
dents along that path, and the often painfully slow progress of students developing
competence in good thinking. It is part of good teaching to know where our students are,
to meet them there, and then to guide them further along the road. I know no greater joy
as an educator.
References
American Philosophical Association. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for
purposes of educational assessment and instruction. The Delphi Report: Research findings and
recommendations prepared for the committee on pre-college philosophy. (ERIC Document
Reproduction Service No. ED 315-423).
Baron, J., & Sternberg, R. (1987). Teaching thinking skills: Theory and practice. New York: W. H.
Freeman & Co.
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (1992). Knowing and reasoning in college: Gender-related patterns in
students’ intellectual development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2004). Evolution of a constructivist conceptualization of epistemological
reflection. Educational Psychologist, 39 , 31–42.
Bean, J. (1996). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and
active learning in the classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.