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Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

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Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#241

Post by linkmotif »

sametmax wrote: post #212
davidf18 wrote: post #195

Why wait for college to teach critical thinking skills? My father is a prof at a major university and we grew up discussing ideas, but high schools can teach critical thinking skills and problem solving. My high school was owned by the university and we did a lot of critical thinking. Jewish religious schools (Yeshivas) teach critical thinking skills by studying the Talmud [1]. A number of Yeshiva students take the L…

I agree that critical thinking should be taugth sooner. A 12 years old can perfectly handle it. I got the most jewish name ever, however, I can't agree with you on the Talmud. Just like the Bible and the Coran, it's full of things that goes exactly in the opposite direction of critical thinking. And religion, while helping with a lot of things like holding communities and sharing values, is definitly using a huge num…

You ever studied Talmud? Or even seen a page? Doesn't seem like you know what it's about. It's mostly case law. Some of the law is religious, much of it is not (torts, civil, criminal law).

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#242

Post by analog31 »

danielford wrote: post #210

I teach community college biology, and I agree that we're really bad at teaching critical thinking. But the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) cited by this article was graded by a computer last time I checked. Here's a direct quote from one of their papers a few years ago: "Beginning in fall 2010, we moved to automated scoring exclusively, using Pearson’s Intelligent Essay Assess or (IEA). IEA is the automated sco…

Leave it to Pearson to sell us the problem and then sell us the solution. Taking poetic license to exaggerate just a bit...

The problem: High school kids now spend 100% of their time studying prepared curricula, sold by Pearson, to study for standardized tests, sold by Pearson.

The result: Students lose critical thinking skills.

The solution: A standardized test for critical thinking skills, sold by Pearson, and of course a prepared curriculum to study for the test.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#243

Post by AcerbicZero »

ThomPete wrote: post #131

Critical thinking is an important skill but I'd like to caution against this fixation on critical thinking thought in collage as some sort of beacon for society. Critical thinking is something people develop over the years and it starts early IMO. It's not just a 4 year course. It's a whole approach to the world around you. There are many critical thinkers in my experience outside of collage. And I don't see it a pro…

I agree, the study of philosophy is arguably the cornerstone of critical thinking. I didn't get to spend much time in college between deployments, but by far the most useful classes I was able to take were philosophy classes. Philosophical debate forces you to truly consider your positions and opinions.

College did nothing for me as far as IT skills go, but it did help teach me to teach myself.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#244

Post by davidf18 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #233
sametmax wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that critical thinking should be taugth sooner. A 12 years old can perfectly handle it. I got the most jewish name ever, however, I can't agree with you on the Talmud. Just like the Bible and the Coran, it's full of things that goes exactly in the opposite direction of critical thinking. And religion, while helping with a lot of things like holding communities and sharing values, is definitly using a huge num…

> Just like the Bible and the Coran Keep in mind that the Talmud is different from the Torah. As I understand it, the Torah are the five books allegedly inspired by God; the Talmud is that, plus all the commentary, which is where all the critical thinking and analysis takes place. > Starting by the fact that all of it is based on the assumption you believe in Yahweh. Keep in mind that it's totally possible to apply c…

Strictly speaking, The Old Testament or Jewish Bible (Tenach) is made up of three parts 1) the 5 books of Moses [Genesis, ...], 2) 5 scrolls [Ruth, Ester, ...], and 3) the 12 prophets [Isiah, ...]. A Torah Scroll is the 5 books of Moses.

In Jewish tradition, there is the written part of the law (Tenach above) and the oral law which was given to Moses by God, but not intended to be written down but be passed down orally from generation to generation. By tradition, Moses told it to Joshua. As Judaism became more spread out and Jews more dispersed, they started to write down the Oral Law which with many commentaries became The Talmud.

The Talmud helps to explain passages written in Tenach. For example, "an eye for an eye" does not literally mean an eye, but rather the monetary value of an eye for an eye.

The Talmud is a book of process and ones learns the critical thinking skills by studying the Talmud. There is also of course the content which is learned.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#245

Post by ergothus »

I remember the moment I unlocked the critical thinking I do have.

It was 7th grade, and I was in a home-ec-like class. The day before we had learned how to order from mail order catalogues (showing my age there). This day the teacher passed out magazines, told us to pick an ad, and then find 5 ways it was misleading.

Easy, right? Sex, money, Fame, these associations are in a bunch of ads, and everyone knows about them. But it turns out that 5 is a pretty high number for some ads. You had to really look. And even that didn't change anything for me.

Then we presented to others. And one girl showed an ad for Bayer, and said "4 out of 5 doctors recommend. Who picked the 5 doctors?".

My mind was blown. I think it was the moment where I considered myself a good judge and then was shown a point I had never even considered. I had thought all about having careful wording on the survey, not mentioning any negative results, but I had never considered that the very basis of it could be manipulated to the point of meaninglessness.

I think that moment of fundamental distrust, in both what I'm being told, as well as in my own certainty, did the trick.

Perhaps too well - I'm hypersensitive to being manipulated. I rejected any career that involved deliberate group manipulation, such as military, law enforcement, and legal. I recognize that EVERYTHING is manipulative to some degree and can't be avoided, but I try to avoid anything that does it very explicitly, so I can't for example, watch most documentaries. The moment the vocal pacing and background music starts something in my brains starts shouting "YOU ARE BEING MANIPULATED!" and I try to fight that manipulation, which is largely impossible so I generally end up turning it off. Ditto political speeches (I'll skim the transcripts, thanks), most anything out of marketing, etc.

I don't really think we can "teach" critical thinking, but we can provide opportunity for it again and again. I think our school system in the US (no experience elsewhere) is very poorly set up to do that, be it college or pre-college.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#246

Post by ambicapter »

rickdale wrote: post #230
davidf18 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm glad you find me amusing. Using your logic, studying Physics makes me a Physicist. Studying Mathematics makes me a Mathematician. Also, I think that the Koreans who study Talmud might not think that they are religious. Honestly, anyone with intellectual curiosity I feel would find the Talmud interesting, regardless of being non-religious or of an ethnicity other than Judaism.

Physics makes me a Physicist Thats not what I said. Thats comparing apples and oranges. I would bet my bank account your are Jewish, and you are religious in the eyes of this Jew, regardless if you are as religious as your father. I dont doubt the talmud is intellectually interesting, but the reality is those that are studying it ARE religious. Even the koreans you keep referencing; even if they aren't religious at a…

> the reality is those that are studying it ARE religious. Even the koreans you keep referencing; even if they aren't religious at all, they are in the minority for those studying the Talmud that way.

"All those who study it are religious, except those that aren't, but they don't count anyways"

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#247

Post by linkmotif »

magic_beans wrote: post #235
davidf18 wrote: post #195

Why wait for college to teach critical thinking skills? My father is a prof at a major university and we grew up discussing ideas, but high schools can teach critical thinking skills and problem solving. My high school was owned by the university and we did a lot of critical thinking. Jewish religious schools (Yeshivas) teach critical thinking skills by studying the Talmud [1]. A number of Yeshiva students take the L…

I've read that many yeshiva students in New York City Orthodox communites [1] lack English skills. What is the percentage of yeshiva students who are well-prepared enough to just skip college and take the LSAT? 1 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/01/nyregion/new-york-city-qu...

Plenty. Nytimes likes profiling extremes and making them look normal.

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#248

Post by andrewflnr »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #232
andrewflnr wrote: post #95

I'm not sure this is a reasonable expectation of college. Critical thinking is hard to teach. I don't know if it's possible to scale it beyond the few teachers who are good at it. Measuring critical thinking is hard, too. The universities who criticized the test used here are probably not wrong, even if their motive is only to save face. It's only 90 minutes, which is a time limit more suited for quick sophistry than…

I went to a very religious school that has a bad reputation for being closed-minded. I found many of the graduates and students to live up to that reputation, but I learned to question a lot from the professors. My biology professor there taught evolution in the most convincing way I've ever seen. Presented the history, the evidence, the thinking behind the theory, common fallacies, etc. Across the board, I heard som…

  Could be hard to teach, could be hard to
  make someone learn (I feel like it's the latter)
I don't really see the difference between these, at least from a practical perspective. I guess my point is that you can't make someone learn critical thinking. I definitely wasn't trying to say that the problem is professors being bad at critical thinking; that hardly enters the equation. :)

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#249

Post by MaxGabriel »

ergothus wrote: post #245

I remember the moment I unlocked the critical thinking I do have. It was 7th grade, and I was in a home-ec-like class. The day before we had learned how to order from mail order catalogues (showing my age there). This day the teacher passed out magazines, told us to pick an ad, and then find 5 ways it was misleading. Easy, right? Sex, money, Fame, these associations are in a bunch of ads, and everyone knows about the…

Side story about the 4/5 recommendation, this one for toothpaste: apparently Colgate would just ask dentists to list every type of toothpaste they recommended, and 80% of those doctors wrote down Colgate as an option, thus the "four out of five dentists recommend Colgate" ads.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1539715/Colgate-gets-...

Re: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

#250

Post by vivekd »

davidf18 wrote: post #225
rickdale wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, speaking from a secular point of view, studying the Talmud in and of itself makes you religious regardless of the education you are getting from it. You are funny. You are basically orthodox for whats considered Jewish around me and yet you don't even think of yourself as ,"very religious".

Well, I'm glad you find me amusing. Using your logic, studying Physics makes me a Physicist. Studying Mathematics makes me a Mathematician. Also, I think that the Koreans who study Talmud might not think that they are religious. Honestly, anyone with intellectual curiosity I feel would find the Talmud interesting, regardless of being non-religious or of an ethnicity other than Judaism.

Koreans and others studying the Talmud are sort of one off rarities. Nearly everyone who studies the Talmud is a Jew doing so for reasons related to religious or cultural identity.
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