Critical Thinking Skills***

10 ~ 15 minutes

Standard

The tutor understands the characteristics of “critical thinking” based on the specific model and its elements as presented during tutor training. Further, the tutor can incorporate critical thinking skills into their work with tutees and can in turn explain, demonstrate and otherwise ‘teach” these same skills to the tutee.

Outcome

The tutor employs a variety of critical thinking skills and techniques, based upon the elements presented in tutor training, which facilitate active learning and promote greater academic effectiveness and efficiency for the tutor and the tutee in order to enhance learning both within and beyond the tutoring session.

"Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking"

(Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008).

Watch and read: Samatha Agoos' 5 Tips to Improve Your Critical Thinking

5 tips to improve your critical thinking - Samantha AgoosEvery day, a sea of decisions stretches before us, and it’s impossible to make a perfect choice every time. But there are many ways to improve our chances — and one particularly effective technique is critical thinking. Samantha Agoos describes a 5-step process that may help you with any number of problems.

Critical Thinking & Tutoring

Step #1: Formulate your Question

One of the most common problems students have is that they struggle with finding a starting point. Modeling how to slow down and identify where they are confused will better help them formulate their true question(s). Tutors should try to help the student distinguish what they do know about the topic and where their knowledge gaps are.

Step #2: Gather your Information

After they know where they are confused, tutors can help them learn how to gather the related information for answering the question. This can be from the internet, their textbook, previous problems worked on, etc. It's important that they find the information with their own hands to encourage independent learning skills.

Step #3: Apply the Information

Tutors should encourage the student to verbally explain how the information they gathered connects to the question at hand and how they could use the the information to answer the question. This step is focused on connecting the information gathered to the question(s) created.

Step #4: Consider the Implications

In mathematics, it's good practice to consider why you perform a task in a given manner. Why do you isolate x? What's the reason for deriving the equation at this time? What will happen when you do so? These are great questions for a tutor to ask a student to get them thinking about the bigger picture.

If you're considering this from an English/writing perspective, something that's typically described as more subjective, it's still necessary to consider the implications of what you're saying, why you're saying it, and what your advocacy could look like if acted upon by yourself and your readers. Again, these are the ideas that tutors should be drawing the student's attention to.

Step #5: Explore Other Points of View

In mathematics, it's good practice to consider and learn the different ways of solving the problem to help in your understanding of what's really happening when you perform certain mathematical tasks. When you factor a polynomial, what are you really doing? How does it work, and why? Studying the different methods for accomplishing the same task may help you understand what you're doing or may answer them completely.

Tutors explaining this train of thought can be extremely helpful for students' learning process.

In writing, it is critical that the author considers both sides of an argument. By researching, and maybe even adding a concession about the "other side's" point of view, it can help to build credibility and show that even though you've seen different perspectives, you still believe in yours. Exploring other points of view can also help an author to come up with a unique middle ground.

Again, this concept can be useful for students' understanding when it comes to caring about why they should investigate a point of view contrary to their own.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Critical thinking and problem solving go hand-in-hand on a daily basis within the tutoring center. Tutors are tasked with helping students with complex problems, subject-matter related or not. That is why it is important to constantly be reflecting on your interactions with coworkers, students, and community members to ensure you are meeting the level of service that is expected.

"Given the unpredictable nature of problems, it's very reassuring to know that, by following a structured plan, you've done everything you can to resolve the problem to the best of your ability."

(Mind Tools Content Team)

How Good Is Your Problem Solving?: Do you solve problems systematically, or do you just grasp the first solution that comes along? Find out how effectively you solve problems.

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