The Four C's in STEM: Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking is one of those elusive skills that are really hard to teach.

So how do you do it? Critical Thinking is the ability to analyze information and form your own independent decision. Students need to be able to objectively analyze and evaluate different solutions and show data to support these decisions. These resources can help:

Kodu

Kodu, a free visual programming language, allows students to build, play and optionally share their own video games with other users online. Since the software is downloaded to each computer there are no accounts or passwords to remember. Students simply create and explore a world, then program their character or rover. Students can edit and save changes to make their worlds better over time too.

Not sure where to start? Microsoft provides support resources to help students become familiar with the interface and hit the ground running with their critical thinking skills. Then, let the coding begin!

Logic Puzzles

Logic puzzles are a fun way for students to exercise critical thinking. Using a site like Puzzle Baron or Brainzilla, students can learn more about problem solving skills by examining the puzzle clues and thinking critically about what they mean (and, in some cases, don’t mean).

Critical thinking skills are tough to teach because they are not fact-based. They require reasoning and deeper thinking and focus on the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Students often struggle with critical thinking because most problems posed in the classroom only require surface-level consideration to solve or answer. By asking students deeper questions that help them to decide, judge, or solve a problem, students can learn to think more critically.