Using EdTech to Encourage Critical Thinking
“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”
—The Foundation for Critical Thinking
To become a lifelong learner, critical thinking is an essential skill to possess. The world of EdTech is helping our st
udents to stay more engaged while also encouraging them to pursue more knowledge and information through their own natural curiosity. Understanding how to solve problems systematically and use information are key skills for the working world today.
Varied Learning Styles
EdTech in the classroom allows teachers to create lessons that will appeal to all students. Whether your students are visual, aural or logical learners you can cater to all needs by using visual graphics, audio clips or tactile puzzles. This variety of modalities helps students to better grasp concepts. Meeting the needs of all students is one of the biggest challenges for many teachers and for critical thinking to take place engagement is key.
Facilitating Collaboration
A number of different collaborative tools are available for free online, making student collaboration much easier. It is not just limited to the classroom anymore, with these advancements students can continue the work together from anywhere. Equally, teachers can use it to check in and provide feedback to students throughout the course of the work. Students should understand that there are many solutions to a problem. When working together our students get to see this for themselves from their peers. Every student approaches a problem from a different angle making collaboration an important aspect to help understand the workings of critical thinking.
Independent learning
EdTech is a great resource to help enable students to regulate their own learning. It encourages them to be more critical in their thinking as they evaluate the work that they are doing along with the work that they still have to complete. With modeling, problem solving and guidance technology allows students to have richer learning experiences where they can develop their metacognitive skills.
