The Heuristics of Critical Thinking and the Paradox of Relevance

Stephen H. Mazepa

Is there a single standard of inquiry to which a learner could or should subscribe for scrutinizing the accuracy of all new information being learned? Put another way, can students guarantee themselves, either by way of some work ethic, systematized analysis, or magic spell, that what they learn is what their teacher intended for them to learn? My gut instantly answers with a resounding, "No, that’s ridiculous!" My head, with a more measured response, replies, "Guts are not enough of a criterion for evaluating the accuracy of new information." My gut quickly retorts, "Is ‘accuracy’ necessarily the most valuable quality over which one must scrutinize new information?" I have to admit that my gut has a point. To what end does it speak if tribal elders of the Australian Outback can learn to focus a large telescope accurately? If it represents to them, an exodus from their ancestral homeland, they might decline the opportunity although they possess the dexterity, visual acuity, and cognitive ability to learn and perform the task. Thinking critically implies caring enough to get it right. Caring implies an emotional investment. Emotions are not logic bound.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to decide whether simply altering one’s behavior is a valuable gauge for learning. In this paper, I will neither debate the merits of constructivism nor review its seminal highlights. This paper will focus on publications and research that suggest educators employ specific mediators between the learner and that which is to be learned. The set of academic inquiry procedures popularly referred to as "critical thinking skills" has garnered such a reputation, as one might infer from the title of this paper. Then again, one might not. Critical thinking skills have been helpful in bringing the learner to the learning objective when teachers employ activities necessitating critical thinking strategies in their constructivist classrooms as a means for aiding learners in finding relevance. If teachers approach critical thinking skills as some dispassionate rubric of analysis, on the other hand, the relevance factor itself becomes irrelevant, even described as a hindrance to effective critical analysis. Hence, the second half of the title of this paper.

No matter to which one might ascribe the foundations of constructivism, the assimilative of Piaget (1969), the subsumptive of Ausebel (1962), or the sociocultural contexts of Vugotsky, to name a few, they all share a basic tenet: prior knowledge shapes new learning. One attempts to learn something new when the prospects are high to learn something of "practical relevance [that will] complement his or her value system (Burns & Gentry, 1998)." Relevant and accurate learning are not necessarily synonymous terms however. Under what circumstances do critical thinking skills help bridge this gap? These and other questions have emerged from my comparisons of pedagogical tools designed to assist learners in generating and examining information. Some of these tools are in the form of new theoretical or methodological frameworks. Others promote the articulation of the language of thinking among the entire learning community. Still others introduce machinations specifically designed to aid the learner by explicating a facet of his of her current constellation of knowledge. In describing the primary function of the popular new teaching tool, concept mapping, Novak and Gowin (1997) act as emissary for this whole class of pedagogical tools:

Because concept maps are an explicit, overt representation of the concepts and propositions a person holds, they allow teachers and learners to exchange views on why a particular propositional linkage is good or valid, or to recognize missing linkages between concepts that suggest a need for new learning (Pp. 19-20).

Novak and Gowin provide a wonderful analogy to illustrate the intramental affect of concept mapping for aiding in the critical analysis of one’s own ideas. When drawings such as Gowin’s two faces (at right) become one goblet, or vice versa, the "perceptual shift" (p. 19) that occurs for viewers, approximates the experience when learners gain new perspective on their own knowledge base. To paraphrase the authors’ point: not all the teacher cajoling in the world to "see the goblet" will effect student’s ability to do so as will one’s drawing the two faces for him or herself.

The above example also illustrates the necessity for learners to engage in the creation of the "visual tools." For a student merely to trace over a template of Gowin’s line drawing, there is a tendency to continue to focus on the already established "face" schema. A student is prone to call upon greater cognitive resources when producing one's own two-face drawing. Focusing on the symmetrical space between the two faces is the more likely intramental by-product of a creative act and viola! A goblet appears! This "ownership" (Hyerle, 1996, p. 29) in the process distinguishes the activity as personally relevant to the learner. Merely entering the information into someone else’s schematic, no matter how fancy the circles and arrows, is another ready-made worksheet to fill in. The various forms these tools take, like mathematical algorithms, work only when students have the ability to employ them for their own purposes. Also like mathematical algorithms, they do exist as formulas and do perform distinct functions.

We will examine these forms as expressed through a number of frameworks, namely David Hyerle’s "Visual Tools" (1996 & 2000) and the "Epistemic Game Theory," first put forward by Alan Collins and William Ferguson in 1993. First however, I wish to stay on the topic of process because it speaks to our central points of critical thinking and personal relevance. Many misconstrue critical thinking to be a strictly rational enterprise to the exclusion of other forms of ideation such as intuition, sudden insight and discovery, even play. It is my contention that critical thinking conceived outside its natural dialogical relationship with these "a-logical processes (Hanrahan, 1998)," has a deleterious effect upon learning. Mary Hanrahan suggests that this is as much a misconception of scientific inquiry as it is a pedagogical quandary.

Where’s the fun in an exercise regarded "principally about being analytical and logical?" Even in primarily logical strategy games like Chess or Go, or even debates, analytical logic is merely a means toward a more gratifying end. This paper is not the venue for properly exploring what that end is - unfortunately.

What can be said is that when people are intrinsically motivated, publicly appreciated, winning, learning about something they care about, or getting paid what they feel they’re worth to do what they love, those people are having some fun. The reason why critical thinking strategies, or learning for that matter, are not promoted to help you have fun is due to "The Work Vs. Play Conundrum (Karaliotas, 1999, title, ch. 5, on-line table of contents)." "The problem of entering playful mode," as Yannis Karaliotas put it, is due to our culturally engrained Protestant work ethic that holds all things fun, as suspect. Even in these liberal times compared to the ideals of John Calvin, play in an educational context is only ever a means toward specified pedagogical, and sadly, even developmental ends irrespective to the existence of any fun. Pure playfulness, you know, where you do what’s fun until it’s not anymore so you change to a new fun thing and keep going… "…representing the ‘purposeless’ — can only be had at specific times and occasions and it is clearly and severely prohibited from all other activities and environments (Ibid., Para. 5)." I would guess that the depth and breadth of critical thinking occurring during a hide-and-seek game would rival the best research teams from many fields. Karaliotas’ critique of this prejudice against a truly playful learning environment was punctuated with an ironic note:

Not to mention, if I might add to this excellent point, that fun most certainly is a valued end for children today, as it was even in the Calvinists’ heyday.

Such evil idleness, or as today’s self-respecting educators would call it, aimlessness, is not without merit. Divesting of some long-held, perhaps even unconscious beliefs clears a path for "perceptual shifts" and new learning to occur. Are there actually playful activities, with at least the semblance of aimlessness, which might facilitate learning the Social Studies or Sciences? Remember the distinction made between tracing and freehand drawing the two faces/one goblet picture? The difference between the two

scenarios had to do with the pen-in-hand individuals. The person in the latter scenario was left more to his or her own resources. Did that mean the would-be artist set out to draw whatever he or she wanted? This is the typical argument one hears against open-ended [read: aimless] activities, even when they are not that open-ended. What some actually take issue with here, is a certain relinquishing of control. This is understandable in light of horror stories told about principals entering a lively, self-directed bunch, only to tell the teacher, "I’ll come back when you’re actually teaching." The roles we perform and the scripts we follow in order to play those roles are sometimes incongruous from one person to another or sometimes within ourselves from one moment to the next. A more improvisational or autopoietic acceptance of interpersonal dynamics might go a long way toward modeling the optimal construction of knowledge.

"Think alongs" are a modeling procedure for activating students’ prior schema and demonstrating the critical thinking tasks that should accompany reading for a defined purpose. Think alongs were originally devised for younger readers to emphasize the one reading aspect often lost by emergent readers along that steep slope of phonetic decoding, reading for content. A teacher literally announces that s/he is going to demonstrate what this book makes him/her think about as s/he reads it, or more likely a part of it, to the class. Detailed scripts were marketed to accompany trade books. Soon there were think alongs for science and social studies curriculum as well. This strategy comes closest to truly operationalizing a critical thinking heuristic. "What do I already know about this subject?" "I can picture what I’m reading about in my head." Does what I’m reading and picturing in my head sound the same as the list I came up with at the beginning?" So goes the think along script for secondary science content area learning environments devised by Jeanne Ehlinger and Robert Pritchard (1994). Below is a graphic organizer supplied with the article detailing the main heuristic points to be incorporated into the think along scripts for each subject (p. 189).

The Epistemic Game Theory introduced by Allan Collins and William Ferguson in 1993 is a social dynamic model of knowledge construction and inquiry rivaling Hyerle’s "Visual Tools" in scope. As with Hyerle’s framework, Epistemic Game Theory states that knowledge can be constructed and organized into specific epistemic forms. These target forms are objects of an epistemic game, discovered and agreed upon by the players once all the necessary data is available for scrutiny. Any of Hyerle’s visual tools could be a target form as well as something as straight foreword as the linear equation for converting Celsius temperatures into the Fahrenheit scale (Trigg, 1996).

Epistemic games consist of the moves it takes to construct a target epistemic form. Information is presented and positioned among others with the player giving his or her justification for why the information is accurate and best where it has been put in relation to the other elements. Knowledge players negotiate compromises and challenge others' calls as they build the epistemic form. As new information is exposed, the form taking shape may suddenly become irrelevant, superceded by a more reasonable form. In an epistemic game, intuition plays a larger part for those well versed in multiple epistemic forms. Morrison and Collins (1995) referred to this as "epistemic fluency." Such fluency only occurs however, through strategic questioning and critical thinking.