ReflectiveJudgmentTeaching Students To Think Critically In A Time Of Information Overload

Adam Peck, Ph.D.Dean of Student AffairsStephen F. Austin State

University

Experience in student affairs and teaching.

Speaker/Consultantwith APEX Educational Programs.

My Background and Familiarity with this Topic

I am my own test subject.

What is your definition of crtical thinking?

A) Evaluating information to determine what You believe. Information Literacy

B) Insuring that your beliefs are internally consistent with each other. Personal Epistemology

C) The ability to accurately understand the point of view of those with whom you disagree. Integrative Complexity

D) The ability to apply systematic reasoning to different contexts and situations. Reflective Judgment

Addressing Critical Thinking in the Digital Age:

Why this topic is so relevant right now.

How do we define Critical Thinking and Reflective Judgment?

The Teacher is the Tool: Developing Your Own Reasoning Skills.

Resources for Teaching Critical Thinking Inside and Outside of the Classroom.

TheDigitalDilemma Why Critical Thinking is imperative now.

• The top 10 jobs in 2010 will be jobs that did not even exist 5 years ago.

• Today’s students will have an average of 10-14 jobs by age 38.

• There are 31 billion Google queries each month.

• In a week of reading The New York Times, you can learn more than a person in the eighteenth century might have learned in a lifetime.

•As Keeling (2004) articulated in Learning Reconsidered: A Campus-Wide Focus on the Student Experience, “…knowledge is no longer a scarce – or stable – commodity. (It) is changing so rapidly that specific information may become obsolete before a student graduates and has the opportunity to apply it” (p. 4).

DefiningCriticalThinkingAnd Reflective Judgment

How is Reflective Judgment Different from Critical Thinking?

Reflective judgment is like critical thinking in that students have to critically evaluate information to understand if it is credible, but it is different in that it concerns students’ epistemic assumptions.

• Students have to understand what they believe and why they believe it.

• Students need to learn to ensure that their beliefs are consistent or at the very least know that they are inconsistent.

• Students have to understand how these beliefs work together as a personal epistemology.

What Kind of Problems Does Reflective Judgment Study?

King and Kitchener describe reflective judgment as considering “how people decide what they believe about vexing problems”

(King and Kitchener, 1994, p. 2).

. . . Especially when these problems are “ill-structured” or have no simple solutions or for which conflicting evidence and opinions

exist.

What Are the Two Most Important Assumptions Regarding Reflective Judgment?

1) That individuals' understanding of the nature, limits, and certainty of knowing (their epistemic assumptions) affects how they defend their judgments

2) That epistemic assumptions change over time in a developmentally related fashion.

The Reflective Judgment Model

The conceptual framework for reflective judgment is that of a stage model characterized by seven distinct but developmentally related sets of assumptions about the process of knowing (view of knowledge) and how it is acquired (justification of beliefs).

The seven developmental stages of the Reflective Judgment Model may be broadly summarized into three levels:

• Pre-Reflective • Quasi-Reflective • Reflective Thinking

Pre-Reflective

Belief that "knowledge is gained through the word of an authority figure or through firsthand observation, rather than, for example, through the evaluation of evidence. [People who hold these assumptions] believe that what they know is absolutely correct, and that they know with complete certainty. People who hold these assumptions treat all problems as though they were well-structured" (King & Kitchener, 2002, p. 39).

Pre-Reflective Stages

Stage 1 - "I know what I have seen.“

Stage 2 - "If it is on the news, it has to be true."

Stage 3 -"When there is evidence that people can give to convince everybody one way or another, then it will be knowledge, until then, it's just a guess.“ Most freshmen enter the university at this stage

Recognition "that knowledge-or more accurately, knowledge claims-contain elements of uncertainty, which [people who hold these assumptions] attribute to missing information or to methods of obtaining the evidence. Although they use evidence, they do not understand how evidence entails a conclusion (especially in light of the acknowledged uncertainty), and thus tend to view judgments as highly idiosyncratic" (King and Kitchener, 2002, p. 40).

Quasi-ReflectiveQuasi-Reflective

Quasi-Reflective Stages

Stage 4 - "I'd be more inclined to believe evolution if they had proof. It's just like the pyramids: I don't think we'll ever know. Who are you going to ask? No one was there.“Most seniors graduate at this level

Stage 5 - "People think differently and so they attack the problem differently. Other theories could be as true as my own, but based on different evidence."

People who hold these assumptions accept "that knowledge claims cannot be made with certainty, but [they] are not immobilized by it; rather, [they] make judgments that are "most reasonable" and about which they are "relatively certain," based on their evaluation of available data. They believe they must actively construct their decisions, and that knowledge claims must be evaluated in relationship to the context in which they were generated to determine their validity. They also readily admit their willingness to reevaluate the adequacy of their judgments as new data or new methodologies become available" (King & Kitchener, 2002, p. 40).

Reflective ThinkingReflective Thinking

Reflective Thinking Stages

Stage 6 - "It's very difficult in this life to be sure. There are degrees of sureness. You come to a point at which you are sure enough for a personal stance on the issue."

Stage 7 - "One can judge an argument by how well thought-out the positions are, what kinds of reasoning and evidence are used to support it, and how consistent the way one argues on this topic is as compared with other topics."

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TheTeacherisTheToolTools for Developing Critical Thinking In Yourself

Developing Reflective Judgment in Ourselves

“Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.”

- Parker Palmer from “The Courage to Teach:

Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life”

Think about a theory about student development that guides your practice. It does not need to be a formal theory. • When did you first come to believe this theory?

• Why did you believe it to be true?

• How often have you reexamined this belief?

• What prompts you to reexamine this belief?

• How certain are you of this belief

• If you are certain, then, why are you certain?

• Can you think of a time you learned something (either inside the classroom or outside of the classroom) that made you question this belief.

How do you know what you believe?

Now Consider:

* Looking at the reflective judgment levels, where would you place the level of reflective judgment that you demonstrated at the time that this theory became part of your belief system.

How do you know what you believe?

I know what I’ve seen

Stage 1

If it’s on the news, it

must be trueWe’ll know someday

I need proof

Stage 4

Beliefs are based on

perspective

Stage 5

There are degrees of sureness

Stage 6

Beliefs are based on well-reasoned

judgments

Stage 7Stage 2 Stage 3

Now Consider:

• If you no longer held the belief that this theory was an accurate reflection of reality, what other beliefs would you need to change as a consequence?

How do you know what you believe?

Cleaning the Filter: The Showroom Story

• Attribution Error

• Confirmation Bias

• Certainty

• Source Reliability

Enemies of Reflective Judgment

Watch For Replace With

In fact… In my opinion…

The truth is… In my experience…

Scientists say… According to some research I have read…

In reality… From my perspective…

I know… I have noticed…

The right thing to do is… My instincts tell me…

Watch Your Use of Language: Catch Phrases

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ResourcesTools for Developing Critical Thinking Inside and Outside of the Classroom

• Beyond Person-Environment Constructs

• The Authority Trap/An Advantage for Student Affairs - Lecture/Presentation format encourages

transmission learning, not transformational learning.

- Don’t be the sage on the stage; be the guide on the side.

• Must be Intentionally Constructed. But how?

Prompting Reflective Judgment in our Students

Disequilibrium: An Essential Element

Creating Disequilibrium/Cognitive Dissonance is essential in prompting belief change.

• This change depends upon four conditions that must be met, “1) a dissatisfaction with existing beliefs, 2) individuals must find new alternatives intelligible and useful, 3) individuals must find the new beliefs plausible, and 4) new conceptions must stand up to challenges and lead to new learning” (Hofer, B. K. & Pintrich, P.R., 2004, p. 203).

How can we encourage RJ in Co-Curricular Programs?

Dialoguing on Ill-structured Problems

Integrate Socratic Dialogue

Use Modeling of Reflective Judgment

Designing Guided Reflections

Including Meta-cognitive Reflection

• Face the Millennial Generation Challenge

• Make the River Run Backwards

• Example Program: Tunnel of Oppression

Creating Disequilibrium/Cognitive Dissonance

• We have a need for programs which prompt contemplation and discussion of ill-structured problems or important issues which have no easy solutions.

• We need to expose students to examine points of view other than their own.

• Example Program: Switch Sides Speech/Movie Discussions

Dialoguing on Ill-structured Problems

Teach Students to Recognize Logical Fallacies

Ad Hominem (Personal Attack)

Bandwagon Fallacy

Appeal to Antiquity / Tradition Appeal to Popularity Straw Man Argument

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Download the logical fallacy flashcards FREE at apexeducationalprograms.com

In the 2007 report of the National Survey for Student Engagement (NSSE), George Kuh, Executive Director of NSSE, addressed a question he is often asked, “What one thing can we do to enhance student engagement and increase student success?” He replied, “Make it possible for every student to participate in at least two high-impact activities during their undergraduate program, one in the first year, and one later related to their major field” (NSSE, 2007, p. 18).

High Impact Practices

What are High-Impact Practices?

“…teaching and learning practices that have been widelytested and have been shown to be beneficial for college students from many backgrounds.”

Six Conditions of High-Impact Programs(Inside and Outside the Classroom)

• They demand that students devote considerable amounts of time and effort to purposeful tasks.

• The nature of these high-impact activities puts students in circumstances that essentially demand they interact with faculty and peers about substantive matters.

• Participating in one or more of these activities increases the likelihood that students will experience diversity through contact with people who are different than themselves.

Six Conditions of High-Impact Programs(Inside and Outside the Classroom) Cont.

• Students get frequent feedback about their performance.

• Participating in these activities provides opportunities for students to see how what they are learning works in different settings, on and off the campus.

• Doing one or more of these activities in the context of a coherent, academically challenging curriculum that appropriately infuses opportunities for active, collaborative learning increases the odds that students will be prepared to connect.

Implementation

Lumberjack Leadership AcademyFormerly Passive Leadership ExperienceNow Active/Collaborative Projects Proposed by StudentsParticipation is Consistently Higher

Peer Involvement Advising ProgramUsed to rely on Involvement FairsBeneficial to advisor and advisee

Freshman Leadership CourseFormerly Non-experientialService-Learning Format

Make an ImpactTwenty-Four Faculty Learning Communities:

Twelve faculty selected for each long semesterTwo faculty from each of five colleges and two from

student affairsLearning about and discuss High-Impact PracticesDevelop discipline-specific approaches to adopting these

practices in their coursesProjects are developed in the long semester prior to

implementationFall projects are focused toward first-year

seminar courses, Spring projects are focused on upper-division courses

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Resources Learning for a new Global Century (available at:

http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/GlobalCentury_final.pdf)

Student Success in College (this and other relevant NSSE publications are available at:

http://nsse.iub.edu/html/pubs.cfm)

High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter (available at: http://www.aacu.org/leap/hip.cfm)

National Resources Center for the First Year and Students in Transition (at www.sc.edu/fye).

Thank you!

Contact me: Adam Peck(936) 468 -7249peckae@sfasu.edu

Visit my website: ApexEducationalPrograms.com

Thank you for your participation!