Critical Thinking

Our age of abundant information and widespread misinformation calls for the development of critical thinking skills from a very early age. This can be done in a variety of ways. In this presentation (Hebrew version here), I decided to focus on the skill of asking well-defined questions, then searching for reliable and reasoned answers. The activity is suitable for children in the fourth through seventh grades.

It is a fairly long presentation that can be divided into several parts. The concept of asking questions is discussed in slides 1-12. The discussion provides an in-depth look at different types of questions, raising the question of whether some are better than others. It is recommended to let the children ask questions and categorize them on their own.

The second section (slides 13-55) focuses on two specific questions and can be divided into two lessons. The first question is “How common is my name?” and the second is “Is the world’s population growing?”. Throughout both lessons, the use of databases is demonstrated and the question of selecting the right resources is discussed.

The third section (slides 56-76) describes general concepts of data analysis at a higher level. An overview of data types and data collection methods is provided.

This is an activity I intend to continue and expand. In particular, by adding a section about sources’ reliability and web searching. Would appreciate any feedback and impressions.