Several studies have demonstrated that games have been effectively used as an instructional strategy to motivate and engage students. This paper presents the use of the process of game development as an instructional strategy to promote higher order thinking skills. An analysis of the various aspects of game development including graphics,…

The Internet is a significant information resource for students due to the ease of access it allows to a vast amount of information. As the quality of the information on the Internet varies, it is important that students are able to evaluate such information critically. The aim of the study was to investigate how students evaluate Internet sources…

Recommends moving from debates between spectators and actors about knowledge and practice to discussions about how all educators can foster good judgment, outlining Aristotle's and Kant's accounts of judgment, which ultimately privilege spectators, and introducing Arendt's work. Arendt linked thinking and acting without privileging either in her…

Traces the evolution of college students' assumptions about knowledge and how it is gained, and examines how their judgment can be enhanced through teaching. Summarizes seven stages of reflective judgment, including three stages of prereflective thinking, two stages of quasi-reflective thinking, and two stages of reflective thinking. Suggests ways…

Investigated 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds' reasoning about laws and legal compliance. Found that children considered several factors in their judgments, including perceived justice of the law, its socially beneficial purpose, and potential for infringement on individual freedoms and rights. Found that children apply moral concepts of harm, rights, and…

The ability to judge quality of information published and importance of Internet in departing knowledge to the students is described. The awareness among the students about topics in history and ability to discuss the topics show that they are well-informed readers, writers and thinkers.

The relationship between higher order reasoning and sex bias was investigated among children 7, 9 and 11 years old. Children read arguments enhancing their own or other gender, then rated argument intelligence, judged other children based on observations, and justified their arguments. Findings showed that own-gender reasoning biases declined with…

This article discusses the nature of critical thinking and ways to teach children to be critical thinkers. The need to model critical thinking is stressed and guidelines are presented for evaluating the credibility of a source (investigating clarity, expertise, objectivity, and accuracy record), and for evaluating the quality of evidence. (CR)

Describes characteristics of critical thinking and the relationship of critical thinking skills to a disposition toward critical thought. Reviews the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory, a research instrument designed to measure several elements of student critical thinking skills. Highlights findings from a study of college…

Every curriculum document mentions critical thinking. There are three reasons which are especially influential in relegating critical thinking to a sideshow on the educational agenda: (1) proliferation of thinking "skills"; (2) the ranking of thinking skills; and (3) separation of "skills" from content. Critical teaching can assume a rightfully…

This article discusses the need for activities that foster critical thinking within secondary literature-based courses. The rationale for teaching thinking skills and activities that focus on synthesis and evaluation are presented. Teachers are urged to become critical thinkers in their determination of content, process, and product choices.…

Staff developers who have worked intensively with teachers to promote higher order thinking tend to emphasize similar types of training activities, especially involving teachers in higher order thinking and authentic problem solving in their subjects and translating ideas about the teaching of thinking into specific lessons for students.…

Argues that students should continuously question the purpose of their daily classroom activities and assignments. Explains that when students are required to consider purpose, they begin to develop important intellectual skills, and to bring relevance to their critical thinking and daily life. (NB)

Failure to separate judicial reasoning (the application of rules) from legislative reasoning (the justification of rules) in earlier studies is claimed to invalidate most previous developmental research using moral dilemma interviews. Two studies used a novel method of scoring moral dilemma interviews that separates judicial from legislative…

Similarity plays a central role in cognitive theories. Research has demonstrated that the similarity of a pair increases with its commonalities and decreases with its differences. These common and distinctive elements can take the form of parts of objects, relations between parts of properties of whole objects. Previous work has been unable to…