Welcome to MAS 801 Critical Thinking and Writing in Social Sciences

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Welcome to MAS 801! Critical Thinking and
Writing in Social Sciences

• Course Instructors
• Mark Baildon Office 3-03-149B Phone
  6790-3581 E-mail mark.baildon_at_nie.edu.sg
• Wang Zhenping 3-03-139 zpwang_at_nie.edu.sg
• Elisabeth N. Bui 3-03140 enbui_at_nie.edu.sg

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Agenda for todays class

• Introductory activity Who are we? Where do we
  come from? What are our views of critical
  thinking/writing?
• Go over MAS 801 syllabus and assignments
• Slide show and discussion
• Critical thinking activities
• Debrief and assignment for next class

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Introductions

• Name, school, teaching assignment
• Respond to one of the following
• What does thinking or writing critically mean to
  you? What does it look like in your classroom?
• Describe your journey as a critical thinker or
  writer. How does critical thinking/writing fit
  into your story (your teaching, experience, etc.?
  What factors/experiences have shaped the ways you
  think/write critically?
• In what ways have you or do you think/write
  critically?

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MAS 801 Syllabus

• Course goals objectives
• Develop understandings of and practice critical
  thinking and writing in social sciences (history
  and geography)
• Consider practical classroom applications (What
  would be most useful/helpful for you?)
• Assessment
• Three essays
• Assignments and discussion
• Participation
• Resources Recommended readings

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Critical thinking and writing A (practical)
theoretical perspective(Theory matters it
shapes how and what we see, think, and do)

• Three essential questions (that will frame our
  study)
• How do we and our students learn to think and
  write critically?
• What is critical thinking and writing in social
  sciences (history and geography)?
• What are its purposes? What vision do I have for
  my students as critical thinkers/writers?

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How do we and our students learn to think and
write critically?
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Critical thinking and writing as PRACTICES

• A few key concepts to consider
• Socio-cultural practices
• Communities of practice
• Discourses
• Modes of inquiry

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Socio-cultural practices

• Higher order functions (i.e., critical thinking)
  develop out of social interactions and
  participation in cultural activities (Vygotsky,
  1986).
• We learn by doing. Learning always involves
  participating in social or cultural practices.
  Learning is the process of engaging in the
  practices, norms, values, and understandings of
  the social and cultural communities to which we
  belong. 

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What practices do you see? What are people
learning by doing these things?
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Communities of practice

• People learn with/from others. 3 dimensions of
  COP 1.) People are involved in a joint
  enterprise, 2.) involving mutual engagement and
  negotiation, 3.) using/drawing on a shared
  repertoire of practices and resources (Lave
  Wenger, 1998).
• Examples? becoming a member of a religious
  congregation, athletes training together,
  spectators at any public event, faculty and
  students in a university setting, new friends,
  the bricoleur who helps a person repair his
  porch, working as a historian or geographer

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Is this a community of practice?
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Socio-cultural practices in a community of
practice require that people learn the
discourse(s) of the community

• Discourses characteristic (socially and
  culturally formed, but historically changing)
  ways of talking and writing about, as well as
  acting with and toward, people and things. These
  ways are circulated and sustained within various
  texts, artifacts, images, social practices, and
  institutions, as well as in moment-to-moment
  social interactions. In turn, they cause certain
  perspectives and states of affairs to come to
  seem or be taken as normal or natural and
  others to seem or be taken as deviant or
  marginal (Gee, 2000).

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What discourses are represented in this photo?
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Students can learn the discourses of critical
thinking and writing, history, geography, social
science, etc. in social studies classrooms.

• Identifying and evaluating claims and evidence in
  texts.
• Analyzing primary sources.
• Interpreting artifacts, artwork, maps, etc.
• Asking good questions.
• Engaging in disciplined inquiry.
• Understanding what it means to do history,
  geography, social science.

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Inquiry

• Knowledge is constructed/developed in the context
  of significant problems requiring the
  negotiation of meaning (largely through talk) by
  members of a community engaged in doing
  something (Adger, Hoyle, Dickinson, 2004).
• Levstik Barton (2001) define inquiry as the
  purposeful act of seeking information or
  knowledge, activating prior knowledge,
  investigating significant questions, and
  constructing knowledge within a community that
  establishes the goals, standards, and procedures
  of study (p. 13).

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• The perspective of viewing criticality as a
  practice helps us see that criticality is a way
  of being as well as a way of thinking, a relation
  to others as well as an intellectual capacity
  Because criticality is a function of collective
  questioning, criticism, and creativity, it is
  always social in character (Burbules Berk,
  1999, pp. 61-62).

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• So, what are the implications of these concepts
  for classroom practice?
• What are the implications for your teaching?
• What are the implications for student learning?

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What is critical thinking and writing in social
sciences?

• 3 Strands
• Generic abilities or dispositions to analyze,
  synthesize, and evaluate information discern
  certain kinds of distortions, inaccuracies,
  falsehoods detect faulty arguments
  overgeneralizations identify and evaluate
  assertions/claims and evidence.
• Disciplined abilities/dispositions to
  understand and use disciplinary methods, generate
  good investigative questions conduct research
  reach conclusions about which accounts are better
  interpretations based on evidence and
  disciplinary criteria share findings.
• Critical theory abilities/dispositions to use
  lens of power to analyze social conditions
  investigate injustice explore knowledge and
  knowing as always positioned and positioning
  show how various accounts are implicated in and
  serve larger political and social purposes know
  about the discipline and how it works.

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Critical Web Reader Activity

• http//cwrtool.educ.indiana.edu/cwrtool/