Teaching Critical Thinking: exploring implications for Stages 4 and 5 Science and History teaching

Critical thinking is valued universally as an important skill for all students to develop, but there are three issues with the research base:

1) there is no simple and generally accepted definition of critical thinking
2) there is disagreement on whether critical thinking is a generic skill or is domain-specific
3) there is very little quality research on how to teach critical thinking

There is increasing pressure on schools to ensure students gain higher-order thinking skills, but it is hard for teachers to find reliable sources of information on exactly how to incorporate critical thinking into their teaching and learning programs.

This report has been written to assist the NSW Department of Education (the Department) to develop a practical approach to improving the teaching and learning of critical thinking skills in NSW schools. The project seeks to cut through the conceptual, and often ambiguous and noisy, debate about critical thinking and provide the Department with concrete steps it can take that have a strong rationale and potential impact. This project builds on existing work done by the Department and provides a tangible way forward.

The report focuses on science and history teaching in Stages 4 and 5. It does not review the curriculum or redefine what is taught in these domains, but rather seeks to propose solutions to assist teachers to better interpret documented curriculum and create effective teaching and learning programs. The project considers available research, case studies of other systems, and the current situation in New South Wales in order to make suggestions about what would most help teachers to improve their implementation of the syllabus and improve students’ development of critical thinking in science and history in secondary school. Finally, the report highlights resources that will help to bridge the gap between documented and enacted curricula and to support the teaching of critical thinking. The evidence in this report comes from a combination of literature review and case studies of other systems. The research literature is useful to gain insight into what is empirically known (and not yet known) about the teaching of critical thinking. The literature provides high-level insights into what teaching practices are most likely to support the development of critical thinking in students. However, the literature has limitations because so much about teaching critical thinking is still unknown. For that reason, it is also useful to look at case studies of other systems around the world to gain practical insights into different approaches that may support teaching critical thinking.

The report answers four key questions:

1. What are the critical thinking skills in science and history?
2. How do we teach critical thinking, particularly in secondary science and history?
3. How should we sequence critical thinking skills?
4. What knowledge do teachers need to teach critical thinking?