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Defining the Critical Question:
The questioning process is the cornerstone of inquiry. It should extend thinking skills, clarify understandings, gain feedback on teaching/learning, provide revision strategies, create links between ideas, enhance curiosity and provide challenges .
Some considerations:
Knowledge (remembering previously learned information)
Learning objectives: know common terms, know specific facts, know methods and procedures, know basic concepts, know principles.
Questioning verbs: define, list, state, identify, label, name, who? when? where? what? describe, draw, enumerate, find, identify, match, quote, read, recall, recite, recognize, record, reproduce, select, sequence, state, tell, view, write.
Comprehension (grasping the meaning of information)
Learning objectives: understand facts and principles, interpret verbal material, interpret charts and graphs, translate verbal material to mathematical formulae, estimate the future consequences implied in data, justify methods and procedures.
Questioning verbs: Explain, predict, interpret, infer, summarize, convert, translate, give example, account for, paraphrase, classify, cite, conclude, describe, discuss, estimate, generalize, illustrate, locate, make sense of, paraphrase, put in your own words, report, restate, review, summarize, trace, understand.
Application (applying knowledge to actual situations)
Learning objectives: apply concepts and principles to new situations, apply laws and theories to practical situations, solve mathematical problems, construct graphs and charts, demonstrate the correct usage of a method or procedure.
Questioning verbs: act, administer, articulate, assess, change, chart, choose, collect, compute, construct, contribute, control, demonstrate, determine, develop, discover, dramatize, draw, establish, extend, imitate, implement, interview, include, inform, instruct, paint, participate, predict, prepare, produce, provide, relate, report, select, show, solve, transfer, use, utilize.
Analysis (breaking down into simpler parts and seeing how they relate and are organized)
Learning objectives: recognize unstated assumptions, recognizes logical fallacies in reasoning, distinguish between facts and inferences, evaluate the relevancy of data, analyze the organizational structure of a work (art, music, writing).
Questioning verbs: break down, characterize, classify, compare, contrast, correlate, debate, deduce, diagram, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, focus, illustrate, infer, limit, outline, point out, prioritize, recognize, research, relate, separate, subdivide.
Synthesis (rearranging component ideas into a new whole)
Learning objectives: write a well organized paper, give a well organized speech, write a creative short story (or poem or music), propose a plan for an experiment, integrate learning from different areas into a plan for solving a problem, formulate a new scheme for classifying objects (or events, or ideas).
Questioning verbs: adapt, anticipate, categorize, collaborate, combine, communicate, compare, compile, compose, construct, contrast, create, design, develop, devise, express, facilitate, formulate, generate, incorporate, individualize, initiate, integrate, intervene, invent, make up, model, modify, negotiate, organize, perform, plan, pretend, produce, progress, propose, rearrange, reconstruct, reinforce, reorganize, revise, rewrite, structure, substitute, validate.
Evaluation (making judgments based on internal evidence or external criteria)
Learning objectives: judge the logical consistency of written material, judge the adequacy with which conclusions are supported by data, judge the value of a work (art, music, writing) by the use of internal criteria, judge the value of a work (art, music, writing) by use of external standards of excellence.
Questioning verbs: appraise, argue, assess, choose, compare & contrast, conclude, criticize, critique, decide, defend, evaluate, interpret, judge, justify, predict, prioritize, prove, rank, rate, reframe, select, support.
Developing Assessment Tools
Under development
Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric (HCTSR)