The Steps of General Inquiry & Critical Thinking

It is not enough to simply tell your students to "think critically". There are different steps and methods that exist to help people do this effectively. One method is called the General Inquiry Method, which allows you to act on the decisions you have made after examining an issue! Another approach deals with using artifacts and primary sources to explore Social Studies/History.

 There are many widely held definitions of critical thinking. Here are features that were common to most of them:

• Distinguishing fact from opinion
• Assessing the reliability of a source
• Assessing the accuracy of a statement
• Distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information
• Detecting bias
• Identifying unstated assumptions
• Recognizing logical inconsistencies

 There are 5 general steps to the General Inquiry/ Critical Thinking process:

• Define A Problem:
• Judge Information Related to the Problem:
• Draw your Conclusions and Develop Possible Solutions:
• Devise and Implement a Plan of Action!:
• Review your results, Reflect, and Begin again:

 5 "Tools" that a Critical Thinker should possess include:

• Relevent Background Knowledge - the information on a topic required for thoughtful reflection.
• Understanding of appropriate Criteria for Judgement - grounds for deciding which of the alternatives / solutions is the most sensible or appropriate.
• Key Critical Thinking Vocabulary - the range of concepts that are helpful when thinking critically.
• Fluency with relevent Thinking Strategies - a repertoire of strategies, organizers, and and tactics that could be used on a critical thinking problem.
• Critical and conscientious Habits of Mind - the values and habits of a careful, critical thinker.

There are the 4 main steps to take when using this method in conjunction with PRIMARY resources. Please note that this method can be used VERY successfully with early primary grades...as teacher's we need to give children more experience with primary resources to help give them a hands-on and minds-on understanding of history. Bring their textbooks to life! Use REAL historical artifacts in conjunction with critical thinking and you'll be suprised at the insights students have!

This process follows the general inquiry process very closely...it differs primarily in the type of information used to promote the student's thinking and analysis.

It should be noted that background information is vital for this type of activity, or it will never get off the ground. It can be provided in previous lessons related to the time period of the artifact, or with guided questioning techniques. Biggest Question: WHAT IS YOUR ISSUE going to be?

Here are the 4 steps, with some explanation attached to each step:

• Test the Evidence: Is it Faithful or Fraudulent? Use a T-Chart to see which way the evidence appears to be leaning. You can apply INTERNAL or EXTERNAL critcism to the artifact. Internal relates to its clarity, style, consistency (if written), and external relates to how well it fits the time period...this is where background information is crucial to the success of this stage. For the younger children, asking "Does this look old? Why or Why not?" promotes critical thinking in the earlier grades.
• Draw Inferences from the Facts: Again, the use of a T-Chart is invaluable. Place all the facts you can gather from the artifact down one side, and directly across from them, all the inferences you can draw from the facts. Now rank these for the next stage, in order of importance.
• The Explanation: This can take the form of a written explanation of what has been learned, a drawing of where the artifact was from, a telling/sharing with each other of what we have learned so far, or even building something (depending on the artifact)
• Test for Significance: So what do our findings have to do with anything in current times, our lives? To increase your base of knowledge, you could: read other similar sources, pictures of the issue from the past, oral history, and from all this Draw Your Generalization about the issue.

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