How to Motivate Students to Use Critical Thinking Skills
Sometimes a teacher must convince his or her students to use critical thinking skills to complete a given task. Critical thinking is an important life skill. If students learn critical thinking, they are less likely to fall prey to scams or find themselves in less-than-desirable situations. The best reason to motivate students to learn critical thinking skills is that students who learn to think critically in the classroom will apply that skill elsewhere in their lives.
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Instructions
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Define critical thinking for your students. In essence, one must abandon prejudices in order to reach truth. Show your students that if they approach a question with the answer already in mind, they are shutting themselves off to the hard evidence they may find. Carl Sagan, the astronomer and skeptic, summed up critical thinking by saying that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
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Emphasize that even smart people can believe things that aren't true and that humans are actually good at believing untruths. Dr. Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic Magazine and a professor of economics at Claremont Graduate University, wrote a whole book about this concept. One reason people sometimes don't use critical thinking skills is that our beliefs are reinforced by those around us who believe the same thing. As Shermer writes, "people like to genuflect," paying tribute to those they believe, whether or not the ideas in question are correct.
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Demonstrate the necessity of using critical thinking skills by pretending you aren't using them. The scenario should adjusted depending on the age of your students. If you teach second grade, for example, inform your students that you met a man selling magic seeds that, once planted in your backyard, will become money trees. You could tell high school students that you purchased a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon. The younger the child, the more fantastic the scenario should be.
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Allow students to give you feedback about your scenario. At first, some of the students will believe you, simply because you are the teacher. As class goes on, however, more and more students will begin to doubt the questionable situation you're describing. Ask lots of questions, using the Socratic method to allow your students to work out why what you're saying isn't true. The beauty of the Socratic method is that students arrive at the truth for themselves.
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Finish the exercise by pointing out all of the critical thinking your students just did. Warn them about the consequences of failing to use fact-based reasoning in the future. Recapping a lesson is an effective way to cement a concept in a student's mind.
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