Critical Thinking: Helping Students Learn

Based upon the idea that the only hope for substantial curricular reform and for adoption of reflective inquiry in American schools is for teachers tc-edefine the basic pedagogical concepts that they have inherited, this book discusses how to teach students to reflect upon what they learn in scrwol. The three major sections of the book discuss: (1) reasons why educators still do not teach reflective inquiry; (2) a theory of reflective inquiry; and (3) teachers and students identifying and internalizing problems. Topic! in the first section concern barriers to reflective inquiry, philosophical assumptions that prevent reflective thought, teaching as transmission, philosophical absolutes, a semantic analysis, eclecticism, and cultural forces. Topics in the second section concern John Dewey's conception of reflective thinking, what one must know before the process of inquiry begins, thought and emotion, knowledge as a function of a theory of reality, th