1. Critical thinking is a very important pillar in 21st
century education. By creating critical
thinkers in our youth we are pushing students to be better prepared for the workforce. Critical
thinking is “The process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing,
synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.” If we allow our kids
to utilize critical thinking they are going to be that much more prepared for the real world. Also,
by teaching our students to think critically we are providing students with information and they
can decide whether it is correct or not, what is important about the topic and more without a
teacher guiding them throughout the process. Critical thinkers are those people that think outside
the box or can make a decision and rationalize it.
In our group we decided to start out our presentation by defining critically thinking using
the above definition along with our own. Then we discussed the six degrees of separation in
critical thinking: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
The PowerPoint slide just listed these six and then we elaborated by defining each of the six. We
said that knowledge is the basic recall of facts and data. This is what most of us are used to in
school making it hard to elaborate on what critical thinking is and how it applies to the
classroom. Second we said that comprehension is not just knowing the data associated with
concepts but also communicating relationships among data. After that we discussed application.
Application is taking a concept learned and applying it to another situation. Next, was analysis
which is breaking something down into components or parts to look for trends or evidence to
generalize. Synthesis the fifth degree of separation is the presentation of items or thoughts in a
new way, such as combining ideas to create a theory. Last we discussed evaluation which is
arguing or making a judgment about given information or viewpoint.

2. After discussing the six degrees of separation we discussed ways that you could promote
critical thinking utilizing technology. The first way we discussed is podcast. Having students
create podcast to discuss their analysis of a topic is a great way to make the analysis concrete to
them. The students can hear their explanations to see if they make sense and share with others in
the class about their findings. We thought that this could be especially used in science with
explanations of hypothesis proved or disproved in experiments. The second technology tool we
thought would be great to implement was YouTube and storytelling because by having the
students create and watch such videos they can take someone else’s perspective on subjects.
Next was Photoshop which we thought would be great to use as a teaching tool. The teacher
could create an image and the students could develop a backstory using the evidence presented in
the photo and prior knowledge. After this we discussed QR code scavenger hunts. Using this
technology tool along with open ended questions allows the student to think critically about what
will come next in the scavenger hunt and why. Lastly we presented the idea of WebQuest
because it utilizes open ended questions and most of the time allows the student decide and
rationalize about certain topics.
After presenting these topics briefly we dove into pillar promotion utilizing technology.
We did this by choosing a poem that students would read. After reading they would analyze the
poem and decide whether to agree or disagree with the idea presented in the poem about trees.
Then they would research an array of topics about trees as evidence. We revised and added these
ideas as questions so that readers could visualize the unending questions that could be asked as a
critical thinker to rationalize their viewpoints. Once students pick a side and conduct research
they will create a Voki that persuades the rest of the class on the side they chose. This Voki must

3. contain evidence and use much of the research they conducted. The other students will evaluate
or judge their ability to persuade them.
We concluded by showing an awesome short video from YouTube and wrapped up with
summarizing what critical thinking is. We did this by saying critical thinking is the following:
taking different perspectives, thinking outside the box, all about the question, life experience and
exploration. Then after receiving feedback on our first PowerPoint we went back and revised the
areas of concern to the best of our abilities. In conclusion critical thinking is not only important
for the success in 21st
century education but also the work force.