Moderator: Antonella Poce, Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP) Steering Committee member and Associate Professor in Experimental Pedagogy at the University Roma Tre – Department of Education Date: 7 December 2016 Recording of the webinar: https://eden-online.adobeconnect.com/p4hcaplald5/

1. Critical thinking and
technology
Antonella Poce
Is there a possible successful
link?

2. Welcome!
Warm up
questions
•Could you define critical
thinking?
• Do you consider it a
mandatory 21st century
skill?

3. Why critical thinking skills are essential?
Creativity
and
innovation
drivers
Critical
thinking
skills

4. Young people - migration and
socioeconomic situation (Eurostat)
 Over a seven-year period, from 2007 to 2013, the
proportion of young people NEET in the EU-28
increased significantly.
 On average, the share of EU-born young people
NEET in 2013 was 4.8 pp higher than the share in
2007.
 The proportion of employed school early leavers
decreased substantially from 2007 to 2013 for all
groups of young people by country of birth, while at
the same time the percentage of unemployed early
leavers increased…
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Young_people_-
_migration_and_socioeconomic_situation#NEET_by_country_of_birth

5. OECD report
Investing in human and social
capital
 recent trends show sharp increases in the
demand for task input requiring complex
communication (…). Similar increases have
occurred in the demand for non routine
analytical skills, involving solving problems for
which there are no rule based solutions, and
requiring individuals to develop skills of problem
solving and inquiry based learning throughout
their education.
(OECD, 2010, theme 2, p. 5).

6. Dicussion (1)
Is CT a solution? Less discuss it!
 Do you think CT can be
thought?
 If yes do you have
experience in that?
 Can you tell us more?

7. Education needs
 unemployed workers and people in weak
economic sectors are also looking to
education and training opportunities to
improve their position on the labour market
and this caused a paradoxical situation
where higher education and vocational
institutions have to face a large
demand with reduced resources.

8. Education needs
 some countries reacted introducing
specific measures to invest in skills
development, research and innovation,
being aware that budget cuts in
education will harm those who are most
vulnerable and are promoting policies
to improve equity in learning
opportunities (Belgium, France,
Germany) (Cinque, 2016)

9. Education needs
learning organizations
(Laurillard, Learning and Teaching in
Higher Education, 2008, p.35), places
which promote tools concerned with
the improvement of individual and,
consequently, the same organization
learning …

10. Education needs
 Formal education should enter working
places and the other way round:
“in the nations where work is organized to
support high levels of employee discretion
in solving complex problems, the evidence
shows that firms tend to be more active in
terms of innovations developed through
their own in house creative efforts”
(OECD, 2010, theme 1, p. 10)

11. According to your experience, can you see a role for
TECHED to foster such abilities?
Do you know about initiatives/projects regarding CT
development on line?
Discussion (2)

12. Research

13. Research activity carried out at LPS DE*
Critical
thinking
abilities
Development
of an ad hoc
model
Structured
didactic
project
*Laboratory for Experimental Research - Department of education – University

14. Critical thinking abilities
 Paul and Elder (2002, p. 230) state:
“each one of us thinks, it is in our nature. Most of our
thoughts are, however, distorted, partial, non uniform
or influenced by bias.
And yet, the quality of our life, and what we produce,
do, build, depends on the quality of our thoughts.
Excellence of thoughts must be systematically
culturally nourished.”

15. • to define a critical technology, through the preparation of teaching
material to be provided online, according to a well-defined design
• to organize and coordinate guided discussions on a dedicated virtual
space, provided to students for the above activity
• to collect the insights of the online discussions and analyze them
with lexicon-metric tools
• to measure the students’ critical thinking skills via an adapted
Newman, Webb, Cochrane (1997) model, already used within the
sphere of other projects carried out within the department. This
activity was implemented by:
1.asking students, at the beginning of the education proposal, to
undertake a short essay test on a certain topic that is related to
their studies
2.repeating the short essay test at the end of the learning activity,
and assessing, via the same analysis model, whether an increase
in critical thinking is found
3.collecting the data and preparing the research report
Objectives

16. Analysis path
Pre and
post tests
Online
interviews
on the
experience
Online
short
essay
cooperativ
e writing
•Content analysis
(Newman et al.
adaptation)
•Lexicon metrics
analysis

17. Content analysis
Newman Webb
and Cochrane
(1997)
(20 pairs of
indicators)
CT= (X+-X-): (X++X-)
Relevance, importance, width
of understanding ,
justificationnovelty and so on

18.  More than 200 students, attending the master (pre-service)
level university degree in Primary Education – Roma Tre
University
 Students participated in the online lecturing, as part of the
compulsory module in Educational research methodology
 After taking part in the course, they had to carry out an
evaluation, according to the ad hoc model devised by LPS
Methodology
 Students' background variables questionnaire administration
 OERs completion
 Evaluation form, defined according to specific indicators
created to assess the impact of OERs on Higher Education
teaching and learning
 Final questionnaire on the experience
Methodological plan

19. An innovative qualitative research tool
relevance and importance
contains indicators linked to
formal characteristics of
course content
breadth of understanding,
argumentation and justification
consists of a series of
statements. Students indicate
how far they agree with them
critical evaluation
students were asked to
critically assess content,
proposing issues for
discussion and reflection
novelty
(open ended section) The aim
is to enable students to reflect
and express their own
opinion/evaluation, adding
elements on already identified
indicators
Adaptation of categories taken from the model for the assessment of critical thinking skills by
Newman, Webb, Cochrane (1997)
four
section
s

20. The tool Quality Evaluation – Relevance and
importance (indicators relate to characteristics of
course content)

21. The tool Content Analysis – Width of
comprehension, argumentation and justification
of solutions content

22. The tool - Critical evaluation (skills
acquired)

23. The model under investigation
 Focus: relation, if any, between the employment of
the traditional lecturing mode (distinctio, divisio
textus, collatio, questio) and the ability of reasoning
 The hypothesis to be tested concerned mainly the
verification of the impact of classical lecturing on
students’ reasoned production
 Technology helps the limitation of employing
traditional lecturing in contemporary large contexts
and allows that individual intercourse everyone of us
might need while deepening a certain topic of study.

24. Final remarks
Contemporary society show a vital need for
enhancement of critical thinking skills,
especially for those who are attending higher
levels of education.
This study is an attempt to demonstrate that
technology, if used as a tool and adequately
inserted in a strong didactical structure, can
represent a valid solution for improvement

25. Discussion (3)
Impressions on the experience?
Do you have similar experiences to discuss?
How do you think results can be improved?

26.  Thank you!
Antonella.Poce@uniroma3.it
@AntonellaPoce