The Center has broken the global concept of critical thinking down into 35 aspects or instructional strategies. Click on any of the listed strategies below to learn more.
"Though all teachers in theory aspire to teaching so that students gain higher order, organized, deep knowledge; the effect of most teaching is otherwise... A significant part of this problem is due to what might be called "mother robin teaching".
When we teach in "mother robin" fashion — mentally chewing up everything for our students so we can put it into their intellectual beaks to swallow — students tend to become, if I can slightly mix my metaphor, "Polly parrot" learners...
Rarely do [students have the opportunity to] integrate what they are learning into what they already know or believe. Rarely do they learn to grapple with, or grasp the logic of what they are learning. Content comes and goes as something independent of thought, dissociated from active engagement, from give-and-take, from disciplined reading, writing, speaking, or listening. Intellectual paralysis sets in."