Critical thinking and Socratic questioning

Critical thinking is the study of clear, reasoned thinking. According to Beyer (1995) Critical thinking
means making clear, reasoned judgements. While in the process of critical thinking, your thoughts
should be reasoned and well thought out/judged. The National Council for Excellence in Critical
Thinking defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully
conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from,
or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to
belief and action.

Critical thinking is significant in academics due to being significant in learning. Critical thinking is
significant in the learning process of internalization, in the construction of basic ideas, principles,
and theories inherent in content. And critical thinking is significant in the learning process of
application, whereby those ideas, principles, and theories are implemented effectively as they
become relevant in learners' lives. Good teachers cultivate critical thinking (intellectually engaged
thinking) at every stage of learning, including initial learning. This process of intellectual
engagement is at the heart of the Oxford, Durham, Cambridge and London School of Economics
tutorials. The tutor questions the students, often in a Socratic manner (see Socratic questioning).
The key is that the teacher who fosters critical thinking fosters reflectiveness in students by asking
questions that stimulate thinking essential to the construction of knowledge.

Socratic questioning (or Socratic maieutics) is disciplined questioning that can be used to pursue
thought in many directions and for many purposes, including: to explore complex ideas, to get to
the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts,
to distinguish what we know from what we don't know, to follow out logical implications of
thought or to control the discussion. The key to distinguishing Socratic questioning from
questioning per se is that Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined, deep and usually focuses
on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues or problems.

Socratic questioning is referred to in teaching, and has gained currency as a concept in education
particularly in the past two decades. Teachers, students or indeed anyone interested in probing
thinking at a deep level can and should construct Socratic questions and engage in these
questions. Socratic questioning and its variants has also been extensively used in psychotherapy.

© Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_questioning,

December 16, 2014.