Overview of Critical Thinking in the BC K-12

Curriculum Revisions
Implications for Teaching and Learning

Nicolas Fillion and Dale Martelli

November 10, 2017 | Revised April 2018
About the authors
Nicolas Fillion is a philosopher and mathematician who is assistant professor of
philosophy at Simon Fraser University. His main research contributions are in the
philosophy of science and applied mathematics, but his research and teaching
include the history of science & mathematics, formal logic, decision and game
theory, critical thinking, and epistemology broadly construed. He has also been
involved with various outreach, regulation, and curricular initiatives to promote the
teaching of philosophy and critical thinking in BC high schools.

Dale Martelli is a secondary school teacher of History 12, Philosophy 12, and
Classical Studies 8-10. He is the Social Studies Department Head at Vancouver
Technical Secondary, the president of the BC Social Studies Teachers’ Association,
and a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University,
researching historical meta-cognitive/critical thinking. He designed the new
Philosophy 12 course, first as a locally developed course in the Vancouver School
district, and then as part of the new BC curriculum.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Catherine Murray (Associate Dean, Undergraduate Academic Programs & Enrolment
Management, FASS, SFU), Lisa Shapiro (Associate Dean, Graduate Programs and Research, FASS, SFU), and
Kris Magnusson (Dean, Faculty of Education, SFU) for giving life to this project and overseeing its evolution.
We would also like to thank Frank Cunningham (Emeritus Professor, Philosophy, University of Toronto),
Kevin O’Neill (Associate Professor, Education, SFU), Christine Paget (DPhil Candidate, Education, University
of Oxford), and Sam Black (Associate Professor, Philosophy, SFU) for their valuable contributions.

2
 “Good sense is, of all things in the world, the most equally distributed;
for everyone thinks himself so well endowed with it,
that even those who are the most difficult to please in everything else,
do not usually desire more of it than they already possess.
[…] the diversity of our opinions does not arise because some of us are more reasonable than others,
but solely because we direct our thoughts along different paths,
and do not attend to the same things.
For it is not enough to have a good mind;
the main thing is to apply it well.”
René Descartes
Discourse on the Method

3
Table of Contents
About the authors ............................................................................................................................................. 2
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................... 2
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5
2. Background to the Report ............................................................................................................................. 5
3. Nature of the Curriculum Change ................................................................................................................. 6
3.1 Articulation of the reform’s guiding principles (2011-2015) ................................................................... 6
3.2 Structure of the current Grades 10-12 draft curriculum ......................................................................... 9
3.3 The Thinking core competency ............................................................................................................. 11
3.4 Critical thinking in Social Studies ........................................................................................................... 12
3.5 Philosophy 12 ........................................................................................................................................ 14
4. Critical Thinking: Definition, Paradigm, and Best Practices ......................................................................... 15
4.1 Lack of definition and paradigm during the curriculum development .................................................. 15
4.2 Critical thinking and meta-cognition ..................................................................................................... 16
4.3 Critical thinking and education technologies ........................................................................................ 18
4.4 Critical thinking for gifted and vulnerable students .............................................................................. 19
5. Implications for postsecondary institutions ................................................................................................ 20
5.1 Impact of prior critical-thinking-oriented curricular reforms in BC ....................................................... 20
5.2 Teacher development ........................................................................................................................... 21
5.3 Implication for course curricula and instruction ................................................................................... 22
5.4 BC high school admissions..................................................................................................................... 23
5.5 Implications for international students ................................................................................................. 24
6. Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................................................... 25
7. Recommendations ...................................................................................................................................... 26
References ...................................................................................................................................................... 27
Appendix ......................................................................................................................................................... 29
A. Sample course curriculum: Social Justice 12 ........................................................................................... 29
B. Philosophy 12 curriculum, without elaborations .................................................................................... 30
C. Critical Thinking competency profiles ..................................................................................................... 31
D. The Critical Thinking’s Consortium’s criteria for assessing thinking ........................................................ 32
E. Ellerton’s critical thinking model ............................................................................................................. 33

4
1. Introduction
The education system of British Columbia is undergoing extensive transformation. As recognised by former
education minister Peter Fassbender, although BC has one of the best education systems in the world, “it’s
a world that is changing rapidly and we owe it to our students to keep pace” (Ministry of Education MOE
2015, p. 1). Following the guiding principles of the 2011 BC Education plan (MOE), the transformation will
reform not only the K-12 curriculum, but also modes of assessment, learning standards, and graduation to
meet the needs of 21st century education.
The consultation process behind the current proposals sought to harmonize the realities of 21st century
education in BC with the Mandate for the School System (MOE 1989), to develop Educated Citizens “who
have the ability to think clearly and critically, and to adapt to change”. The reforms therefore put the
emphasis on personalized learning while maintaining BC’s high standards on foundational skills—numeracy
and literacy. As a result, all aspects of the education system need attention. These include adapting course
curricula to focus on individual learning, changes in mode of assessment (at school, district, and provincial
levels), modifying learning standards to reflect the focus on personalized learning, and offering more
flexible paths to graduation.
This transformation is now reaching its final stages. Following extensive consultation with stakeholders,
the general structure of the new curriculum has been determined. The K-9 curriculum has reached
implementation stage, and a draft of the 10-12 curriculum is available for test use and feedback.

2. Background to the Report

In 2014, the MOE and the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills & Training created a new position,
Superintendent of Graduation and Student Transitions, with the mandate to increase the number of high
school graduates moving from secondary school to post-secondary institutions/trade programs and careers.
In response to Superintendent Jan Unwin’s call for informed and meaningful feedback, the Faculty of Arts
and Social Science (FASS) and the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University commissioned this report.
With emphasis predominantly on the core competencies including critical thinking, on the harmonization of
core and curricular competencies, and on the new Philosophy 12 course curriculum, this report seeks to:
1. Improve understanding of the new curriculum among public education stakeholders;
2. Identify aspects of the reform where K-12 and university teaching faculty can contribute;
3. Identify issues arising that affect undergraduate education at post-secondary institutions;
4. Determine the impact on post-secondary involvement, with respect to curriculum, admissions, teacher
training, and research;
5. Facilitate further exchange and collaboration within the public education community, involving
stakeholders such as the BC Council on Admissions & Transfer (BCCAT), school districts, and post-
secondary institutions.
Our stance is that Ministry reforms that enhance the teaching of critical thinking skills throughout the
secondary school curriculum should be welcomed by universities and colleges.
The aspect of the reform that most pressingly requires improvement is that the proposed curriculum
and assessment structure provides little guidance to teachers on defining critical thinking, how it can be

5
taught effectively, and how to assess it using performance-based language. The main challenge is to address
this concern in a way that is consistent with the spirit of the reform—specifically, the emphasis on
personalized learning and on teachers’ freedom to shape the curriculum—and the realities of the teaching
profession. This requires development of appropriate resources by the Ministry of Education and the
Ministry of Advanced Education, in partnership with K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions.

3. Nature of the Curriculum Change

We begin by recapitulating the general guiding principles, articulated between 2010 and 2015, that have
motivated the ongoing K-12 education reform in BC. These principles constitute the framework within
which the various debates and unanswered questions that we will touch in this report should be addressed.
We then explain how the general principles have led to a curriculum focused on core competencies,
including critical thinking, as well as how the core competencies are integrated with content and curricular
competencies (with a focus on Social Studies). This section is essentially descriptive of the MOE effort,
except for the subsection on the new Philosophy 12 course.

3.1 Articulation of the reform’s guiding principles (2011-2015)

The process leading to the current transformation of the British Columbia K-12 curriculum was initiated in
2010. The architecture of the curriculum has changed several times through this process as a result of
consultation with stakeholders, under the guidance of the Curriculum and Assessment Framework Advisory
Group formed in 2011. A clear goal emerged from the province-wide consultations of this group: “the
Province needs a more flexible curriculum that prescribes less and enables more, for both teachers and
students.” (MOE 2012, p. 2) To be more specific, the 2012 report describes the objective of the reform as
follows:
The directions proposed herein envisage a school system focused on the competencies that will
best prepare students for their futures and based on a curriculum that prescribes fewer but
more important outcomes. At the same time, teachers will have more flexibility and freedom to
innovate in order to personalize learning in their classrooms. Going forward, the task for the
Ministry as it develops new curriculum and assessment guidelines is to remove barriers to
personalizing instruction so that the curriculum is optimally manageable for teachers and allows
them more freedom to find approaches that work for schools and students alike. (p. 2)
The report recommends that there be fewer learning standards (what students are expected to know,
understand, and be able to do) determined by provincial curricula, so that teachers think “about what they
can add to curriculum to personalize it and make it more relevant to learners,” rather than about how they
can possibly cover it all (MOE 2012, p. 7). In addition, it recommends that the learning standards emphasize
“higher-order concepts over facts to enable deeper learning and understanding” (p. 3) and that provincial
curricula should include cross-curricular competencies (in addition to foundational skills and subject-specific
competencies). It was recommended that the cross-curricular competencies be defined in terms “suitable
to both curriculum and assessment” (p. 4), and that it be part of each stage of education (formative years K-
5, middle years 6-10, graduation years 10-12). Moreover, it was recommended that “teachers report at key
times in the year on cross-curricular competencies and key concepts within areas of learning using clear
performance-based language” (p. 7). It was also recommended that student assessment be more flexible,

6
i.e., allowing multiple ways to demonstrate learning, and leading to more flexible paths to graduation. These
guidelines led to a new curriculum that has already been implemented for grades K-9. It is still in draft form
for the graduation years 10-12 and there is ongoing consultation. However, some of the recommendations
mentioned are not currently being implemented in the reform, in particular with respect to assessment and
reporting.
The nature and number of cross-curricular competencies has changed through the consultation
process. The 2012 report Enabling Innovation (MOE 2012) identifies five cross-curricular competencies
(p. 5):
a) Communication is the imparting or exchange of information, experiences, and ideas through language,
symbols, movement, or images to build a common understanding.
b) Critical thinking is focused on deciding what is reasonable to believe or do in a given situation.
c) Creative Thinking and Innovation is the process of generating and implementing new ideas.
d) Personal Responsibility and Well-being is taking responsibility for one’s actions, being self-regulating,
making ethical decisions in complex situations, accepting consequences, and understanding how one’s
action affect others. Among other things, this competency includes financial literacy.
e) Social Responsibility is being able to consider the perspective of and empathize with others, to recognize
and appreciate diversity, to defend human rights, to solve problems in peaceful ways, and to contribute
towards social, cultural, and ecological causes. Among other things, this competency includes
collaboration.
This was the first round of enumeration and definition of the cross-curricular competencies. Subsequent
consultations led them to be redefined, consolidated, and renamed core competencies. The 2013 MOE
report Defining Cross-Curricular Competencies proposed three categories of core competencies:
1) Thinking competencies, which encompass critical, creative, and reflective thinking.
2) Personal and social competency, which represents the personal, social, and cultural abilities that
students develop as individuals and members of society.
3) Communication competency, which represents the abilities students need to interact and learn
effectively in their world.
Each category of competencies was constructed so that, taken together, they should “lead to the
development of the whole child—intellectually, personally, and socially” (p. 3). It is once again stressed that
the acquisition of those competencies must be “spanning all courses and grades,” and that they are
interconnected, so that the learning experience should not be construed as three independent linear
processes. This report also stresses that the cross-curricular competencies are to be understood
contextually, and that this is meant in the following senses (p. 3):
• Education takes place within the unique context of each student’s life. Interaction with the student’s
(past, present, and future) experience outside the classroom is essential.
• The competencies should be defined in a way that is open to various cultural and social interpretations.
• The competencies will be demonstrated in different subject areas and we should expect them to be
framed differently in science, social studies, arts, mathematics, etc.
The report repeatedly states that the cross-curricular competencies “represent a holistic and integrated
vision of learning.” This perspective on cross-curricular competencies is thus very much in line with the
renewed focus on personal, flexible learning in the reformed system. We will return to critical thinking

7
below after recapitulating the guiding ideas behind the new assessment system—keeping in mind that only
some of those ideas have been implemented in the draft.
As the structure of the curriculum changes, it is also necessary to reform modes of assessment. The
Advisory Group on Provincial Assessment (AGPA)—a group representing multiple stakeholder groups,
including two student assessment experts, and chaired by Kris Magnusson (SFU) and Blye Frank (UBC)—was
convened by the MOE in 2013 to investigate this question and make proposals. The first AGPA report (2014)
discussed the purposes, uses, and need for student assessment, and articulated a set of principles that
should inform the new provincial assessment program in K-12. The core difficulty in articulating such
principles results from the emphasis on personalized learning and cross-curricular competencies, rather
than content. Indeed, a difficulty with the assessment of cross-curricular competencies is to separate
content from competencies, and to separate the curricular competencies from the cross-curricular.
Moreover, as content will vary due to increased flexibility in education, designing valid province-wide
assessment is particularly challenging; the focus on personalized learning is the very premise of the reform.
Consultations leading to the first AGPA final report (2014) revealed challenges when considering
assessment of cross-curricular competencies. Tensions have arisen due to the heightened level of difficulty
of combining the following elements associated with cross-curricular competencies: how to support
individual students’ learning experience, inform the provincial education system, reveal gaps among
potentially vulnerable groups, support informed decision-making about the K-12 system, and support the
ethical use of the data. The group proposed a framework model that would bring together technology and
pedagogy to resolve these tensions to the extent possible. Following this framework, the Ministry would
invest in a computerized adaptive testing system that would be flexible enough to address both system and
individual needs. This system would be used for both assessment and reporting. In particular, provincial
assessments could be taken at variable times when the students are ready, thereby limiting the impact of
emotional and contextual factors. AGPA also recognized that such a system should include assessment of
cross-curricular competencies, and that further work and teacher preparation would be needed for this
aspect. The group stresses the importance of including the concept of self-evaluation into the learning and
evaluation process.
The AGPA report on the graduation years (AGPA, 2015) examines issues that will be relevant to
students’ transition to post-secondary education. The group specifies one of their previously stated
principles, namely, that there are diverse needs and purpose for student assessment for different
stakeholder groups. As post-secondary institutions such as SFU have traditionally used secondary school
assessments for their admission, the transformation of the assessment system is relevant to all colleges and
universities in the post-secondary sector. AGPA has formulated in its principles that, while such external
needs exist, the internal needs of the K-12 systems are prioritized, and that it values the learner over the
institution. The issue is summarized as follows:
Post-secondary institutions have traditionally used grades to select students for admissions and
awards. Some are now moving toward a more holistic approach, examining portfolios,
volunteerism, references, and other documentation. Practices vary across the country and
around the world. The Advisory Group is mindful that any new assessment system must not
place BC students at a disadvantage as they apply to post-secondary or pursue other
opportunities. (AGPA, 2015, p. 3)
AGPA (2015) has recommended that a suite of diverse assessments be used, including:

8
• An assessment of literacy and numeracy, preferably conducted close to the expected graduation year;
• A performance standard for graduation that includes competencies related to the five characteristics of
a BC graduate identified earlier;
• A project-based assessment comprising (for example) the personal and social responsibility
competency.
It also recommended that the multiple data points be included in a digital portfolio, possibly on the
computerized system previously mentioned. There is some expectation that such a reform implies the need
to move to more holistic admissions assessments for the BC post-secondary sector. The report states that
the “portfolio could be translated
at the secondary school level into a
recommendation or grades, to be
used by post-secondary
institutions.” And they add: “An
important component of the
assessment suite is a set of
performance standards. The
standards would describe
expectations for graduation along a
scale.” (p. 3) Some of the ideas
about assessment mentioned
above have been adopted at the
secondary level, others have not;
the articulation of the full system of
assessment is still underway. In
sections 3 and 4, we will discuss the
need to implement more proposals
that were included in the AGPA
framework model. Registrars at all
BC post-secondary institutions are
now in consultations prior to
revising their own admissions
Figure 1. The MOE's "Know-Do-Understand" model.
models, but a desire to have more
inclusive admission criteria has been
manifested. We return to the issue of admission criteria in section 4.4.

3.2 Structure of the current Grades 10-12 draft curriculum

Given the guiding principles outlined above, the new curriculum has been structured around three features
that are each meant to contribute to deeper, higher-order, transferable, and personalized learning. The
three features are the following:
1. The core competencies.
2. Essential learning for each subject area, developed around key content, concepts, skills, and big ideas.
3. Literacy and numeracy foundations.

9
The curriculum model developed by the MOE to promote the three features as part of a concept-based
competency-driven approach to learning is called the “Know-Do-Understand” model (see figure 1). The
“Do” and “Know” elements are the two constituents of the learning standards. They are respectively
associated with Curricular Competencies and Content. The “Know” element specifies the essential topics
and knowledge for each grade level. The “Understand” element specifies the Big Ideas (generalizations,
principles, key concepts, etc.) of an area of learning. The “Do” element specifies the skills, strategies, and
processes that students develop over time. Curricular competencies are thought of as the implementation
of the core (cross-curricular) competencies for a subject area. For an example of how those three elements
are articulated within specific course curricula, see the draft curriculum for Social Justice 12 in Appendix A.
We note that earlier drafts of specific course curricula (e.g., MOE 2015b) made explicit reference to core
competencies, but it is not on the grade 10-12 draft documents. It appears that core competencies are part
of the curriculum only in their being uniquely manifested in each discipline. In particular, curricular
competencies include the description of skills
that are general metacognitive skills within a
disciplinary context.
The core competencies in the K-9 curriculum
and the 10-12 draft curriculum are organized in
three groups, as per the 2013 revision of the
earlier five-fold organization described in section
2.1:
I. Communication
II. Thinking
III. Personal and Social
The progress made by student in the acquisition
of the core competencies is conceived as a
continuum. Student progress is structured in six
competency profiles that identify skills to acquire
through the K-12 education (figure 2). Each
profile is conceived as a collection of “I”
statements specifying what a student can do. See
Appendix B for a description of the MOE’s critical
Figure 2: The critical thinking competency profile. The concentric
thinking competency profiles. circles represent the progressive and additive nature of students'
The new curriculum includes three modes of progress.
assessment. There is a standardized provincial
Foundational Skills Assessment on numeracy and literacy. The numeracy provincial assessment has already
been implemented, and the literacy assessment is being developed and should be implemented in the next
academic year. Content and Curricular competencies will be assessed in the classroom. Core competencies
are to be subject to self-assessment only. This self-assessment is to be part of the students’ year-end
reports. The position of the MOE is that “[i]n the interest of flexibility for students and their learning the
Ministry does not prescribe how the Core Competencies should be taught or self-assessed” (MOE 2017).
The Ministry will only provide material to support different ways of performing self-assessment. As a result,
there will be significant differences in how different teachers, schools, and districts assess and report on

10
core competencies. It is not clear at this point whether this approach will meet the objective of assessing
and reporting on core competencies using clear performance-based language. It is also not clear that it
satisfactorily resolves the tension associated with the assessment of core competencies highlighted in the
AGPA reports; there is a risk that this form of assessment policy will not adequately inform the provincial
education system, that it may fail to reveal gaps in potentially vulnerable groups, that it may be insufficient
to support informed decision-making about the K-12 system, and that it may not fully support the transition
to post-secondary education.
As part of graduation requirements, students will complete a capstone project through their Career Life
Connections course. It is meant as a “project that allows students to demonstrate their learning using an
area(s) of interest as the basis for their project” with the purpose to “demonstrate personal learning and
achievement (in and out-of-school), growth in the core competencies, and a reflection on the post-graduate
plan” (MOE 2016). As per the proposal, this capstone project is to include the following items:
• Proposal: The proposal outlines the project and includes disciplinary and core competency connections,
timelines, and product.
• Mentor: The mentor is ideally a shared role that includes teachers and/or community members who
provide guidance throughout the culminating project.
• Research: The research is an essential component that informs each student’s culminating project.
• Product: The product is the end result of the project (e.g., video, document, performance something
constructed).
• Presentation: The presentation can have a variety of forms and happens with an audience composed of
teachers, community members and/or others connected to the student and/or their culminating
project. (MOE 2016)
The MOE intends to produce guidelines and instructional samples for capstone projects. It is not clear from
the current publicly available information how the capstone project is to be assessed. In particular, the
document suggests a series of prospective assessment, but it is not clear whether a summative assessment
will be part of the process. At this point, it seems that the Ministry has no intent to follow the AGPA
recommendations of having the capstone project assessed by teachers and assigned a grade that colleges
and universities could consider as part of their admission process.

3.3 The Thinking core competency

Each of the three categories of core competencies (thinking, personal and social, communication) includes
sub-domains. The Thinking competency includes two sub-domains:
1. Critical thinking
2. Creative thinking
Critical thinking is to be understood as complementary to but different from creative thinking. Creative
thinking has three interacting facets: (a) novelty and value, (b) developing ideas, and (c) generating ideas.
Critical thinking has three interacting facets:
a) Analyze and critique
b) Question and investigate
c) Develop and design

11
The current version of the draft curriculum defines ‘critical’ thinking as follows:
Critical thinking involves making judgments based on reasoning: students consider options;
analyze these using specific criteria; and draw conclusions and make judgments. Critical
thinking competency encompasses a set of abilities that students use to examine their own
thinking, and that of others, about information that they receive through observation,
experience, and various forms of communication.
As it is a core competency, the MOE does not specify how critical thinking should be taught and assessed.
Considering critical thinking as its own discipline—whose objects of study are the principles of good
reasoning and decision-making that are integral to other disciplines—there is no summative and cumulative
critical thinking content specified. However, the Ministry acknowledges the “importance of students
developing reflective language and metacognition (i.e., the ability to think about thinking) in order to
engage in effective self-assessment” (MOE 2017). The website for the critical thinking competency contains
a number of competency illustrations.1
The Classroom Assessment and Reporting Committee has not yet formulated its concrete proposal. To
date, nothing has fundamentally changed with respect to teacher classroom assessment and reporting. The
assessment models it will provide to teachers will be resource models, not prescriptive models. The degree
to which technology of reporting might impact classroom assessment is also still undetermined. A significant
issue is that there is a lack of resources and guidelines to assess curricular and core competencies of
students. If no usable and clear models, resources, or guidelines are provided, it is likely that teachers will
continue to focus on traditional methods of assessing content acquisition, rather than curricular and core
competency acquisition.

3.4 Critical thinking in Social Studies

In this subsection we describe attempts made by writing teams to map the core critical thinking
competency on the curricular competencies in Social Studies. In the BC curriculum, Social Studies is a
disciplinary area that includes history, cultural and ethnographic studies, religious studies, indigenous
studies, economics, law studies, philosophy, political studies, and geography. The 10-12 curriculum includes
17 courses, 15 of which will be in grade 12 as of 2018. Especially for FASS, the connection of the critical
thinking competency with those disciplines deserves closer scrutiny.
The first phase of the Social Studies curriculum transformation occurred in summer 2012. Initial
meetings included Peter Seixas (Emeritus Professor, Education, UBC) and classroom teachers selected by
the Ministry to represent rural and urban schools across the province, at various grade levels. Teachers
devoted the earlier meetings to finding a way of making meta-cognitive critical thinking skills (i.e., skills to
perform and evaluation cognitive operations with disciplinary contents) the drivers of the curriculum, as
opposed to primarily focusing on content delivery. Seixas’ “Big Six” historical thinking skills were the primary
critical thinking archetypes considered; they include “Primary Source Evidence”, “Historical Perspectives”,
“Ethical Dimensions”, “Historical Significance”, “Continuity and Change”, and “Cause and Consequence”. 2
These historical thinking skills were blended with the geographic thinking principles articulated by Roland

1
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies/critical_thinking
2
http://historicalthinking.ca/historical-thinking-concepts

12
Case for The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2): Spatial Significance, Patterns and Trends, Interrelationships,
Geographical Perspective, Evidence and Interpretation, and Ethical Judgment (see, e.g., Bahbahani & Case,
2015). The objective of this approach was to map these blended critical thinking principles onto all sub-
disciplines of the Social Studies curriculum. The content was then shaped to fit this model and aligned, to
some degree, with the argument that formal Social Studies content should appear sooner in the primary
years (Egan, 1997). There was an attempt to move all curriculum down a year, which would have resulted in
the content of Social Studies 11 (20th century Canadian history, geography, and politics) being in year 10.
There was a significant amount of resistance from the late intermediate teachers to moving the year 8
content down to year 7; in effect, what was the content of four years was pressed into three years.
In 2013, new teams were brought in for the second phase of the process, and the K-9 and 10-12 years
were split into two groups. Primary, intermediate, and secondary teams were formed to first flesh out the K-
9 curriculum following the 2012 principles mentioned above. Curricular competencies were further edited,
with the research competency being added. Content was re-aligned as it was suggested in 2012, and an
attempt was made to keep the 8-10 curriculum focused on the late medieval period to contemporary times.
The argument was that because this was not a content-driven curriculum, but one driven by disciplinary
skills, content was to be shaped by the expectations and decisions of local authorities to foster autonomy
and personalized learning.
In 2015-2016, the third phase of the process turned its attention to the 10-12 graduation curriculum. It
was agreed that students would still be required to take 4 credits of Social Studies to graduate, but that this
could be taken from a range of courses. Course writers faced one significant issue in this initial writing stage.
It was not clear that the curricular competencies fit each permutation of the varied kinds of sub-disciplinary
thinking. For example, fitting the curricular competencies into the design of Philosophy 12 was a challenge.
What constituted critical thinking in history did not exactly mirror critical thinking in philosophy. This left the
question of whether the vocabulary of the curricular competencies could be used to determine the general
critical thinking principles in all sub-disciplines of Social Studies.
Another immediate issue was the grade “leveling” of graduate courses; courses were either assigned to
grade 11 or 12 (Social Studies 10 was singular and standard). None of the courses were written with grade
levels in mind. If this were to go ahead, then any course labeled as a year 11 course would probably not
proceed, as students generally tend to Grade 12 courses to meet the required graduation credits since they
think this will improve their chance of admission. The curriculum website of the Ministry has finally been
updated in November 2017; all courses will now be grade 12. In the fourth iteration of 2017, the writing
teams are in the process of fine-tuning grad courses. As well, a small team created a Social Studies 11
Explorations course to make a less academically rigorous course available to students who are not
necessarily looking for a History 12 or a Sociology 12. All this should be completed by 2018 for editing and
feedback. Implementation has been postponed, although the new Social Studies 10 is to be implemented in
September 2018. There are issues remaining with the status of BAA (Board/Authority Authorized) courses
and with how universities will determine what courses count toward admission. Because core competencies
are not a function of one discipline and are not intended to be teacher assessed, a separate group was
assigned this development task.
Based on the feedback we have received, the process followed in other areas was similar. One
important element of this process to emphasize is that, to a large extent, teams working on core
competencies, curriculum, and assessment were working independently of each other. As a result,

13
significant work remains to be done so that we better harmonize those aspects of the reform. In fact, an
overwhelming majority of teachers have admitted to being unsure as to how critical thinking can
successfully be integrated in the content and assessments of their teaching area.

3.5 Philosophy 12
As philosophy is widely regarded as the discipline that most actively studies critical thinking in its own right,
some may have conjectured that the introduction of Philosophy 12 in the new curriculum is closely related
to the renewed emphasis on the critical thinking core competency. In reality, the relationship between the
two is coincidental. The design of Philosophy 12 was based on the locally developed (later board authority
authorized) course developed by Dale Martelli for the Vancouver School District. The initial design was
shaped by the three entry courses of the SFU Department of Philosophy as they were in the 1990s: Ethics
(Philosophy 120), Epistemology (Philosophy 100), and Logic (Philosophy 110). Selected content from these
courses was blended with Solomon’s secondary philosophy design in his text The Big Questions (Solomon,
2006). The major challenge was to determine how the Social Studies curricular competencies map onto
critical thinking skills in philosophy. There were content challenges as well. It was difficult to select the
required topics, design elaborations (various modes of extending or enriching the content areas), and
determine the extent of optional topics (see Appendix B for the Philosophy 12 curriculum without
elaborations). As of December 2017, the period of consultation has ended and the course curriculum has
been finalized. Aside from the minimal content requirements, teachers and students retain the decision-
making rights over much of what would be referred to as content.
What is desperately needed are resources for teachers, as well as teachers who have expertise in
philosophy. This leads us to two recommendations related to the newly introduced Philosophy 12 course.
Recommendation 1: Make philosophy a teachable subject and an eligible major for entry into
teaching certification programs.
The ongoing efforts referred to in this recommendation are a joint presentation of a report and a
presentation to the board of the Teaching Regulation Branch (TRB), led by Nicolas Fillion (with the support
of Dale Martelli, Frank Cunningham, and Mark Campbell), in the name of the departments of philosophy at
SFU, UBC, the University of Victoria, Thompson Rivers University, and the BCSSTA. As part of its full review
of teaching certification regulation, the TRB has conducted broad consultation with stakeholders. This
process is now completed, and decisions will be made as soon as a new Director of Certification is appointed
in March or April 2018.
Recommendation 2: Develop resources on teaching philosophy and critical thinking in the
classroom for BC teachers.
Such an effort could be part a more general critical thinking initiative developed in partnership with
teachers, administrators, and the Ministry to implement an efficient critical thinking teaching methodology
for each core K-12 disciplines. A similar project has been developed in the last 7 years in Queensland,
Australia; as there are significant similarities between the two locations—population, geography,
educational directions, etc.—we believe it would be beneficial to such an initiative to partner with them,
and steps have already been made in that direction.

14
4. Critical Thinking: Definition, Paradigm, and Best Practices
4.1 Lack of definition and paradigm during the curriculum development
The nature and structure of the K-12 education reform revolves around an increased focus on a concept-
based, competency-driven curriculum. For the purpose of developing particular course curricula, however,
the MOE has limited itself to specifying how the core competencies map onto curricular competencies. In
particular, for critical thinking, no part of the curriculum provides much detail about what critical thinking is,
and nothing is said about how to teach it, or about how to assess students’ progress. Beside the formulaic
language cited earlier, there was no fleshed-out description of what critical thinking is and what critical
thinkers do. Similarly, during the development phase of the Social Studies curriculum, there was no
particular theory of critical thinking discussed, aside from what we mentioned in section 2.4. The phrase
‘critical thinking’ was assumed to be understood, and all agreed that critical thinking would be the
determining factor in the curricular re-design. There was no sustained discussion seeking to articulate a
suitable meaning of the term.
It can be argued that John Dewey’s How We Think is the critical thinking substrate of teacher education.
The essence of critical thinking for Dewey “… is suspended judgment; and the essence of this suspense is
inquiry to determine the nature of the problem before proceeding to attempts at its solution. This, more
than any other thing, transforms mere inference into tested inference, suggested conclusions into proof.”
(Dewey, 1910). Influenced by Dewey, Glaser’s influential work An Experiment in the Development of Critical
Thinking identifies three essential components of the ability to think critically: (1) an attitude of thoughtfully
considering problems and subjects, (2) a knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3)
skills in applying those methods. Accordingly, he describes the practice of critical thinking as follows:
Critical thinking calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of
knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it
tends. It also generally requires ability to recognize problems, to find workable means for
meeting those problems, to gather and marshal pertinent information, to recognize unstated
assumptions and values, to comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and
discrimination, to interpret data, to appraise evidence and evaluate arguments, to recognize the
existence (or non-existence) of logical relationships between propositions, to draw warranted
conclusions and generalizations, to put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one
arrives, to reconstruct one's patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience, and to render
accurate judgments about specific things and qualities in everyday life.
The approaches of Dewey and Glaser may be regarded as underpinning the way in which critical thinking is
applied in teacher education programs and in the curriculum re-design, but these and others were not
explicitly on the table at any time during the curriculum development of this K-12 education reform. It was
assumed that somehow the historical critical thinking skills embodied in the curricular competencies had
sufficiently captured the essence of critical thinking. It might have been beneficial to devote time to critical
thinking theories as there are doubts concerning whether the curricular competencies can be effectively
mapped onto the other sub-disciplines of Social Studies.
Our consultations with teachers and school board coordinators reveal that they desperately want a
more fleshed out perspective on critical thinking. Feedback received during and after the Developing Minds

15
conference held by SFU on February 9, 2018,3 also overwhelmingly points in that direction. On the one
hand, they appreciate the non-prescriptive stance of the Ministry.4 At the same time, they believe it to be
practically impossible to smoothly transition to a pedagogy that fosters critical thinking unless more
substantive guidance is provided, in the form of paradigmatic examples of this teaching mode, sample
lesson and unit plans, uniform and coherent assessment guidelines, and professional development
workshops. Teachers have repeatedly stressed the importance of an interactive web platform that would
allow teachers to interact so as to progressively refine their expertise in teaching based on critical thinking.
Recommendation 3: Develop an accessible online support community for teachers, providing
substantive guidance on integrating critical thinking in the classroom.
We believe this should be considered a priority, especially as a partnership between the Ministry and
teachers and post-secondary institutions with expertise in critical thinking. Note that, although the TeachBC
website already makes some exchange of information possible, teachers mentioned that a more interactive
platform specifically devoted to critical thinking would be more beneficial. Teachers have also suggested
that, given the geographical situation of many teachers in remote areas of BC, it would be desirable that
such a platform support various forms of webinars.

4.2 Critical thinking and meta-cognition

The approach to critical thinking that is currently the most popular in BC schools (at the very least, it is so
within the Social Studies) is that of The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC2), spearheaded by the work of
Roland Case and his collaborators. In Introduction to the TC2 conception of critical thinking, Case and Daniels
describe this approach, which is essentially in line with that of Dewey and Glaser: critical thinking is about
determining what to believe and what to do on the basis of reasoned judgments that embody the qualities
of a competent thinker. The sort of problematic situations that give occasions to apply critical thinking to
rational deliberation includes: problem solving, decision making, analysis, and inquiry. In each case, the
value of the outcome is influenced by whether one thinks critically—as opposed to uncritically, i.e.,
accepting claims at face value. The consortium’s approach promotes a fourfold embedding of critical
thinking into teaching and learning: (1) Nurture thoughtful communities, (2) Develop intellectual tools, (3)
Frame critical challenges, and (4) Assess thinking and performance—where performance includes what
students have achieved and their use of intellectual tools.
Case and Daniels elaborate on each four points with concrete illustrations. We will focus on (3), the
development of intellectual tools. The consortium’s approach identifies five types of intellectual tools that
are deployed by critical thinkers:
A. Background knowledge: the information about a topic required for thoughtful reflection.
B. Criteria for judgment: the considerations or grounds for deciding which of the alternatives is the most
sensible or appropriate.
C. Critical thinking vocabulary: the range of concepts that is helpful when thinking critically.

3
https://www.sfu.ca/conferences/criticalthinking.html
4
The report on the feedback to the Developing Minds conference has not been published yet, but is available upon
request.

16
D. Thinking strategies: the repertoire of devices, models, and algorithms that may be useful when thinking
through a critical thinking problem.
E. Habits of mind: the value and attitudes of a careful and conscientious thinker. (p. 5)
Item B involves judging the accuracy of estimates, the plausibility of interpretations, the fairness of
conclusions, the feasibility of proposals, etc. Item C involves important vocabulary that is required to
articulate distinctions that are key to critical thinking, such as inference, direct observation,
(over)generalization, argument (including premise, conclusion), bias, point of view, etc. Item 5 captures
aspects of the attitude of a good, thoughtful thinker: open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, independent-
mindedness, and an inquiring attitude. The consortium’s approach takes it to be essential to assess
students’ thinking and performance. But this presents a challenge:
A key challenge in assessing critical thinking is deciding what to look for. If there is no single
correct response, we may well ask, “On what basis, then, can we reliably assess students?” In
the case of critical thinking, we would want to see how well students exhibited the qualities of a
competent thinker. Thus, the tools for critical thinking become the criteria related to the five
types of critical thinking tools that may be used to evaluate a persuasive essay and a creative
work. (p. 6)
Appendix D shows such a list of criteria. Though no information is given as to whether those should be used
for prospective or summative assessment, for self-assessment or for assessment by teachers, it is
conceivable to use them either way. In our opinion, the MOE or other MOE-approved BC critical thinking
initiatives should at a minimum provide this kind of guidance to teachers.
The approach promoted by TC2 has many strengths. The set of tools it identifies are among the most central
to and useful for any sound approach to critical thinking. We believe, however, that it is lacking in one
important respect: the proposed list of tools, concepts, and strategies is insufficiently cohesive. A rather
conservative approach to critical thinking education is to teach students a number of imperatives to follow
(e.g., define your terms), types of arguments that are good (e.g., modus ponens, basic valid syllogisms), and
some types of arguments that are bad (i.e. fallacies). The reason for which such an approach is insufficient is
that it leaves too many “why-questions” unanswered. Though some questions such as “why am I entitled to
use modus ponens in a good argument” are perhaps straightforward enough, others are more subtle. It may
prove to be more challenging to answer other questions. Recently, we challenged a group of teachers to
explain if/why arguments from consensus and charges ad hominem are fallacies, and observe that many
respondents had difficulty to compellingly verbalize their reasons. Similarly, students may be puzzled by the
demand that they define all their terms, when competent critical thinkers routinely fail to do so. One could
say that understanding rules requires that we understand the exceptions. More precisely, understanding
the conditions of applications of rules of thoughts to acquire good thinking habits requires that we have
acquire a metacognitive vocabulary that identifies categories of epistemological terms that relate to
cognitive objectives:
• Cognitive skills (evaluate, analyze, explain, synthesize, etc.)
• Values to evaluate the performance of cognitive skills (e.g., clarity, precision, accuracy, coherence,
relevance, cogency, etc.)
• Epistemic virtues that justify adopting some values (e.g., resilience, open-mindedness, integrity,
curiosity, honesty, etc.)

17
This approach has been systematically developed by Peter Ellerton (e.g., 2015, 2018), as part of
Queensland’s Critical Thinking Project.5 It is an approach that focuses less on critical thinking as a discipline
with its own content than on critical thinking as a pedagogy—teaching for thinking. Teaching for thinking
focuses on creative inquiry that is assessed on the basis of collaboratively developed norms of reasoning.
See Appendix E for an overview of Ellerton’s approach. The advantage of this approach is that it clearly
distinguishes kinds of critical thinking concepts, as well as the conceptual structure of critical thinking more
generally. Students and teachers then find themselves in a favourable position to answer their own
questions (or questions raised in their community of inquiry) about what makes a reasoning more or less
acceptable within critical thinking practice. This approach has been used in schools in the state of
Queensland, Australia, as part of a partnership between the University of Queensland’s Critical Thinking
Project and the Department of Education. Early quantitative analysis of student performance suggests that
students taking part in this program perform significantly better on the standardized NAPLAN test used in
Australia nationwide.
In our opinion, it would be desirable that BC develop a program similar to Queensland’s, in which the
Ministry of Education partners with one or more postsecondary institutions to advance critical thinking in
the K-12 school system. On the one hand, the two locations face similar challenges, in that they have similar
demographics, area, and economic and educational situations, so that this partnership model would likely
work in BC as well. On the other hand, many BC teachers have already enthusiastically responded to the
critical thinking framework employed in Queensland. On February 8, Ellerton visited SFU and presented his
approach as part of a professional development day to a group of BCSSTA teachers, and he again outlined it
in his keynote address at the February 9 Developing Minds conference. The results were so overwhelmingly
positive—many participating teachers found it to be the best professional development workshop in their
entire career—that we have no doubt this approach will be successful in the BC context. Following
recommendation 3, we believe this approach would answer teachers’ needs for guidance in how to best
integrate critical thinking in their teaching practice.

4.3 Critical thinking and education technologies

Digital technologies available in BC K-12 classrooms today can be used to support the teaching, learning and
assessment of critical thinking in a variety of ways. For example, simple, free simulations can allow students
to become aware of the limitations of their current understandings, and the consequences of decisions that
individuals and communities make. Tools for data visualization and analysis, such as spreadsheets, enable
the careful examination and comparison of data, and its use in supporting decision-making. Digital
technology itself (its design, use and consequences) can also provide a motivating focus for the
development of critical thinking, since students increasingly see their world as defined by technology but
also have concerns and insecurities about it.
At the present time, SFU’s teacher education program integrates the modeling, discussion and
critique of classroom technology use in the EDUC 401/2 semester. This portion of the curriculum is not
standardized, so what is taught and how it is taught varies from one PDP module to another. The Faculty of
Education offers a course on the practical and meaningful use of classroom technology across the BC
curriculum (EDUC 482), though this course is not required to complete the program. At the graduate level,

5
http://critical-thinking.project.uq.edu.au

18
SFU offers a Master’s program in Educational Technology and Learning Design at SFU Surrey, which serves
K-12 teachers (as well as many other professionals) and addresses the practical and meaningful use of
technology in teaching. This program provides opportunities for practicing teachers to upgrade their skills
and knowledge relating to the use of classroom technology to support critical thinking. However, due to the
small number of tenure-track faculty currently supporting the program, space is limited, and qualified
candidates are denied entry every year. Other faculties of education in BC are presumably in a similar
situation. Nonetheless, we believe it will be important to develop interactive technologies to support
students in acquiring critical thinking skills.
Recommendation 4: Explore new classroom technologies and partnerships that enhance critical
thinking skill acquisition within available resources.
A working group could study how new classroom technologies can be used to enhance learning of critical
thinking skills and/or to explore possibilities to form new partnerships with different administrative units to
overcome the lack of resources. This could be as a unit belonging to a broader critical thinking initiative and
could partner with other leaders in critical thinking pedagogy such as the Queensland group. It would
naturally complement the development of an accessible online community, as per recommendation 3.
The rapid expansion of digital technologies in everyday life also makes it imperative to adapt the
concrete reasoning situations addressed by critical thinking education. Indeed, it is now easy to access
information, but the challenge of identifying reliable sources of information and of processing a high volume
of information has grown. In addition to an acquaintance with traditional critical thinking themes, it is
becoming increasingly important to the training of educated citizen to understand how information
propagates and how it affects society.

4.4 Critical thinking for gifted and vulnerable students

An education focused on critical thinking has the potential to serve all students in the BC school system. This
being said, there is indication that there are additional opportunities and concerns to consider with respect
to the impact of the reform for gifted and vulnerable students.
By vulnerable students, we refer to students for whom there actually or potentially is an
achievement gap. Following AGPA (2015), we understand ‘gap’ as either the failure of a student to achieve a
certain level, or the inability of the system to provide the student with the tools and support to excel. It
seems to us that there may be students whose vulnerability could be amplified by an increased emphasis on
critical thinking. A critical thinking classroom environment is one that fosters involvement in public
discussion, debate, autonomous exploration, self-determination, etc. Students with anxiety disorders, low
self-confidence, or who join the BC school system with a cultural background that does not value critical
thinking in the same way may find themselves at a disadvantage. Indeed, based on our teaching experience
at the high school and university level, it is not uncommon for such students to perform below their
capacity level. Not being acquainted with the education research on the topic, we merely flag this as a
potential issue.
An increased emphasis on critical thinking in education also offers opportunities for high-
performing or gifted students to further develop their abilities. A successful example is the Solid Pathways

19
project6, developed at the University of Queensland, Australia. This is a program of extra-curricular activities
designed for high-performing aboriginal high school students in order to achieve better professional
development opportunities toward higher education. More specifically, Solid Pathways is a partnership
between indigenous communities, educators, and scholars to (1) provide development and training in
critical thinking pedagogies to school staff, (2) jointly develop a critical thinking curriculum that is culturally
empowering, and (3) coordinate online and in-person activities that are scalable, sustainable, geographically
flexible, and leading to meaningful engagement, including an online course, mentoring, and immersion
programs. Solid Pathways has a proven track record in Australia, where more than 600 participants have
obtained better average scores and graduation rates. We recently held a round table at SFU hosting four
key contributing members from the Solid Pathways project. Based on this success and on the excitement
generated by early consultation, we are convinced that the concept could be beneficially adapted to the
needs and reality of BC's communities and educational system. To this effect, it would be useful to establish
connections with other groups of academics and teachers in other Canadian jurisdiction who have worked
on similar projects.7
Recommendation 5: Develop a BC version of the Solid Pathways project that can fulfil the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action to make education more inclusive.
In particular, SFU and its community partners should continue their collaboration with Queensland’s project
leaders, for which resources provided by the Ministry will be essential. An additional benefit of pursuing a
project such as Solid Pathways for the SFU community and other postsecondary institutions is that it could
be combined with other recruiting efforts to achieve a more representative number of indigenous students.

5. Implications for postsecondary institutions

5.1 Impact of prior critical-thinking-oriented curricular reforms in BC
Past attempts at curricular reform in BC were essentially top-down affairs. In the 1960s, attempts were
made to rid the curriculum of the progressive reforms of the 1930s based on Bruner’s structure of the
discipline approach. As there was very little teacher involvement, the whole affair was managed by officials
and academics and for the most part implementation failed due to teacher resistance. There was a reform
attempt in 1978, involving some teachers, but the subsequent report (deleting teacher involvement) did not
result in any change (Broom, 2016). The reform of the 1990s, while involving teachers, was still closely
managed by officials and change was for the most part cosmetic. In effect, from the 1960s to 2012, there
was no real change in what was being taught in the classrooms.
The present transformation is significant in that, while academics were somewhat involved in the initial
stages, teachers have remained the primary writers of the curriculum. In moving away from a textbook-
reliant content curriculum, there remains a desperate need for critical thinking or meta-cognitive skill-based

6
A description of the program can be found at http://indigenous.education.qld.gov.au/school/Pages/solid-
pathways.aspx. See also their short video introduction:
https://youtu.be/Rdb4OEfNco0?list=PLgjv5epyrnQCaFN2N4bd852KN7N9IZE84
7
For instance, we point out the work of S. Brenda Small and Emily Willson from Confederation College in Thunder Bay,
Ontario: http://www.heqco.ca/en-ca/OurPriorities/LearningOutcomes/Pages/Confederation-College.aspx

20
classroom resources. Part of the challenge is determining what those skills look like and how these skills are
to be assessed. If those resources are not developed in concert with the curriculum implementation and
made readily available, any curricular change may in effect be ornamental, not substantial. Teachers,
particularly teachers beyond 5 years of practice, will pay only nominal heed to the revised curriculum and
keep their practice static (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012).
Recommendation 6: Develop teaching resources such as lesson plans, educational technologies,
etc., suitable for all levels and subjects within the K-12 education system.
Collaboration between universities and colleges and the MOE on developing teaching resources (such as
lesson plans, applications of education technologies, etc.) suitable for different classes and target audiences
(age group, cultural background, topic interest, etc.) could help the reform succeed. Such teaching
resources could be disseminated on a web platform. Moreover, postsecondary institutions that prize
themselves for engaging BC communities and for being at the leading edge of successful educational
strategies would be well-situated for positioning themselves as the key collaborator of the MOE, schools,
and educators. The involvement of such inclusive post-secondary institutions would directly answer the
need for a bridge between schools and universities, both in terms of prospects for students and in terms of
professional development.

5.2 Teacher development

We have already pointed out in section 2.5 that the newly added Philosophy 12 course gives rise to a need
for teachers who can teach philosophy, and that as a result there should be pathways to the teaching
profession open for philosophy graduates. Furthermore, the increased emphasis on core competencies in
the new curriculum suggests that teacher development will be required in other ways as well. In particular,
it would seem appropriate to provide teachers with a better training in critical thinking to ensure that the
curriculum reform succeeds. There are two complementary needs for teacher development:
1. For future teachers: we need to evaluate if there are compelling reasons to change current teacher
training practices.
2. For current teachers: we need to find effective ways of providing additional professional development
and training opportunities, as the need may be.
Each of them presents challenges and opportunities.
There is an opportunity to adapt the training of future teachers to provide them with better tools for
imparting critical thinking skills to students in any subject area. On the one hand, we can anticipate an
increased demand in teacher training over the next decade as job opportunities will increase. Though BC
has had a sufficient supply of teachers in the last decade, there are clear indications that a significant
shortage is imminent. The BC Teacher’s Federation (BCTF) maintains that BC is entering a period of
increased enrolment in schools, with a projected increase of the school age population of 21% by 2040
(BCTF, 2016). Their analysis is based on statistics compiled by WorkBC; they forecast a high retirement rate
that will result in 24,900 job openings for teachers across BC by 2022. This forecast suggests that newly
trained teachers will have a significant impact on whether the ongoing reform bears fruit. On the other
hand, to ensure that the number of teachers trained is sufficient to supply schools’ needs, it is imperative to
have training practices that do not discourage talented university students from entering the teaching
profession. A three-year effort of the Faculty of Education at SFU has recently led to an update of its

21
Professional Development Program (PDP).8 The program will now be a 4-semester program instead of the
traditional 3-semester program. Accordingly, it does not seem feasible to add additional courses devoted
exclusively to critical thinking to the PDP. This leaves us with two options: (1) to further integrate critical
thinking in the current PDP training, and (2) to recruit students in the PDP that already have a strong
background in critical thinking. As philosophy graduates meet the second condition, this gives an additional
incentive for creating a pathway to a teaching career for philosophy graduates.
Recommendation 7: Integrate critical thinking training more systematically into PDP for
postgraduate teacher training.
Recommendation 8: Departments of philosophy should consult with faculties of education to
create education streams in their major.
Faculties of education should examine possibilities of integrating critical thinking training more
systematically into its PDP to meet the objectives of the ongoing K-12 education reform. There are
additional opportunities associated with professional development for current teachers. It was clear from
the recent workshop An Approach to Critical Thinking: Philosophy of All Things held as a part of the annual
BCSSTA conference by the authors of this report that there is a demand and a need for professional
development in critical thinking. This could take many forms, but it is essential to find a way that will make it
possible to recover the costs associated with the training. The Faculty of Education already has a Fields
Program infrastructure for professional development that could be used.
In addition, with the introduction of Philosophy 12, current teachers may want to take advantage of
opportunities to obtain an additional teaching degree that would prepare them to teach philosophy and
obtain additional training in critical thinking education. The BC Teacher Qualification Service (TQS)
determines criteria that should be met for such degrees to result in pay increase for teachers (e.g., post-
baccalaureate diploma, Master’s degree, etc.).
Recommendation 9: Evaluate demand for post-baccalaureate education in philosophy and critical
thinking.
Departments of philosophy should work with the Ministry in collaboration with teacher associations to
determine if there is a demand for post-baccalaureate education in philosophy and critical thinking and, if
there is, create such a degree. Since this idea has been put forward in the early release of this paper ahead
of the February 9th 2018 conference Developing Minds, many teachers have positively responded by
enthusiastically manifesting their interest in obtaining such a degree.

5.3 Implication for course curricula and instruction

Once the reform takes root, it may become advisable for postsecondary institutions to adapt their course
curricula and methods of instructions, especially at the first-year level. However, at this point, too much
uncertainty remains to make concrete proposals, either with respect to course content or sequencing.
Since the path to graduation for students seeking to pursue college or university education has not
radically changed, we do not anticipate that students admitted from BC high schools will be very different
from now. The 2018 graduation requirements will be in force for students graduating in 2020. There has not

8
https://www.sfu.ca/education/newsevents/foe-news/2017/october-2017/three-years-in-the-making--sfus-pdp-
welcomes-educ-400.html

22
been a really significant change in the number of course requirements, although there is no longer a
particular required grade 11 course (e.g., Social Studies 11). In Social Studies, students are required to take
Social Studies 10 and one elective course from the grade 11 or 12 courses. With the exception of
Francophone Social Studies 11 and Social Studies Explorations 11, all Social Studies courses will be
designated as grade 12. Students will take a minimum of one grade 11 or 12 course from each subject area.
The total number of credits that student should obtain to graduate has not changed either.
Moreover, until further guidance is provided to districts, schools, and teachers, it should be expected
that the activities that students engage in in the classroom will not change significantly. Accordingly, we do
not expect students to be prepared to do substantially different things. Their capacity to sustain attention
through university lecture should be comparable to what it used to be. Finally, in terms of preparedness, it
has to be emphasized that the new graduation courses are in fact new, even if the nomenclature remains
the same (BC’s New Curriculum, n.d.). That is, many of the grade 12 courses will be more rigorous than
their predecessors, if any. Thus, we can anticipate some change in how well individual grade 12 courses
prepare students.

5.4 BC high school admissions

Admissions to colleges and universities are primarily based on students’ grade achievement. However, there
are concerns with this admission model, predominantly including grade inflation at the high school level.
The Final Report of the Admissions Model Review Group at SFU remarks that grades are “still primarily the
best predictor for most students” but that they “do not provide a complete picture of a student’s potential
or preparation” (Hemani and Geiler, 2017). The report observes that “additional decision-making ‘levers’
could enhance our ability to identify well-qualified students and be more responsive to Faculty enrollment
priorities.” In response, the SFU Senate Committee on Undergraduate Studies is currently considering a
proposal to change the BC High School admission model. The report had the following mandate:
The scope of the review was to conduct a needs assessment and make recommendations
regarding policy and practice, such as the desirability of adopting a holistic or broad-based
admissions model. The needs assessment included: clarifying the desired admissions principles
and goals, determining the effectiveness of the current model in selecting well qualified
students, identifying gaps, researching admissions models, and Faculty consultation.
The timeline for the discussion and adoption of the recommended changes is fast. We believe it to be
essential to harmonize the timeline for the review of the admission policy with that of the Assessment and
Reporting unit of the MOE, considering the work that remains to be done by the MOE to complete the
assessment part of the reform. Importantly, the Ministry’s Classroom Assessment and Reporting committee
(CAR) is presently re-writing the reporting term order, in effect the School Act’s reporting policies;
developing key principles for classroom assessment and supporting documents for teachers, and
determining how to support teachers in formal report card writing. Even though no decision has been
made, CAR is considering the possibility of abandoning percentage grades, which would undermine one of
the models discussed by the Admissions Model Review Group. It is expected that the committee will
conclude its work in September 2018.
The report identifies three points that SFU Faculties agreed should be pursued in the new admission
model:

23
• Using a greater number of courses and giving more weight to predictive courses.
• Having a more holistic approach that includes additional academic factors, such as course load and
rigour of the curriculum.
• Including non-academic factors, such as record of leadership, evidence of persistence, consistent
participation in extracurricular activities, and fit with program-specific recruitment priorities.
This would in our view be desirable and very much in line with the desiderata for high school assessment
formulated in the AGPA reports (2014, 2015). However, the three points listed above fail to appreciate the
possibility of taking advantage of the focus on core competencies in the new curriculum:
Recommendation 10: Clarify and develop the use of core competencies evaluation for admissions,
with a focus on how to best demonstrate critical thinking skills for postsecondary entry.
The current situation is that core competencies are only self-assessed, which means that they cannot be
used reliably for admissions. However, a version of the newly introduced capstone project could be used as
an element of an online or electronically-designed portfolio that could be used by post-secondary
institutions to assess students’ performance of core competencies. Alternatively, post-secondary
institutions could explore other ways in which students could demonstrate their enhanced critical thinking
skills for admissions to post-secondary education. If this became part of more holistic admission criteria,
postsecondary institutions should also consider finding effective ways of articulating to grade 12 students,
their parents and teachers how they can best demonstrate their critical thinking skills for the purpose of
university admissions.
We believe that, together with recommendation 3, recommendation 10 should be prioritized. In their
feedback to the February 9 conference, teachers repeatedly pointed to the fact that they need to be told
more clearly what colleges and universities expect from their students, so that they could give them better
guidance.

5.5 Implications for international students

Despite the fact that international students will not be the recipients of the newly designed high school
education, we believe that there is a possibility that international students will find themselves at an unfair
disadvantage. Students who have received a high school education that rewards classroom participation,
public discussion, debate, autonomous exploration, self-determination, etc.—features that we should find
in a classroom that promotes the development of critical thinking competencies—will be well prepared for
courses in FASS and Education. International students who have received a more “conservative” high school
education run the risk of having more difficulty to adapt. International students who have been trained in
larger classrooms in which discussion is not practically feasible often find it “sinfully selfish” to attract their
professors’ and peers’ attention to what they have to say. Students who find themselves in this position
have the competencies required to contribute to the learning environment we seek, but simply will not. This
situation is already present in our classrooms, and there is a risk that the situation could be exacerbated as a
result of the ongoing high school reform. We believe some action should be taken to ensure all students
have a fair learning experience.

24
 Recommendation 11: Review and develop programs for international students to clarify
expectations and performance in a classroom focused on critical thinking.
Many options are available. FASS already has developed two programs—FASS Forward9 and FASS First10—
that could be adapted to serve such a purpose. In addition, students could be given opportunities to
participate in events structured in collaboration with the academic Learning Commons.

6. Concluding Remarks
The BC Ministry of Education first initiated this collaborative effort to reform the K-12 school system seven
years ago. This report highlights the main points anchoring the proposed reforms, and identifies areas for
improvement.
The most pressing issue is that there is currently little guidance for teachers on defining critical thinking,
how it can be taught effectively, and how it is assessed using performance-based language. Although
involving teachers in the reform process shows that they look forward to integrating critical thinking in their
teaching, they may revert to old habits due to the lack of resources and support. We believe our
recommendations are practical solutions to this situation.
In addition, our informal consultation with teachers suggests they vary widely in their concept of critical
thinking. This is shown by fundamental differences in definition, content and assessment expectations, and
basic knowledge of critical thinking terminology. It would be valuable to study this to provide better
support. Introducing Philosophy 12 in the Social Studies curriculum partly addresses this gap in expertise but
only if the Teaching Regulation Branch opens certification to philosophy graduates.
On February 9, 2018, SFU held the Developing Minds conference to explore critical thinking in BC
education.11 Nearly one hundred participants from academia, the government, schools, teachers, and other
stakeholders took part, reacting enthusiastically to presentations and workshops. This included a positive
reception for the critical thinking model presented by keynote speaker Peter Ellerton, curriculum director of
the Critical Thinking Project at the University of Queensland.
In order to build on this momentum and address current needs, we recommend creating a partnership
involving the Ministry of Education, schools and school boards, teachers, and proactive postsecondary
institutions to assemble the resources for successful reform. Ensuring participation from all stakeholders will
maintain ongoing momentum toward an education system that fosters critical thinking and leads to
meaningful, positive change.

9
https://www.sfu.ca/fass/undergraduate/courses/fassforward.html
10
https://www.sfu.ca/fass/undergraduate/courses/fassfirst.html
11
https://ww.sfu.ca/conferences/criticalthinking.html

25
7. Recommendations
Recommendation 1: Make philosophy a teachable subject and an eligible major for entry into teaching
certification programs.
Recommendation 2: Develop resources on teaching philosophy and critical thinking in the classroom for BC
teachers.
Recommendation 3: Develop an accessible online support community for teachers, providing substantive
guidance on integrating critical thinking in the classroom.
Recommendation 4: Explore new classroom technologies and partnerships that enhance critical thinking skill
acquisition within available resources.
Recommendation 5: Develop a BC version of the Solid Pathways project that can fulfil the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action to make education more inclusive.
Recommendation 6: Develop teaching resources such as lesson plans, educational technologies, etc.,
suitable for all levels and subjects within the K-12 education system.
Recommendation 7: Integrate critical thinking training more systematically into PDP for postgraduate
teacher training.
Recommendation 8: Departments of philosophy should consult with faculties of education to create
education streams in their major.
Recommendation 9: Evaluate demand for post-baccalaureate education in philosophy and critical thinking.
Recommendation 10: Clarify and develop the use of core competencies evaluation for admissions, with a
focus on how to best demonstrate critical thinking skills for postsecondary entry.
Recommendation 11: Review and develop programs for international students to clarify expectations and
performance in a classroom focused on critical thinking.

26
References
AGPA (2014). Final Report, The Advisory Group on Provincial Assessment (chaired by Kris Magnusson & Blye
Frank), Ministry of Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/agpa_report.pdf
AGPA (2015). The Graduation Learning Years, The Advisory Group on Provincial Assessment (chaired by Kris
Magnusson & Blye Frank), Ministry of Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/agpa-final-report.pdf
Allen, D. I., & Egan, K. (1978). Secondary Social Studies: Issues in Curriculum Development. Burnaby. BC.
Bahbahani, K., & Care, R. (2015). Portals to Geographic Thinking. Retrieved from:
https://geoinbcschools.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/day-8-portals-to-geographic-thinking.pdf
BC’s New Curriculum (n.d.). Ministry of Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/graduation-info
BCTF (2016). The lived experience of Teachers Teaching on Call in British Columbia’s public schools:
Summary and discussion of study implications. British Columbia Teacher’s Federation. Retrieved from:
https://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/TTOC/TTOC-WC-survey-Summary.pdf
Broom, C. A. (2016). Power, politics, democracy and reform: a historical review of curriculum reform,
academia and government in British Columbia, Canada, 1920 to 2000. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
48 (5): pp. 711-727.
Cassidy, W., & Bognor, C. (1992). Critical Thinking in Social Studies: In American Education Research
Association Annual Meeting. San Francisco.
Dewey, J. (1910). How We Think. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company.
Egan, K. (1997). The Educated Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ellerton, P. (2015). Metacognition and critical thinking: Some pedagogical imperatives. In The Palgrave
handbook of critical thinking in higher education. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 409-426.
Ellerton, P. (2018). On critical thinking and collaborative inquiry. Forthcoming, and to be presented at the
SFU critical thinking round table in February 2018.
Glaser, E. (1941). An experiment in the development of critical thinking. New York: Teachers College,
Columbia University.
Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (2012). Professional capital : transforming teaching in every school. New York:
Teachers College Press.
MOE (1989). Mandate for the School System (Statement of Education Policy Order), Governance and
Legislation Branch, Ministry of Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/administration/legislation-
policy/legislation/schoollaw/d/oic_128089.pdf
MOE (2011). BC’s Education Plan. Ministry of Education, BC. See MOE 2015.
MOE (2012). Enabling Innovation: Transforming Curriculum and Assessment. Ministry of Education, BC.
Retrieved from:
https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/docs/ca_transformation.pdf
MOE (2013). Defining Cross-Curricular Competencies (publicly released draft), Ministry of Education, BC.
Retrieved from:

27
 https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/docs/def_xcurr_comps.pdf
MOE (2015). BC’s Education Plan: Focus on Learning (January 2015 update), Ministry of Education, BC.
Retrieved from:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-
12/support/bcedplan/bcs_education_plan.pdf
MOE (2015b). Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum (August 2015 draft), Ministry of
Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/curriculum_intro.pdf
MOE (2016). Capstone Project (October 2016 release). Ministry of Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/10-12/career-
education/en_ce_capstone.pdf
MOE (2017). Supporting the Self-Assessment and Reporting of Core Competencies (March 2017 draft).
Ministry of Education, BC. Retrieved from:
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/pdf/supporting-self-assessment.pdf
Pinker, S. (1997). How the Mind Works. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Resnick, L. B., & Resnick, D. P. (1991). Assessing the thinking curriculum: New tools for educational reform.
In B. R. Gifford & M. C. O’Connor (Eds.), New approaches to testing: Rethinking aptitude, achievement
and assessment (pp. 37–76). New York: National Committee on Testing and Public Policy.
SFU Office of the Registrar 2017, Memorandum: Proposed Changes to BC High School Admission
Requirements, Revised October 13, 2017.
Solomon, R. C. (2006). The Big Questions. 5th edition. Wadworth Publishing.
TC2: The Critical Thinking Consortium. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
http://www.tc2.ca/
Torrance, H., & Pryor, J. (1998). Investigating Formative Assessment. Teaching, Learning and Assessment in
the classroom. Maidenhead: Open Court Publishing Company.

28
Appendix
A. Sample course curriculum: Social Justice 12

29
B. Philosophy 12 curriculum, without elaborations

30
C. Critical Thinking competency profiles

31
D. The Critical Thinking’s Consortium’s criteria for assessing thinking

32
E. Ellerton’s critical thinking model

33