Critical Thinking Readings & GWAP

Critical thinking isn’t just thinking a lot or for a long time. Critical thinking is using knowledge, evidence and reasoning to ascertain the best answer or solution to a problem. It allows us to make reasonable judgments and decisions without bias or emotional interference. When a person is aware of critical thinking strategies they can be applied to any subject matter.

As an educator, I want to know more about teaching critical thinking strategies and how to let students learn about their own metacognitive processes to help them understand critical thinking principles.

I could apply critical thinking skills to my lesson planning by reasoning the best way to teach a subject. By using critical thinking strategies I could find a way to more clearly express my ideas and information, and be aware of when I am lacking knowledge or reasoning on a topic. As a student in school, I can use critical thinking to more thoroughly understand principles being taught in class so that I could apply them outside of class. I could also use critical thinking strategies to revise any flaws in my thinking once I have acknowledged that they exist.

GWAP games support sharing, communication, collaboration, and action through the use of interactive communicative games. In order to succeed in these games, a player has to be able to figure out what the other player is thinking, so that the two players can play off of each others thoughts to win points. In the game “Verbosity”, players have to think critically to find ways of describing a word, without using the word, in a way that the other player can decipher the secret word. This game requires communication and collaboration for the players to get closer to the best ways of describing the word, and for the players to give feedback on the guesses of one player so that they can work their way together to enter the correct word.

One could use GWAP games in their lesson planning to demonstrate how essential it is for students to work together and collaborate on certain projects in order to gain a better understanding of the world around them through the ideas of their peers. It could also be used to get students to think outside of the box with games such as “Verbosity”.