+ S573: Education of Information Users Week 8

+ Example of Critical Thinking A B C The line graphs show the 10% increase in national income. How do the graphs differ? Can you think of any reasons that this same information would be presented differently? What do you think about this?

+ What is Critical Thinking? The use of cognitive skills or strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome Thinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed (Halpern, 1996) The ability to distinguish fact from fiction & to think about whether information seekers will accept the “facts” (McCormick, 1983) Why do we need critical thinking?

+ Why Do We Need to Teach Critical Thinking? Only 25 % of U.S. college freshmen have the skills needed for logical thoughts Need for life-long learning

+ Can Critical Thinking Be Taught? Are we mind-controlling by teaching people how to think?

+ Attitudes of A Critical Thinker (Halpern, 1996) 1. Willingness to plan 2. Flexibility 3. Persistence 4. Willingness to self-correct 5. Being mindful 6. Consensus-seeking Who should teach critical thinking?

+ Critical Information Literacy (Elmborg, 2006) The role of librarians has changed Reference transactions down 26% Group presentations up 55% Service provider  active educator

+ Critical Information Literacy (Elmborg, 2006) “the Library’s ‘grammars of information’ are reflections of a particular world view” (p. 197) E.g., Dewey Decimal System classification is reflective of Western philosophy—representing “knowable reality and universal truth”

+ Critical Information Literacy (Elmborg, 2006) Information literacy = the understanding of an entire system of thought and the ways that information flows in that system; eventually critically evaluate (“problematize”) the system itself

+ Information Literacy (Grassian & Kaplowitz, 2009) ACRL’s Information Literacy Competency Standards: IL promotes self-reflective thinking about how to identify, locate, evaluate and use info. A model of “academic conversation” Can we teach “generic” critical thinking skills, or critical thinking should be taught in specific context in each discipline?

+ Critical Thinking in IL Contexts (Grassian & Kaplowitz, 2009) Critical thinking about information researching tools: Google Scholar Google

+ Learning through Critical Literacy (Fabos, 2006) All information is charged with social, economic, and political contexts it’s not enough to teach students how to evaluate websites Questioning the web itself– as the way that students access it

+ Learning through Critical Literacy (Fabos, 2006) Commercialism of search engines: Google Yahoo Bing

+ Fragmented Web (Kumar et al., 2002) 44 million Nodes (e.g., corporate website) 44 million nodes 56 million nodes 44 million nodes

+ Learning through Critical Literacy (Fabos, 2006) “Critical Literacy” Students should understand why and how certain information can be considered as truth Example of the topic, “obesity”

+ Learning through Critical Literacy (Fabos, 2006) Role of public libraries and books Take a look at this video clip from They Live: sKo sKo

+ Promoting Critical Thinking Skills in Online Information Literacy Instruction Using a Constructivist Approach (Allen, 2012) Critical thinking vs. information literacy Advantage of moving instructional programs to online What about disadvantages? Clarification of constructivist discussed in this article

+ Results from Different Databases Comparison of Web of Science, Scopus, & Google Scholar (Meho & Yang, 2007)

+ Web 2.0 and Beyond Is it a blessing or curse to have the general public become content providers as well as content consumers? E.g., Wikipedia

+ Web 2.0 and Beyond E.g., Wikipedia “evolution” page edits

+ Activity: Classroom Assessment Techniques 20: What’s the Principle? Think of the topic that you are going to present for the instructional session. See how you can apply this #20 technique in that session.

+ Activity: Six Thinking Hats You are one of four members of IU Task Force to incorporate critical thinking into university- wide curriculum. Come up with an innovative plan to implement this idea