1. Teaching Critical Thinking: Abstracting Dr. Eddie Baumann “The truth is more important than facts”

2. Abstracting skills Moby Dick –Man striving against God Go to movie –Discuss the rotten themes Abstracting from a whale story

3. Steps in Skill Building 1.Construct a model of the skill How do experts do the skill –E.g. look at good basketball shooters 2.Shaping of the skill (guided practice) Critic while they are doing it 3.Internalize the skill (independent practice) practice on their own – do lots of reps Thinking is progressive. Work through the process

4. Abstracting – id & articulate the underlying theme or general pattern of info What is important here? –Main ideas How can I say the same thing in a more general way? –Replace words referring to specific things with words referring to more general things. –Summarize information whenever possible Use it outside of the context given What else has the same pattern

5. E.g. 4 main ideas from article. Specific/LiteralGeneral/Abstract C.L. Sholes invented a keyboard, QWERTY, that would slow down typists, thus solving the problem of keys sticking. Keyboard improvement Someone invented/created to address an issue/problem. Improving keyboard (slow typists down so keys don’t jam) Typewriter keys stopped sticking. The cure was worse than the problem in the long term. The issue/problem went away. Another keyboarding was invented that was shown to be superior to QWERTY. Slow not valuable anymore-Dvorak developed better system in 1930. Something else was invented that was shown to be superior to the original invention. QWERTY is still used despite the fact that keys no longer stick and another keyboard configuration was shown to be better. We stick to the ways of past even though not best.

6. The Process Literal Abstract E.g. Biblical hermeneutic – Interpretation learning from the OT

7. e.g. Love is a rose Characteristics of roses –Beautiful, smelly, must be tended, thorny, delicate –As it unfolds you see more. –Fragrance lasts even after it dies. –Proverbs – “Guard your heart, it is wellspring of life” This is a metaphor of love

8. Teacher vs. student directed activities Model the process. Teacher-directed activities allow students to imitate the process of the teacher using accepted categories Student directed allow for students to make the process their own.