What is thinking and critical thinking? and Foundation of Critical thinking.

What is thinking?

In 1913, Dewey’s tries to explain the term ‘thinking’ and said that thinking is a ‘stream of consciousness’ but according to my opinion, thinking is not only stream of consciousness but also stream of unconsciousness because we always do not think consciously or our mind sometime thinks in unconsciousness. E.g. dream and reverie come at night and day respectively.

In educational context, the term thinking is used as a process for remembering, planning what to do and say, solving problems, making decisions and judgments etc. 

There are three perspectives of thinking:

1) Psychological Perspectives:
In it, thinking is used as internal, mental process that constructs and operates on mental representations of information.
2) Sociological perspectives:
When a person begins to think for themselves, ask questions and generally experiment, he or she gradually becomes independent and develop his or her mind and begin to act back on the social. Here, thinking which can be applied in different contexts may be of benefit to learners who can see that aspects of their own experience may be relevant in a new situation.
3) Philosophical perspectives:
According to McPeck (1981), thinking is always context specific. Though, it is said that thinking is identified in different context.

What is critical thinking?

Generally, critical thinking is related to looking for evidences, being fair-minded and accurate. It is an originality of ideas.

Foundation of Critical thinking:

A Greek philosopher and thinker, Socratic, who found the method of questioning which is now known as ‘Socratic Questioning’ and it is the best known ‘critical thinking teaching strategy’. Socratic by his method of questioning said that people could not justify their confident claims to knowledge even if they have knowledge, high power and high position because of confused meaning, inadequate evidence or self-contradictory, deeply confused logical consistency, clarity etc. That’s why, he emphasizes on the importance of seeking evidence, closely examine reasoning and assumptions, analyzing basic concepts to justify the claims.

Plato and Aristotle, other Greek philosophers, followed Socratic practice and emphasize on the appearance of things which are looked at differently by only a trained mind. In a critical thinking, trained mind plays an important role to understand deeper realities, to think systematically, to trace implications broadly and deeply.
In the middle ages, critical thinking was embodied in the writing and teaching. Thomas Aquinas aware us that reasoning in critical thinking is to be systematically cultivated and “cross-examined” and rejects beliefs which does not have reasons.

In England, the book named, The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon and in France, the book called, Rules for the Direction of the Mind by Descartes focus on the agenda of critical thinking. Utopia by Sir Thomas Moore is also best example of it. In short, from ancient to 20th century, idea of critical thinking was founded by different thinkers.

The common denominators of critical thinking are the most important by-products of the history of critical thinking:

Critical thinking looks not only at what is said but also what is said and it must be analyzed and assessed not only on the appearance of thing but also on its clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breath and logicalness. 

Hence, in critical thinking, thought and reasoning are now baselines which are focused by questioning.

My Introduction

Hello sir...
And
Hello Friends...
Good Morning to all
And
Welcome to all and enjoy in new online classroom teaching and learning.
I am Ankit Patel, from Modasa (Arvalli). I am studying in M.A (ELT) sem-4 at H.M.P.I.E.T.R. My hobby is reading, writing of poetry, an articles and research papers, acting, and playing cricket. 
I expect from this course that it encourages me in learning a language. But indirectly, I can say that the course is important for me and it will helpful for me in learning a language in better way and will empower me how to use language in critical situation and any field.

Socratic questioning and Paul's six types of Socratic questions

Socratic questioning  is disciplined questioning that can be used to pursue thought in many directions and for many purposes including ideas, truth of things, issues, problems, logical implications of thought. Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined, and deep and usually focuses on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues or problems. It is referred to in teaching. When teachers use Socratic questioning in teaching, their purpose may be to probe student thinking.

In teaching, teachers can use Socratic questioning for at least two purposes:

1). To deeply probe student thinking and to help them develop intellectual humility in the process

2). To foster students' abilities to ask Socratic questions

Critical thinking and Socratic questioning both seek meaning and truth. Socratic questioning is an explicit focus on framing self-directed, disciplined questions to achieve that goal. R.W. Paul's gives six types of Socratic questions:

Questions for clarification
Questions that probe assumptions
Questions that probe reasons and evidence
Questions about Viewpoints and Perspectives
Questions that probe implications and consequences
Questions about the question

A video: Wikis in Plain English

Wikis  in Plain English

                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                              

The above video is about “wikis  in plain English”  in which speaker gave more important to the wikis than  e-mail. He says that wikis is a new way and co-ordination key in which we can work in collaborate. In wikis, there are two important buttons such as edit and save. Through the wikis, one can add material by editing page and can save it and also other can also edit the same page, add the new things whatever they like, change the things if he/she finds any fault and also edit the material and create a new location/page and share it to other by giving a link.

Wikis was not made for classroom teaching-learning, but now it becomes helpful for teaching-learning in the classroom. Students can work collaborate and share their knowledge or their different views on any topic which helps them to enhance their knowledge. Wikis enable the students to increase their vocabulary power. Hence it can be considered that it is a new method or approach of 21^st century for the classroom teaching-learning.

A crasy Article on Role of Gulabjamun in increasing of vocabulary

        

        Role of Gulabjamun in increasing of vocabulary

Ankit R. Patel

M.A.ELT (Sem-4)

Roll No. : 05

Abstract:

The article named “Role of Gulabjamun in increasing of vocabulary” focuses on how Gulabjamun as one of the famous sweets will help in increasing vocabulary at present time. Research said that Students do not speak English much because of inadequate vocabulary.  Hence, this article advocates scope of increasing vocabulary through Gulabjamun.

Key words: Gulabjamun, vocabulary, English

Introduction:

Nowadays, students need to speak in English but they can’t because of inadequate vocabulary. Students tired to learn and remember vocabulary from traditional methods and tools. That’s why teachers need to apply new, effective, interactive, and interesting methods as well as various effective teaching tools to teach vocabulary. Hence, teacher will take Gulabjamun as one of the sweets as a tool to increase vocabulary. As a result Students may take interest to remember  and learn new vocabulary.

Objective:

·       To promote students to increase vocabulary with fun.

Evidence:

In the class, teacher will bring a bowl of  Gulabjamun and ask to the students, “what is this”? Students may reply as Gulabjamun. Then teacher will give one Gulabjamun to each students and instruct “do not eat until I say” and ask “What is the colour of Gulabjamun?” Students will reply like black, yellow, red, gray etc. Then teacher will allow the students to eat and ask “What and how do you feel in your mouth and at overall?” Students may answer such as good, precious, delicious, oilier, unpleasant etc. (See table no. 1)

Table 1 : Positive effect of Gulabjamun on learner in increasing of vocabulary

Words	Gulabjamun, black, red, yellow, gray, good, precious, delicious, oilier, unpleasant
Total of words	10

Students learned around 10 words such as Gulabjamun, black, yellow, red, gray, good, precious, delicious, oilier, unpleasant etc.

In this way, Gulabjamun can help in increasing of vocabulary to the students.

In Waiting of Light...

In Waiting of Light...

Where I was born,

Lot of nights there,

The sun set at his place,

 But the moon forgot to awake.

Light lost its power,

Helpless eyes,

Unexpected things done,

No chance to solve.

Once light sparked,

Recognized I myself,

Nobody there,

Might doing their work.

Darkness covered again,

Full of frustrations,

And anxiety splitting my heart,

Beating got down.

My workers going on strike,

And I slept,

The Sun rose,

But I didn’t...

                                                                   By:  Ankit Patel

2.0 web tool by Graham Stanley

This video by Graham Stanley is about language learning in which he talks about web tools of 2.0 such as Blogs, Wikis, and Podcast in some detail and mentions Video as well.

Let’s see what he says about 2.0 web tools in some detail one by one:

1)  Blogs: They appeal for language learning in the classroom. With the help of blogs, we come to know about what is happening in the classroom. It is very easier to connect teachers with the students.

2)  Wikis: Wikis are the collaborative tools that create a website.  They have visually functioned. They are used for classroom projects by teachers and students.

3)  Podcast:  It is a way of using voice to connect students. It appeals to the digital natives to students of today and future. It is used for getting information. It is also used to download audio-video as many times you want. It is one of the great ways openings of the class to wider world.