Activity5

Interpretive structural modeling of a selection of conditions conducive of critical thinking

Readings
You need to be familiar with these readings before the activity. (There is not enough time to read them during the activity.) As you read, mark points that strike you as very significant or interesting.
Costa, A. L. (2008). Describing the habits of mind. In Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind. ed. A. L. Costa and B. Kallick. Alexandria, VA, ASCD: 15-41. (Summary)
Paul, R. (1992). Excerpts from Critical Thinking: What Every Student Needs to Survive in A Rapidly Changing World. Dillon Beach, CA, Foundation For Critical Thinking.
Also: Have small Post-its ready for the activity (or sign up for http://bubbl.us)

Preamble
Participation and collaboration are implied by a) the emphasis in previous activities and CEs on supporting others in their critical thinking journeys and b) intersecting processes having multiple points of engagement which need to be linked together by people with different skills and interests to produce change.
Workshops are a common form of what might be called "organized multi-person collaborative processes." What makes workshops (or OMPCPs) successful? The following two webpages consider conditions conducive of making a workshop successful and arrange those conditions in a hierarchy in which lower conditions are conducive of other conditions: 4Rs, Successful workshop.
In an analogous way, in this activity we identify conditions conducive of critical thinking then ask: are there some that come first, that are conducive of other conditions?

Steps
1. Extract your own selection of 8-12 conditions conducive of critical thinking according to one or both authors. Write summary phrases for each on separate PostIts.
2. Consider each pair of conditions. Connect the first condition of the pair to the second with an arrow if you think that addressing or acknowledging the first condition makes it easier to address the second condition. Then, vice versa.

• e.g., You might think that Costa's "Listen with Understanding and Empathy" makes it easier to "Think about Thinking."

3. Arrange the PostIts for the conditions in a diagram so the result is a hierarchy upwards from “deep drivers” (i.e., conditions that make it easier to address other conditions). The result is your "interpretive structural model."

• e.g., Coda to Taylor (2002)
• e.g., (from a completely different activity) https://www.thinglink.com/scene/402833250310946816#tlsite

4. Share and discuss your work at any stage (including difficulties you have at any step) with the instructor or another student. Use the chat bar to say that you want to do this and identify which breakout group you would move to once someone else uses the chat bar to say they'll join you.
5. After class, scan your model and post the pdf to the blog.

• If you have difficulty uploading, email the model to the instructor for posting.

6. Compare and contrast the models that different students generate. Share any observations (e.g., what turn out to be "deep drivers") as a comment.
7. Plus-Delta on the activity
(Posts from 2015)