Blog | How to Teach Critical Thinking and Logic to K-12 Students

Rote memorization has its place: It’s important for students to know their multiplication tables. But they also need to be able to apply these concepts to other parts of the math curriculum. Students need critical thinking skills and logic to understand how something learned in one lesson can be applied to another at a later date.

It can be hard to teach critical thinking – but also fun. Your students can learn to love logical arguments and use the critical thinking skills they develop. Here are some guidelines for teaching your students to think critically and tap into logic when faced with a new idea.

Introduce Logic and Critical Thinking at a Young Age

Childhood development is fast and varied, which means kids are constantly hitting milestones and learning new things. Whether you teach kindergarten or high school, your students can benefit from logic and critical thinking lessons. In fact, you might be surprised by how much kids pick up in early development.

“Experiments suggest that preschoolers are inhibited by the pronouncements of authoritative adults,” says Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., founder of Parenting Science. “When grown-ups tell them how something works, kids don’t question it. They act as if the adults have told them everything they need to know. They become less inquisitive, less likely to investigate on their own.”

The critical thinking skills that kids develop can make them successful teens. As their thought processes and reasoning grow more complex, tweens and teens can use the tools you introduced to them when they were younger.

“Tweens experience a variety of cognitive changes, including an increase in logical thinking,” says Rebecca Fraser-Thill, a former psychology lecturer at Bates College. “The cognitive processes of older tweens, in particular, transition from child-like reasoning to a more adult-like way of thinking, which is increasingly complex and abstract.”

By teaching students to become critical thinkers, they can become independent learners. This sets them up for a life of curiosity and interest in the world.

“Children initially require a lot of demonstration in education to help them learn and comprehend,” writes the team at 98th Percentile, a K-12 online enrichment program provider. “Since problem-solving requires a great deal of reasoning and analysis, prolonged and frequent demonstration does not work. This is where logical reasoning skills make room for independent thinking.”

The example they give is that a teacher can explain and demonstrate how a game of chess works. However, it’s up to students to develop a strategy to play each game.

Let Students Discover That Solutions Can Be Open-Ended

Many educators want to develop a classroom of critical thinkers, but they aren’t sure how. Your main goal is to help students understand that there are multiple solutions to a problem and logic will help them reach the best path to solving it.

“Keeping an open mind and flexible thinking when approaching a new problem is essential in critical thinking,” says Pamela Li, founder of Parenting For Brain, a provider of science-based parenting information. “We can teach kids to be open-minded by suggesting different points of view, alternative explanations, or different solutions to problems.”

Consider the discussion about staying dry when walking in the rain. Is an umbrella or raincoat more effective at keeping a person dry? Both are solutions to the problem of not getting wet, but what are the benefits and drawbacks of each option?

Former teacher and principal Simona Johnes, the creator of Science and Literacy, shares activities you can use in your classroom to teach critical thinking. One, The Barometer, lets students see how any given topic has more than one correct answer.

Start by designating parts of the classroom with differing levels of feelings ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, with options to agree or disagree slightly or be neutral. You can read a controversial statement and ask students to move around the classroom based on their beliefs. Silly statements like “there is no difference between a bowl of cereal and a bowl of soup” will spur debate about how we define and label things. Kids can change where they stand as their peers make their cases for or against certain ideas.

The goal of an activity like this is for students to use logic to make a case for something. You can even challenge your students to defend ideas they disagree with to help them work through the logic of their peers.

For further information, please visit Planbook website.