The video to the right on socratic questioning as a means to encourage critical thinking covered an important concept.... the proposal that thinking and content are one and the same. Up until watching the video I had been operating under the assumption that content was something that sat in a bucket and my role as an adult educator was to get my learners to disseminate what was in the bucket by encouraging and fostering them to employ their critical thinking skills. Furthermore I thought that critical thinking skills for the most part could be taught on their own and were independent of the context. | |
Now I am re-evaluating this concept. Let me illustrate by comparing the work of heart surgeon to that of a mechanical engineer. The high level synthesis skills required by a heart surgeon during a surgery to determine how to reattach a torn aorta to the heart are quite different then the analysis skills required by a mechanical engineer when designing the optimum air to fuel ratio to improve an engine's fuel efficiency.
Sure the fundamental approach of identifying the root cause and building a solution step by step from this is the same, but this is then layered with many layers of ever increasing complexity of the the complex dynamics of the human body for the heart surgeon and a detailed understanding of how fuel and air ratios affect the many different variables which then drive an engine's fuel efficiency.
To be honest I am not quite sure yet how this will affect my teaching and I will keep reflecting on it until the answer becomes clear.
Sure the fundamental approach of identifying the root cause and building a solution step by step from this is the same, but this is then layered with many layers of ever increasing complexity of the the complex dynamics of the human body for the heart surgeon and a detailed understanding of how fuel and air ratios affect the many different variables which then drive an engine's fuel efficiency.
To be honest I am not quite sure yet how this will affect my teaching and I will keep reflecting on it until the answer becomes clear.