Question 1

According to the text book, which of the following factors does not influence a person's critical thinking skills?

Accepted Answer

According to the textbook, income is not listed as a factor that influences a person's critical thinking skills. However, factors such as personality characteristics, epistemic beliefs, and cultural upbringing are all cited as potential influences on critical thinking abilities.

Question 2

If you wanted students to learn how to critically evaluate what they read on Internet websites, you would be most likely to:

Accepted Answer

Asking students to consider the motives of the people creating the websites will help them critically evaluate the information presented on the website. This will help them analyze whether the information is objective or biased.

Question 3

Distinguish between general and specific transfer, and give a concrete example of each to illustrate the distinction. Describe the four perspectives of transfer listed below in terms of their views on general and specific transfer:
a. Formal discipline
b. Similarity of stimuli and responses
c. Information processing
d. Situated learning

Accepted Answer

The answer of Distinguish between general and specific transfer, and...

Question 4

Three of the following teaching strategies should promote critical thinking. Which strategy, although beneficial in other ways, will not necessarily promote critical thinking skills?

Accepted Answer

Relating new information to things students already know can be a helpful strategy for facilitating understanding and retention of information, but it does not necessarily require or promote critical thinking skills. The other options all involve challenging students to analyze, evaluate, and apply information in a more complex and nuanced way, which can help develop critical thinking abilities.

Question 5

Describe five different things that teachers can do to facilitate students' transfer of what is learned in the classroom to real-world situations and problems.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Describe five different things that teachers can...

Question 6

Transfer what you have learned about transfer and problem solving to a professional situation in which you might find yourself. More specifically:
a. Using either an educational or therapeutic context, describe a specific idea or principle you might want students or clients to apply outside the educational or therapeutic setting. In particular, describe what information you would want them to learn within the educational or therapeutic context, and how you hope they would transfer it in dealing with the outside world.
b. Explain how your students' or clients' success in transferring this information and/or using it to solve problems might be more or less successful depending on:
i. How they encode/store the original information, and the extent to which they elaborate on it
ii. How they encode/store the transfer/problem-solving situation, and the extent to which they elaborate on that situation

Accepted Answer

The answer of Transfer what you have learned about transfer...

Question 7

Ms. Webster tells students, "The author of our history textbook knows what he's talking about. He's a well-respected scholar whose specialty is the period we're reading about this month: colonial America." Although such a statement might certainly be beneficial in some respects, it has which one of the following drawbacks?

Accepted Answer

By stating that the author of the textbook "knows what he's talking about" and is a "well-respected scholar," Ms. Webster is essentially telling students not to question the content in the textbook. This is unlikely to foster an inclination to critically evaluate the textbook content, which is a crucial skill for students to develop.

Question 8

Distinguish between positive and negative transfer, and give a concrete example of each to illustrate the distinction.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Distinguish between positive and negative transfer, and...

Question 9

Describe the roles that the following four factors play in problem solving, and illustrate each factor's role with a concrete example:
a. Working memory capacity
b. Encoding processes
c. Long-term memory retrieval
d. Metacognition

Accepted Answer

The answer of Describe the roles that the following four...

Question 10

Imagine that you are teaching a course in human learning to future teachers. You want students to transfer what they learn in their class to their own teaching practice. Describe three strategies you might use to help students transfer what they learn in your class.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Imagine that you are teaching a course...

Question 11

Choose a particular content domain
e.g., math, science, history, English literature) and give two examples that critical thinking in that domain might entail. Your examples should reflect two of the following forms of critical thinking:
-Verbal reasoning
-Argument analysis
-Probabilistic reasoning
-Hypothesis testing

Accepted Answer

The answer of Choose a particular content domain
e.g., math, science,...

Question 12

Describe three different strategies you might use to encourage students to engage in critical thinking about a topic. Illustrate each strategy with a concrete example.

Accepted Answer

The answer of Describe three different strategies you might use...

Quiz 14: Learning and Technology