Demystifying Critical Reflection

Drawing on Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), this volume reveals the knowledge practices and language of critical reflection in a range of different subjects, making clear how it can be taught and learned Critical thinking is widely held to be a key attribute required for successfully living, learning and earning in modern societies. Universities now list critical thinking as a key graduate quality and use ‘critical reflection’ as a way of teaching students how to become reflective and ethical professionals. Yet, what ‘critical reflection’ actually involves remains vague in research, teaching practice, and assessment. Studies draw on LCT, a fast-growing framework for revealing the knowledge practices that enable educational success and the individual chapters focus on a diverse range of contexts across the disciplinary map, including education, science, arts, sociology and nursing. The book further connects research and practice by presenting in-depth analyses of critical reflection and providing practical insights into how LCT can be used to design pedagogic interventions. The book offers a rich resource for both scholars and teachers who want to demystify critical reflection and prepare university students for the modern workplace.

In this book, Jennifer Moon explores and clarifies critical thinking and provides practical guidance for improving student learning and supporting the teaching process. Key themes covered include: different views of and approaches to critical thinking with an emphasis on a practical basis that can be translated into use in the classroom. links between learning, thinking and writing the place of critical thinking alongside other academic activities such as reflective learning and argument critical thinking and assessment, class environments, staff knowledge and development, writing tasks and oral tasks. Teachers in all disciplines in post-compulsory education will find this approach to defining and improving students’ critical thinking skills invaluable.

How can professionals learn more easily from their own experience? How can critical reflection be performed in a structured way? How can professionals maintain a critically reflective stance when contexts may be restrictive? Critical reflection in professional practice is popular across many different professions as a way of ensuring ongoing scrutiny and improved practice skills. This accessible handbook focuses on a description and analysis of the theoretical input as well as the approach involved in critical reflection. It also demonstrates some skills, strategies and tools which might be used to practise it. The cross-disciplinary approach taken by the authors will appeal to a wide range of students and professionals and combines neatly with useful discussion of the complex educational and professional issues which arise from the practice of critical reflection. An innovative website containing a variety of useful resources accompanies the book www.openup.co.uk/fook&gardner. Resources include: Extracts from workshops, interviews and lectures Additional articles and readings Sample material for workshop preparation Throughout the book, the authors provide pertinent examples from their own practice, referring to relevant literature, providing annotated bibliographies, and noting where additional resource materials are available to provide further illustration. Practising Critical Reflection is key reading for a variety of students across social work, health sciences and nursing, as well as health care and social welfare professionals.

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education provides a single compendium on the nature, function, and applications of critical thinking. This book brings together the work of top researchers on critical thinking worldwide, covering questions of definition, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, research, policy, and application.

From pressures to become economically efficient to calls to act as an agent of progressive social change, higher education is facing a series of challenges. There is an urgent need for a rigorous and sophisticated research base to support the informed development of practices. Yet studies of educational practices in higher education remain theoretically underdeveloped and segmented by discipline and country. Building Knowledge in Higher Education illustrates how Legitimation Code Theory is bringing research together from across the disciplinary map and enabling practical change in a rigorously theorized way. The volume addresses both students and educators. Part I explores ways of supporting student achievement from STEM to the arts, from introductory courses to doctoral training, and from using new digital media to reflective writing. Part II focuses on academic staff development in higher education, reaching from curriculum design to pedagogic practices. All chapters focus on issues of contemporary relevance to higher education, showing how Legitimation Code Theory enables these issues to be understood and practices improved. Building Knowledge in Higher Education brings together internationally renowned scholars in higher education studies, academic development, academic literacies, and sociology, with some of the brightest new researchers. The volume significantly extends understandings of teaching and learning in changing higher education contexts and so contributes to educational research and practice. It will be essential reading not only to scholars and students in these fields but also to scholars and educators in higher education more generally.

Through innovative analysis of theory and practice, this book offers refreshing critical perspectives on service-learning in higher education. It constructs a theoretical paradigm for service-learning which extends to critical pedagogy, and investigates critical reflection and academic reflective writing, supported throughout by empirical evidence.

In this book, we try to provide a practical, down-to-earth guide for those who are involved in language learning and teaching. We hope that this book will be a useful reading for those who would like to incorporate higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)-enhancing techniques in their teaching practice. We set out from the position that, although it is hardly doubtful that it is at the heart of education, critical thinking is in reality often not given its due attention in pedagogy, particularly in language education. This book offers readers some practical advice on how to implement HOTS in their own practice. It has been written to take the reader through each technique with the ultimate goal of promoting HOTS step-by-step. In the introductory chapter, we present an overview of the theory behind HOTS, its definition, its relation to Bloom’s Taxonomy, its two dimensions (critical thinking and reflective thinking), and the ideas of some influential thinkers in this area. The subsequent chapters present six HOTS-enhancing techniques that classroom teachers can draw from, namely graphic organizers, critical discourse analysis, argumentation, emotion regulation and emotional intelligence enhancing techniques, reflective journals, and mindfulness-based strategies. As the book draws on a wide-ranging review of literature with exercises for direct use with language learners, we hope that this provides both theoretical and practical support for the teaching process to help language learners become effective critical thinkers. The compilation of the ideas in this book took us a long time, over a decade. Something that takes such a long time requires much engagement and life experience; so did this book.

This edited book shows how critical literacy can be applied in and outside the classroom setting. It shows educators how critical theory is applied in practice using studies in diverse K-16 settings, kindergarten through university contexts. By providing specific examples of critical literacy practice in the classroom and beyond, the book aims to help teachers, researchers and teacher educators make clear connections between theory and practice in critical literacy.