Doing Critical Inquiry

I am now in my second master's class of the program. We are currently studying how to inquire critically, which forms the essence of thinking critically.

If I could define critical thinking in my own words, it would be: Critical thinking is the thinking involved in arriving at a reasoned judgment on a question,  issue, decision, or topic. Let's expand that a bit. This can be done in simple situations like what to have for breakfast, or in more complex situations like who to vote for, or on a topic like what was the most important instigator of World War II.

These form the basis for inquiry. An inquiry is essentially the act of thinking critically about an issue. Bailin and Battersby define an inquiry as "the process of carefully examining an issue in order to come to a reasoned judgment" (Bailin and Battersby, 4). It is clear how close the definitions of inquiry and critical thinking are.

They suggest that there are some useful guidelines to help focus and develop an inquiry properly and come to a strong reasoned judgment as free of un-reasoned bias as possible. The questions that form these guidelines are:

• What is the issue?
• What kinds of claims or judgments are at issue?
• What are the relevant reasons and arguments on various sides of the issue?
• What is the context of the issue?
• How do we comparatively evaluate the various reasons and arguments to reach a reasoned judgment?

(Bailin and Battersby, 20)

These guidelines have proved helpful as I have tried to practice inquiry for myself. One thing I keep thinking about is how can I effectively and regularly apply this in a math or science classroom? Sometimes it does not seem obvious that there are issues that afford reasoned judgment, but I know they are there.

The obvious answer to that question is have students do an investigation into an issue. For science this could be something like what was the most powerful reason that caused people to shift their thinking about the idea that the Earth is not the center of the universe. What I am wondering is if this process can be done in the short sense, like a one class or couple class long investigation into different types of medical processes around birth (like invitro and artificial insemination), or what are the best strategies for solving word problems (math and physics).

It seems to me that it would take some scaffolding to get the students used to thinking on this level, but it could frame the way I do a class. I'll probably write about some more ideas in the future. 

What are your thoughts?