Lecture
Critical Thinking and Ways of Knowing (Epistemological Frameworks)
Hopefully those two concepts didn’t scare you, but really, this is where we need to begin. IUPUI defines Critical Thinking as “the ability of students to engage in a process of disciplined thinking that informs beliefs and actions. A student who demonstrates critical thinking applies the process of disciplined thinking by remaining open-minded, reconsidering previous beliefs and actions, and adjusting his or her thinking, beliefs and actions based on new information" (IUPUI’s Principles of Undergraduate Learning).
Process: The first thing to note with this definition is that critical thinking is a process. It happens when we can evaluate the information we learn against our beliefs and experiences, then apply this newly created idea to a new question or situation, realizing that the outcome of our answer is dependent upon new information and new experiences. This means that an answer you develop today may be very different from one that you develop years from now after more information and more experiences.
Developing Critical Thinking. Want to know where you are in terms of developing critical thinking? Education Researchers, Drs. Patricia King and Karen Strohm Kitchener developed a heuristic model for describing the different stages we go through as we move along the path to true Critical Thinking. Click on the table below to open it as a .pdf file. Which stage describes your level of Critical Thinking? Is it the same for all disciplines or just your major? (This is not a required exercise.)
A simple example would be how you explain the idea of love. At 14, the only thing you may know about romantic love is what you read about in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette or watched in Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet’s portrayals in Titanic. If someone asked you what love was, you would probably have a very simple answer: It means being willing to die for someone. But by the time you were 25 you may have had a few relationships and read all of Jane Austen’s novels and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, allowing you to create a different answer about love. Then maybe at 50 or 60 after a marriage and children and loss, you may have yet another very different definition of love. So, don’t be discouraged if you find yourself struggling with what love means to you today, the process of critical thinking is on-going: as you learn and experience more, you create more and different knowledge.
Discipline: The second word to note is the word discipline. Here it does not mean “strict” but instead refers to the different fields of study and the different ways of knowing or epistemological framework each discipline uses. The University or "higher education" was borne out of the idea that many different disciplines use different methods to understand the universe, the root word in university.
A delicious French desert of custard topped by caramelized sugar. Click on the picture for Emeril Lagasse’s recipe.
Understanding how different ways of knowing (epistemological frameworks) work is an important step in your development as a college student and critical thinker. IUPUI states that by the time you graduate, you should have “the ability of students to examine and organize disciplinary ways of knowing and to apply them to specific issues and problems.” To put it briefly, each discipline studies a distinct part of the Universe. For example, if we wanted to know how to make crème brûlée (a French custard with caramelized sugar top), we would not take a Calculus course offered by the School of Science’s Department of Mathematics. The discipline of Math is not the appropriate way of knowing to use. Instead, we would be more successful in knowing how to make crème brûlée if we used the discipline of Pastry Making through a School of Culinary Arts. If we look at different disciplines like those listed in the table below, we can see that they are all ways to study specific parts of the Universe. History seeks to know the causes and consequences of historical events by studying historical documents or records. You can learn this epistemological approach by taking H217: The Nature of History (3 credits). Philosophy seeks to know the “whole of reality,” the nature of knowledge and our existence. You can learn how this way of knowing by taking P110: Introduction to Philosophy (3 credits). Take any introductory course and the first part of the semester will be spent in understanding the basics of that discipline: what that discipline seeks to know, has come to know, and how that discipline studies/explains the universe.
Students often grumble about being required to take courses outside of their chosen discipline. But a University education is defined by giving you the tools to understand the universe or the totality, entirety of everything that can be known by human endeavors. You can’t do this if you only study one discipline and one way of knowing. You will better understand your own discipline by seeing it in contrast to others, and a well-rounded education helps you to see that diversity in knowing can help you to obtain a fuller picture of your world and the universe.