How do we address truth and bias in the classroom?

Chris Betcher's Five Lenses for Critically Evaluating Sources

I greatly enjoyed listening to Chris Betcher, an educator from Sydey Australia, when he talked about evaluating sources, as he seems well grounded in learning and the realities of the classroom. I honestly didn’t find his ideas new as we’ve been working with kids on that type of critical literacy for many years. However, I loved a couple of his examples and the video to launch the discussion with kids.

I think we need to continue to work with our students on critically evaluating sources through the five lenses (or factors) that Chris talked about: Authority - Currency - Content/Purpose - Audience - Structure/Workability. However, I believe it is vital that we go further with critical thinking.

Critical Thinking for "The New World of Work

Tony Wagner interviewed many corporate leaders from the high-tech world for his book The Global Achievement Gap. He identifies Critical Thinking and Problem Solving as the first of his seven survival skills for the “New World of Work.” When he interviewed Annmarie Neal, vice president for Talent Management at Cisco Systems—she defined critical thinking as “Taking issues and situations and problems and going to root components; understanding how the problem evolved—looking from a systemic perspective and not accepting things at face value.”

So, let’s try this out on one of the articles we were asked to read “Engage Me or Enrage Me: What Today’s Learner’s Demand" by Marc Prensky. I agree with many of my colleague’s critique of this article regarding the over generalizing and lack of hard data to support his assertions. Right away one can assume his bias given his role as CEO of Games2train.

Let's Try it Out!
Let’s try to apply Ms Neal’s critical thinking to his article. First of all, what is the issue he raises? Engagement as a key component for learning! This has always and will continue to be an issue in learning as most learning theory data supports that engagement is a key factor in constructing depth of understanding. Therefore, as critical thinkers, we would need to look at the root components that have helped or hindered engagement in learning throughout time. Then we could look at where and why there have been successes in increased engagement for learning and how we can adapt those key factors to our current context.

Secondly, rather than accept Mr Prensky’s unsupported claims at face value, we’d have to question him. For example to use the phrase “back then” is simplistic to say the least. When exactly is he referring to? In which context? What about the judgmental statement such as “kids lives were a lot less rich”—according to whom, according to which criteria? Or “Many if not most of them never even knew what real engagement feels like” So, you (and gaming) have the corner on engagement? No one throughout history has experienced passionate engagement? Have you never read about impassioned learning ever taking place before in time, Mr. Prensky? On what evidence are you basing your opinions?

Therefore, I invite all of us (including Mr. Prensky) to dig more deeply into the issue of engagement and its powerful role in learning using our critical thinking skills of analysis (of root components) and questioning (of simplistic and unsupported assertions.)