What Are They Thinking When We're Teaching Critical Thinking?

Abstract

The teaching of critical thinking is an important part of gifted program curricula. This descriptive study address es the issue of the effectiveness of such teaching by comparing student perceptions of a lesson on critical thinking with teachers' stated objectives. The students' perceptions were compared to their teachers' stated objective obtained in separate interviews. Teacher and student responses were stimulated by videotapes of the lessons. The findings indicate that gifted students are able to identify the teacher's intentions and to articulate their own mental processes as they work through a thinking procedure in a lesson.