Theories of Critical Thinking Blog Post- Ridge Watson

As educators and future leaders of schools, we must evolve with the times and ensure our students are prepared for a successful education and post-educational career. We must prescribe and help guide our students using 'new pedagogies' to adapt to a continuously changing world, which is becoming more digital (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014). Currently, I teach world history, which includes delivering informational content more so than teaching skill sets. This is considered 'old pedagogy' and should be replaced with skills that allow students to obtain more knowledge and skills that they may use upon graduation and integration into the workforce. We want our students to achieve deeper learning, which is more impactful than just content mastery. 'New Pedagogies' will create students who are deep learners and who show the capability of succeeding after leaving school. In A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning, the expectation is that the digital era is embraced and harnessed into tools that take our students into a new age of learning. I fail at adequately using digital platforms to expand student learning and mastery. I often resort to the easy option of presenting content at a low level of Bloom's taxonomy. I plan to use digital media to enhance students' skills and increase their capability in my classroom and beyond. 

This aligns directly with the ideas expressed in Bloom's Taxonomy, which lays out the expectations for students to demonstrate the capability to perform complex cognitive tasks. The levels of Bloom's Taxonomy are similar to the divide illustrated by Fullan & Langworthy in A Rich Seam: How New Pedagogies Find Deep Learning. Traditionally, educators have presented content to students in a way that requires a very low level of thinking and problem solving. In this 'new pedagogy', educators are expected to prompt students with tasks that require a higher, more complex level of understanding. We must go beyond just knowledge and venture into application, evaluation, and synthesis, as it applies to the real world (Huitt, 2011). This, combined with deep connections between students and educators, will foster a learning environment where 'new pedagogies' become the expectation and foundation of learners' educational outlook. As an aspiring instructional leader, I plan to implement 'new pedagogies' and encourage my staff to adopt these policies to best help our students. 

This vision of digital integration cannot come to fruition without digital literacy on the part of students and faculty alike. Literacy could be defined as "the ability to share meaning through symbol systems, in order to fully participate in a society" (Hobbs, 2011). This definition highlights the importance of literacy and makes it sound as though to fit in in an educated society, you must be literate in many things. In 2025, literacy in the digital world cannot be replaced. Digital platforms and tools are not just to be used to facilitate learning in a K-12, undergraduate, and postgraduate setting, but to be the medium where skills are developed and used to further one's educational potential and impact on the world. Although acquiring new technology and mediums is a crucial step, the actual competency and understanding of the tools is what will tell the tale of its effectiveness in the learning environment. As the push for the digitization of schools has come along, many administrators and school leaders believe that results will come just based on acquiring these new resources (Hobbs, 2011). According to The Adoption Process, technology and other innovations vary in the time in which they are to be widely implemented. For example, artificial intelligence has improved and increased dramatically in just the last few years. If educators and instructional leaders do not find a way to work with this and use it as a tool to help students, it will continue to hinder students and provide false indications of learning. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Empowering Learners With Digital and Media Literacy encourages the literacy of sources that are used in digital platforms. Educators, instructional leaders, and instructional coaches act as the safeguard to reliable sources for students' access. As an instructional leader, I would plan training for staff on how to use these digital tools academically and responsibly in hopes that the staff would pass this on to their students. I would expect the school to establish a culture of digital excellence.

This increased literacy in all the media forms that are available to educators and their students will prove meaningless if they are not utilized correctly. According to Connecting Depth and Balance In Class, if educational technology is used correctly, it can give new meaning and utility to long-established educational paradigms like Bloom's Taxonomy and the theory of Multiple Intelligences (Kuhn, 2008). This allows us to build upon solid, research-based theories and encourages the advancing 21st-century students to become more literate and capable in a technologically advanced world. As a classroom teacher, I need to continue to search for opportunities to ask students to perform more complex tasks. As I have moved into the AP curriculum, this has come more naturally, and the students who are enrolled in these AP classes respond better to complex challenges. As an instructional leader, I need to push students and educators to seek complex challenges, which can be accommodating to those of multiple intelligences, while also pushing each student to do their best. Digital literacy is a key component to success in education. We cannot afford to be illiterate in digital media, because it is here to stay.

References 

Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning. London: Pearson. Retrieved from https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/Files/about-pearson/innovation/open-ideas/ARichSeamEnglish.pdf 

Hobbs, R. (2011). Empowering learners with digital and media literacy. Knowledge Quest, 39(5), 12-17. Retrieved from Alabama Search Premiere Database.  

 Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.pdf    

Kuhn, M. S. (2008). Connecting depth and balance in class. Learning & Leading with Technology, 36(1), 18-21. Retrieved from Academic Search  

Rogers, E. M. (1963). The adoption process II. Journal of Cooperative Extension, 1(2), 69-75. Retrieved from https://archives.joe.org/joe/1963summer/1963-2-a2.pdf