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Critical Thinking and Information Retrieval

It is essential that students practice conducting logical, strategic information searches and use established criteria to evaluate the wide range of sources they retrieve. Our staff has agreed to use a questioning technique called the Five Habits of Mind to help students become critical thinkers.

Habits of Mind
Students are expected to critically view material retrieved from various sources. They are taught to question:

•Viewpoint

From whose viewpoint are we seeing, reading or hearing? From what angle or perspective?

•Evidence

How do we know what we know? What's the evidence and how reliable is it?

•Relevance

What does it matter?
What does it all mean?
So what?


•Connection

How are things, events or people connected to each other?
What is the cause and what is the effect?
How do they "fit" together?


•Supposition

What if...?
Could things be otherwise?
What are or were the alternatives?

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