Piaget posits that children over the age of eleven are at a phase where they develop the skills to think hypothetically and abstractly. In terms of Social Sciences, this is an ideal age to help students consider how to think critically about their attitudes and beliefs towards ideological and moral issues.
It seems that Piaget would encourage teachers to guide students through this phase by helping them to take an active role in their learning experiences. No matter how naive or uninformed students ideas and opinions may appear to educated teachers, it is essential for us to use the output they provide in class to give positive, constructive feedback and use relevant examples.
We set out to perfectly align our approach with Piaget’s perspective, and it may be safe to reason that we are appropriately approaching our instruction. Moving forward, we may also want to consider the inflection in our voices, body language, and framing of examples and questions to make sure we are cultivating a non-judgemental and composed learning atmosphere that matches the intentions. Doing so goes hand-in-hand with what Thorndike suggested with his Law of Effect. More information on Thorndike and how his concepts tie into our lessons on the tab labeled Behaviorists.
Critical Thinking in Social Science 