The Five-Step Model of Critical Thinking
Five steps for teaching critical thinking
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 | Determine goals; define behaviours/skills; target them |
| 2 | Learn through specific questions; develop questions; discuss with colleagues |
| 3 | Practise before assessment; choose active learning activities |
| 4 | Review, refine, and improve; monitor and gather feedback |
| 5 | Gather and use feedback for self-assessment and to improve instruction |
Underlying commitment
Implementing critical thinking through this framework requires a commitment to active learning, which may initially be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for teachers used to lecture-based delivery.
A teacher who wants her students to think critically, and not only to recognise critical thinking when they see it, needs a framework for teaching the skill. The five-step model lays out a practical sequence. Set goals, ask questions, practise, review, and use the feedback to improve. The model fits a term-long unit or a single lesson, depending on how it is sized.
Step 1: Determine goals
The first step is to decide what the teaching is aiming for.
This involves three sub-steps:
- Determine goals and objectives. What does critical thinking look like at the end of the unit?
- Define the behaviours and skills students need to exhibit. What specifically will a student who has learned this be able to do?
- Target those behaviours. Choose one or two as the focus.
The work in step 1 is choosing. A teacher who tries to apply all sixteen techniques for critical thinking at once teaches none of them well. A teacher who picks “identify assumptions” and “consider others’ points of view” for a term has a chance of making both into habits.
The behaviours have to be specific enough that a student or an outside observer could tell whether they were happening. “Think more critically” is too vague. “When given a claim, ask what assumptions it rests on and what evidence supports it” is concrete.
Step 2: Learn through specific questions
The second step is to develop questions that drive the learning.
This involves:
- Learning through seeking answers to specific questions. The teacher and students work on real questions, not abstract ones.
- Developing appropriate questions. The teacher designs questions that genuinely require critical thinking, not just recall.
- Engaging in discussion with colleagues. The teacher does her own critical thinking work alongside teaching the students.
The third sub-step is often skipped. A teacher who teaches critical thinking but does not practise it with peers tends to teach a flatter version of the skill than one who has a working group of colleagues she discusses with.
The questions matter. A question like “what is the right answer to this problem?” can be answered with recall. A question like “what assumptions is this claim resting on, and which would have to be true for it to hold?” requires critical thinking. The teacher’s question design is part of what teaches the skill.
Step 3: Practise before assessment
The third step is to give students practice before any high-stakes assessment.
This involves:
- Practising before you assess. Students need low-stakes opportunities to try the skill, get feedback, and try again, before grades are at stake.
- Choosing activities that promote active learning. Lectures alone do not build critical thinking; students have to do the work.
- Using all the components of active learning. Discussion, problem-solving, writing, and revision all play a role.
Active learning is the heart of step 3. A teacher who lectures about critical thinking for an hour and then assesses students has not given them the practice the skill requires. A teacher who runs activities in which students apply critical thinking to real claims and get feedback as they go has.
The model notes that this commitment to active learning may initially be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for teachers used to lecture-based delivery. The discomfort is normal. It does not mean the approach is wrong.
Step 4: Review, refine, improve
The fourth step is the teacher’s reflective work.
This involves:
- Reviewing, refining, and improving. The teacher takes the unit’s progress and makes adjustments.
- Monitoring activities in the classroom. What is happening as students try the skill? Where do they get stuck?
- Collecting feedback from students and others. What are students reporting about the activities? What do colleagues observing the class notice?
This is where the teacher’s own reflective practice meets the teaching of critical thinking. The feedback collected here feeds the next round of step 1 (goals) and step 2 (questions). The model is iterative.
A teacher who runs the unit once and never revisits her design teaches the same unit forever. A teacher who reviews and refines after each run improves the unit each year.
Step 5: Gather and use feedback
The fifth step is closing the loop.
This involves:
- Gathering and reviewing feedback and assessment of learning. What did the students actually learn?
- Reviewing feedback. Reading carefully, looking for patterns.
- Creating opportunities for self-assessment. Students assess their own development as critical thinkers.
- Using feedback to improve instruction. The teacher’s next iteration of the unit is shaped by what was learned.
Self-assessment is worth attention. Critical thinking includes the ability to monitor one’s own thinking. A unit that does not give students practice at self-assessment teaches the skill incompletely.
Self-assessment by students and explicit use of feedback to change instruction
Step 4 is the teacher’s review of how the unit is going. Step 5 gathers the formal feedback at the end and uses it. It also brings in self-assessment, where students examine their own development as critical thinkers. Without this step, the unit ends with the teacher’s view of what was learned but without the students’ practice at evaluating their own thinking.
A worked example: a B.Ed. unit on assumptions
A teacher designs a four-week unit on identifying assumptions in educational claims.
Step 1
Goal: by the end of the unit, students can read a claim about teaching and name two assumptions it rests on. Behaviour targeted: assumption identification.
Step 2
Question developed: “When you read ‘Pakistani students are passive in class,’ what assumptions does this claim rest on, and what evidence would test each assumption?”
Step 3
Activities: students read three short articles, work in pairs to identify assumptions in each, present their analyses, get feedback from peers and teacher. Low-stakes for the first three weeks.
Step 4
Review: the teacher notices in week 2 that students are identifying surface assumptions but missing deeper ones. She adjusts the prompts in week 3 to push for deeper analysis.
Step 5
End-of-unit feedback shows students improved at surface assumption-identification but were still working on deeper analysis. The teacher’s next iteration of the unit will start with a sharper exemplar and more practice on deeper levels. Students reflect on their own progress and name what they want to develop next.
Why the model fits critical thinking specifically
Several features of the model fit the nature of critical thinking.
It requires active practice
Critical thinking is a skill, not a body of knowledge. Skills are built through practice, not through being told about them. Step 3 makes this explicit.
It requires iteration
Critical thinking improves through repeated practice with feedback. Steps 4 and 5 build the feedback loop into the model.
It requires the teacher’s own practice
A teacher who is not herself thinking critically while teaching critical thinking produces a flat version of the skill. Step 2 includes the teacher’s own discussion with colleagues, which keeps her practice alive.
It is a teaching framework, not only a thinking framework
The other frameworks in this chapter describe how to think critically. The five-step model describes how to teach it. The two are complementary.