Professors sometimes discuss pedagogical decisions such as if to emphasize students acquiring content knowledge versus developing critical thinking skills within the discipline. Almost all professors emphasize the latter, but I’m wondering if this “tradeoff” is genuine or if this may be a false dichotomy? Moreover, conceptual knowledge and critical thinking might even build one another. Students with more developed critical thinking consider more deeply the concepts from class and this greater depth of processing may lead to greater knowledge. I teach Introductory Psychology (a course packed with a considerable “canon” of knowledge). I wonder if it is this overwhelmingly large body of knowledge - explored and debated from many perspectives with the same themes arising - is a catalyst to further critical thinking. Listening to National Public Radio several weeks ago, I heard discussion of France teaching school children content knowledge or emphasizing building reading skills. The researchers seemed to conclude it was actually acquiring content knowledge that led to better reading comprehension skills. A similar conclusion I have unfortunately been unable to locate a scholarly source to review. What do you think? Is it conceptual knowledge versus critical thinking, or do knowledge and thinking building each other? Do you know of evidence supporting either conclusion, or another?
This is an issue that is always worth discussing. Especially if you have worked not only for a few years, but for many decades in academic teaching and research. Then one witnessed the ruptures that caused new directions of thought and research, on the one hand as "unwelcome disturbance" of the existing equilibrium of teaching traditions, on the other hand as time went by in the process of normalization and historicization. If I look back only on the American traditions: in 1898 the popularization of pragmatism by William James, written by C.S. Peirce, in 1913 Watson's essay on "Behaviorism", in the 1930s the influence of European especially German emigrants (flown before Hitler), which increased the influence of logical empiricism, in the late 1950s the emergence of humanistic psychology by Carl R., and in the early 1950s the emergence of the humanistic psychology by Carl R., which was the subject of the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book, the "American" book. Rogers - these are only a few well-known examples of new developments which initially led to heated discussions, levelled off and finally became historical in the textbooks.
in addition: The critical social discourse inspired by neo-Marxism also plays a role here - in Germany and France much more so than in the USA. On the other hand, the analytical tradition had a hard time asserting itself. Today one takes something from everyone. An all other outstanding line of thought is not visible.
The problem of the mass of knowledge that needs to be conveyed is probably not related to the nature of the research concepts, but simply because one has to know an infinite number of research findings in order to gain a differentiated judgment.
On being a dichotomy, there are a lot of labels given to different types of cognitive tasks (call these knowledge or memory types if you want, or 21st century skills, or whatever, the labels are more for consultants). While there may be mainly two processing methods (i.e., the dual process theories), it might be useful to think of student learning in a more nuanced manner. That said, it is important to recognize that different types of information have different typical learning trajectories (e.g., https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-14586-001) and some types build on others. On versus, they are not in opposition (e.g., there is content in teaching so-called 21st skills, similar to how lots of the learning to read material in primary school is about content). It is not a zero sum game, but stressing one too much could affect the others. And there are individual differences in how we learn.
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