When considering how teaching can improve the student learning experience, educators should promote data informed instruction. Data informed instruction means that educators use data to provide vital context before making their own judgment calls based on experience, pedagogical understanding, and relationships with other peers and learners.

In addition, educators should pair this approach with robust critical-thinking skills. Teaching learners to adopt a critical, inquisitive eye not only benefits them on assessments; it also boosts their engagement and self-esteem. According to Redbridge executive head teacher Dr. Kulvarn Atwal, “We cannot expect students to develop critical-thinking skills if we aren’t modeling those thinking skills for them.”

To best do that? First, review any provided files - including IEP documents or a 504 plan - that you might have for students. Not only will these materials provide data into how your students learn, but they also contain vital resources that can benefit a student’s social-emotional health.

Emphasize rational and scientific thinking in your instructions. Logic and reasoning are the cornerstones of critical-thinking skills. You might encourage students to read an isolated passage and then have them deduce what happens “outside” the text using context clues; you could study how different news sources cover the same subject in order to better understand media biases.

Encourage brainstorming and collaboration. As students think about an assignment or prompt before beginning it, they access higher-level engagement wherein they get to make sense of the work on their own terms. Furthermore, if paired with group work, students receive the benefit of other perspectives and learn how to navigate differing viewpoints and agendas.

Assign multiple formative and summative assessments throughout the school year. That way, students get the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge in different ways, and educators can cull valuable student data from their performance on these assessments.

Make time for reflection. Ask your students about their processes: what specific challenges did they encounter, and how did their individual - or group! - approaches handle those challenges? These metacognitive questions encourage learning as a continual process, one that thrives off self-analysis by having learners turn their critical-thinking lenses back on themselves.

Additional Resources:

If you are looking for additional help on balancing critical thinking with data-informed instruction, remember this quick list:

• Review any provided files
• Emphasize rational and scientific thinking in your instructions
• Encourage brainstorming and collaboration
• Assign multiple formative and summative assessments throughout the school year
• Make time for reflection

And check out the following resources:

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Facilitating Teacher Use of Student Data to Inform Classroom Instruction
• Critical Thinking
• Teaching critical thinking: An evidence-based guide
• A Focus on Critical Thinking