Papers by Luis Fernando Santos Meneses
Thinking Skills and Creativity, 2023
The aim of the present literature review is to provide a glimpse of how CT instruction has been c... more The aim of the present literature review is to provide a glimpse of how CT instruction has been conducted in 21st-century research and practice and its potential pathways of development in the digital world. Critical thinking (CT) has become a crucial competence in 21st-century society. Prior research and renowned experts have recommended explicit CT instruction to impact students' CT effectively. However, these voices have had little influence in practice. Empirical studies on instructional interventions in the field of CT have been increasing, showing little discrepancy regarding effective practices for CT instruction, which mostly refer to active learning and student-centered methods. Specifically, dialogue-based activities, authentic instruction, mentoring, and individual learning (Abrami et al., 2015). However, there are gaps that CT instruction still leaves in research and practice. Important facets of the concept are neglected, which include synthesis/creativity, dispositions, and ethical and civic dimensions. Modern society poses challenges and demands calling for these, and a broader perspective of CT along with new technologies applied to instruction can contribute to meeting them. Accordingly, online learning environments emerge as a novel and powerful means of CT instruction in this digital era. New directions in CT instruction in the digital ecosystem are discussed.
Thinking Skills and Creativity, 2023
Critical thinking (CT) is increasingly recognized in higher education and industry as an importan... more Critical thinking (CT) is increasingly recognized in higher education and industry as an important set of skills and dispositions that citizens should possess in 21st-century society. Particularly, CT is nowadays overwhelmingly required in industry since it determines how well workers will perform their tasks or solve work-related problems. Nevertheless, there is a significant mismatch between the demand for CT and its supply, with higher education failing to meet the latter. Open courses outside formal education may contribute to bridging this gap. When it comes to adult learners in the non-formal education context, CT teaching and learning differ from other traditional settings and audiences, and the field is underexplored. This literature review aimed at synthesizing criteria to promote CT in the context of adult education focusing on problem-based learning (PBL) and e-learning. Two leading principles play a central role in a CT development model in adult education: intrinsic motivation (inner condition) and learning flexibility (outer condition). The former concerns the learner, while the latter concerns the learning arrangement. Although self-learning is an important alternative, which has been widely practiced in adult learning, collaborative learning cannot be dismissed for effective CT development in adults. Interestingly, ill-structured problems in the frame of an integrative PBL approach seem promising for successful systematic endeavors to unlock adults’ CT potentialities, inside or outside the formal education system. And online learning can assist with this goal in particular ways. Implications for CT teaching, learning, and course design in adult education are discussed.
The use of TED talks in EAP has gained popularity in recent years and they are promoted through c... more The use of TED talks in EAP has gained popularity in recent years and they are promoted through coursebooks as a means of simultaneously developing listening and critical thinking skills. However, a traditional comprehension approach to teaching listening; one that focuses on testing lower-order thinking skills through discrete questions may be inadequate as a gateway into a critical consideration of broader issues for second language learners. With the practical purpose of developing a teaching approach to using TED talks informed by current theory, the chapter begins with a consideration of how critical thinking processes and top-down and bottom-up listening processes can be integrated into a singular model. Based on this framework, a genre analysis of the TED talk is made by taking a learner"s perspective in order to identify cognitive and affective barriers to listening that may restrict opportunities for critical thinking. In the discussion that follows, five activities are suggested for use with TED talks in listening classes that support top-down and bottom-up listening processes, and which set students up to analyse and evaluate the thesis and underlying structure of a TED talk,
Critical Thinking and Language Learning, 2021
“Fairminded critical thinking” (FCT) is an alternative to traditional critical thinking conceptio... more “Fairminded critical thinking” (FCT) is an alternative to traditional critical thinking conceptions as it places greater emphasis on ethical reasoning. Argumentative writing can provide a means to observe and cultivate such thinking qualities. This study introduces a non-linear instructional model to teach FCT, and through a small-scale intervention, explores its potential for developing four FCT intellectual standards in argumentative writing (intellectual accuracy, depth, breadth, and logic) with a group of Chinese university English (EFL) users. Adopting a one-group, pretest-posttest exploratory design, writing samples were assessed with a locally created rubric tool which was also triangulated through an adapted content analysis. Overall, pretest writing samples showed that some thinking skills had already been developed, yet there was a tendency toward one-sided argumentation and the use of informal evidence to justify claims, frequently culminating in a persuasive defense of one position. On the posttest, logic was the only intellectual standard that showed a more noticeable improvement, potentially attributed to the teaching model, representing development of a more moderated, multi-sided articulation of logic. These findings provide impetus for a discussion of how FCT can be further taught and assessed. Theoretical and methodological implications of FCT as a non-traditional approach to critical thinking and argumentation are discussed.
Thinking Skills and Creativity, 2021
21st-century society is facing a crisis of truth. Digital media lends itself to this by allowing ... more 21st-century society is facing a crisis of truth. Digital media lends itself to this by allowing the dissemination of almost unlimited quantities of unverified content. This threatens the development of accurate thinking along with the decision-making process in critical situations. Learning how to evaluate online information is thus vital in such scenarios. Much has been done in this regard, including explanations of criteria for evaluating information. However, some criteria may require explicitness. Critical thinking (CT) dispositions also need to be addressed more emphatically in the online content evaluation process. This study attempted to address both aspects theoretically in the context of controversial issues on the Web. Evaluating controversial content requires rigorous standards beyond the widely agreed criteria involving authorship, meaning criteria related to content production (systematicity) and its validation or corroboration (scrutiny). Consequently, four evaluation criteria were proposed, namely, author position, author motivation, systematicity, and independent scrutiny, which require the identification and practice of specific evaluation skills, basic knowledge, and fundamentally, key CT dispositions. Both the skills and dispositions are discussed around a general framework introduced in this study with educational implications for the evaluation of controversial content online and beyond.
Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics, Apr 2021
Songs and chants in EFL education are both artistic and pedagogical acts belonging to the same fa... more Songs and chants in EFL education are both artistic and pedagogical acts belonging to the same family of musical expressions, whose practical use in the classroom is not unfamiliar among teachers. Nevertheless, little effort has been made to distinguish between each other. In this sense, the popularity of songs in the context of EFL/ESL education is well-manifested in research, especially in the context of young learners' teaching, yet little has been said regarding chants on formal studies. The nature of chants entails a less complex musical composition, which lends itself to favoring language development both receptively and productively. While both singing and chanting as pedagogical resources are found positive in learning a new language in aspects such as phonological awareness, pronunciation, word retrieval, and other linguistic functions; it seems that chanting works exceptionally well for stimulating young learners' vocabulary retention, which is a capacity associated with longterm memory. The ease and novelty of conveying language in an unconventional fashion allowed by chanting, afford for simplified and fun repetitions and production of the target language, which may represent the virtues responsible for its positive impact on the young learners' vocabulary learning. Practical recommendations for composing chants and guiding teaching activities based on them are explained.
Thinkings Skills and Creativity, 2019
Conceptions of critical thinking (CT) are influenced by cultural and sociopolitical factors that ... more Conceptions of critical thinking (CT) are influenced by cultural and sociopolitical factors that give rise to a variety of views of CT across contexts. Rethinking conceptions of CT according to context is thus important in order to design teaching models that respond to sociocultural particularities and needs as well as to global demands. Existing conceptualizations of CT include cognitive, metacognitive, emotional, attitudinal, ethical, and sociopolitical dimensions that have shaped various approaches adopted in the curriculum. The skills–dispositions perspective to CT is dominant across contexts, but emerging perspectives and approaches include less recognized dimensions, such as civic, ethical, and cultural ones. Neglecting these leads to negative consequences in the fight for social justice since a comprehensive view of CT entails ethical reasoning, social awareness, and a deep concern for the public good leading to action. A comprehensive, culturally sensitive model of CT should include, at least, intellectual skills, dispositions, and ethical and civic dimensions.
La cultura de la investigación en la Universidad es uno de los indicadores fundamentales que marc... more La cultura de la investigación en la Universidad es uno de los indicadores fundamentales que marcan en cierta medida su nivel académico. No se puede hablar de universidad sin investigación ya que ésta es la esencia de la Academia. La cultura de la investigación en la Universidad está representada por el quehacer investigativo desplegado por sus actores, esencialmente docentes, estudiantes y autoridades. Los productos investigativos generados por los actores de la academia, tales como publicaciones de artículos, libros, investigaciones con carácter científico-académico, son indicativos de cuanta investigación se hace en la universidad. Así, la medida o volumen de estos productos, evidencian el nivel o tipo de cultura investigativa de un centro educativo, que en el caso del que se tomó para este estudio, es aún mínimo. Este trabajo evidencia también otros indicadores del nivel cultural en cuanto a investigación, dentro de los cuales se encuentran aspectos técnicos básicos relativos a desarrollo de investigaciones documentales o bibliográficas por parte de estudiantes y docentes, en lo que se encontraron ciertas fortalezas, no obstante, profundas debilidades. PALAbrAs cLAvE: cultura de la investigación; producción; productos; indicadores; indicativos The research culture at the University is one of the key indicators that mark somehow its academic level. You can not talk about University without research, since it is the essence of the Academy. culture research at the University is shown by the work of research deployed by actors, essentially-teachers, students and authorities. The research products generated by the actors from academia, such as publication of articles, books and scientist-academic research, are indicatives of how much research is done at a University. Thus, the extent or volume of these products show the level or type of research culture of an educative center that in the case of the one took into consideration in this study, is still minimal. This work also shows other indicators of the cultural level in research, in which we find basic technical aspects related to the development of documentary or bibliographic research by students and professors that show certain strengths, however, serious weaknesses.
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Papers by Luis Fernando Santos Meneses