TED talk comments to enhance critical thinking skills in an undergraduate reading and writing course
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TED talk comments to enhance critical thinking skills in an undergraduate reading and writing course Besma Allagui 1 Received: 5 July 2020 / Accepted: 12 November 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Commenting, liking and reacting on the Internet have become ubiquitous. In almost every online interaction, people have the opportunity to show their approval of comments. It has also become common to express several other feelings such as anger, love, and compassion through emojis. Previous research suggests that “online spaces represent a cultural turn towards new democratic discourse” (Suhr 2014, p.77) requiring readers to be critical thinkers so that they do not fall prey to readily available information. Critical thinking is an indispensable skill to teach to our students today who are also frequent users of online spaces. Unfortunately, there is little research on how “liking” a comment can be used to promote critical thinking and deep learning. This article discusses the use of a simple guided critique of online comments to encourage students to think critically about what they are reading or viewing. Data included students’ written analyses of comments posted in response to a TED talk, students’ pretest and posttest critical thinking performance scores, and students’ answers about the effectiveness of the analysis activity. Findings demonstrated that students applied four criteria to judge the plausibility of online comments (informativeness, consistency with prior belief and current context, objectivity, and format/ appropriateness). Pretest and posttest comparison showed that evaluating online comments provided students with several alternatives to consider which had a positive impact on their critical thinking skills. Using comment sections is a promising instructional tool to improve critical thinking skills. Keywords Critical thinking . Online comments . TED talk . Writing performance
* Besma Allagui [email protected]
1
General Education and Foundation Department, Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Education and Information Technologies
1 Introduction The development of critical thinking is considered one of the most important goals of writing teachers. Students who can think critically can write better arguments to develop a final conclusion. Composition scholars have traditionally associated writing with critical thinking. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1987) argue that writing is basically the process of thinking, inferring, evaluating and revisiting rather than a product of memorized information. Writing is also a vehicle of thought. McKeachie et al. (1994) suggest that critical thinking requires reflection and expressing thoughts through writing. With the growth in Web 2.0 technologies, writing has become increasingly social and interactive. It has become very common for instructors to encourage students to use social network channels such as Facebook or Twitter in the classroom. As instructional tools, they can be beneficial to studen
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