SELS Dialogues Journal Volume 3 Issue 1

Pedagogy and Critical Thinking
With practice, the formula helps students to develop
their intellectual tools and writing skills. It also helps
students to verify the effectiveness of their answers.
It has also helped me with evaluating students’ learning
as my focus has shifted from fixing fragments and
run-on sentences to assessing students’ critical
thinking skills.
Modelling critical thinking in action
Modelling how the formula is used helps students
experience critical thinking in action. The following
example is based on the reading, “How to Get Happily
Married” (McKinnell, 2010) – also featured in
COMM160’s textbook The Canadian Writer’s Workplace
by Lipschutz et al., 2021.
The example answers the question: What is the main
idea of the reading? The numbers in superscript signify
the steps in the formula 1-2-3, which are the criteria for
answering the question:
References
Aponte-de-Hanna, C. (2022, June 20). Critical Thinking As Easy as
1-2-3. TESL Ontario. https://blog.teslontario.org/critical-thinkingskills-as-easy-as-1-2-3/
Critical Thinking Consortium. (n.d). Developing intellectual tools for
thinking critically [PDF]. https://tc2.ca/pdf/About%20Critical%20
Thinking/Online%20Articles/Understanding%20Critical%20
Thinking/Introduction%20to%20the%20TC2%20Conception%20
w_%20new%20copyright.pdf
James, U. (2023. February 1). Teaching and Assessing Critical
Thinking [PowerPoint Presentation]. Critical Thinking in Education
Symposium, Centennial College, Scarborough, ON., Canada.
Lipschutz, G., Scarry, S., and Scarry, J. (2021). The Canadian writer’s
workplace (9th ed.). Cengage.
McKinnell, J. (2010, June 7). How to get happily married. MacLean’s.
https://www.macleans.ca/culture/how-to-get-happily-married/
The main idea [of “How to Get Happily Married”] is that
women in their twenties can truly have a happy marriage
if they follow a set of steps that can help them to
become independent and confident. (1) To support this
idea, the author lists 9 steps that stress the importance
of self-efficacy as the key to a woman’s happy marriage.
(2) This focus on a woman’s independence along with
the repeated use of the words happiness and marriage
helps the reader to arrive at the main idea. (3) (Apontede-Hanna,
2022).
Next steps
In her keynote speech at Centennial College’s Critical
Thinking in Education Symposium, James left us with a
critical challenge:
“How might we develop a thoughtful, cohesive and
impactful approach to nurturing critical thinking among
all members of our educational communities?”
With the publication of this SELS Journal and the
conversations spearheaded by our Dean, Dr. Meera
Mather, along with the work from SELS Chairs and
faculty, I feel that we are on the right path. Challenges
such as disruptive technology can be resolved as long
as we find a common approach.
Author’s Bio
Cecilia (M.A. Applied Linguistics, OCT, OCLT,
ICTEAL) is a faculty member in the School
of English and Liberal Studies, English
Department. In addition to teaching a variety
of COMM courses, Cecilia is the course
coordinator for College Communications 1
(COMM 160) and SELS faculty representative
in the College Council. Outside the college,
Cecilia is a regular blogger of TESL Ontario,
where she also serves as Vice-Chair of the
Board of Directors.
SELS DIALOGUES | 15