Build success beyond the classroom: Critical thinking and assessment

Christina Cavage
A group of children stood at a table with their teacher watching her write something down on paper
Reading time: 4 minutes

There are some common myths related to critical thinking and assessment. Many people believe that it’s impossible to assess critical thinking, especially in classes where language is limited. However, it can be done! Here, the key to success is crafting tasks and rubrics that allow you to separate language skills and cognitive skills. After all, a low language level doesn’t necessarily reflect your student’s ability to think critically.

So, how can we measure how a student knows rather than just what they know?

How to measure critical thinking

Well, we first have to consider two types of assessment—formal and informal. Formal assessments tend to happen at the end of a task, lesson or skill-building activity and usually focus on the work the student has produced. Then, we have informal assessments. Those are the assessments that involve on-the-spot interactions. These types of assessments play a crucial role in measuring critical thinking.

Tips for teaching and assessing critical thinking
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Formal assessment

There is a common misconception that assessment should only focus on the final work that your students produce. The final ‘product’ is undeniably important and often an ideal measure of linguistic abilities. But the process of producing the final work is where you can see your students’ critical thinking skills in action.

When designing rubrics to measure both language and critical thinking, make sure that you only focus on one at a time—either language or critical thinking. Keeping these different skills in mind will help you to differentiate language skills and critical thinking skills, and evaluate them separately, when it comes to formal assessment.

When measuring language skills, use Bloom’s early or foundational cognitive domains as a model:

If we measure these items, we are really measuring language skills. For example, with a reading activity, we might ask the following questions:

  • Who is the story about?
  • Where does the story take place?
  • What is the main idea of the story?

Can they understand the overall organization and the key vocabulary? These types of questions assess a student’s linguistic ability.

Then, when it comes to critical thinking, the more advanced levels of Bloom’s cognitive domains provide a useful guide:

These types of questions assess a student’s metacognition or critical thinking:

  • Which character is most important to the story?
  • Why?
  • Do you agree or disagree with the character’s actions?
  • Why or why not?

The clear separation of language and critical thinking in assessment will help you to get a measure of each student’s progress in both skills.

Informal assessment

What about those informal assessments? It can be harder to delineate critical thinking and language skills clearly in an on-the-spot assessment.

For example, if you’ve assigned group work, consider keeping a checklist of how students interact with one another. Some checklist items can be:

  • Who made an inference?
  • Who supplied reasoning for another student’s idea?
  • Who made a comparison?
  • Who drew a conclusion?

You can also ask your students to keep a checklist and post these questions on an electronic bulletin board. Like self-assessment, these peer-to-peer assessments can get students reflecting and noticing.

Rubrics can also be useful in informal assessment. Let’s say you’ve asked students to prepare or write an essay. To measure critical thinking, you can look at each student’s ideation process when they’ve been working on their essays:

  • Is a student looking at all possible topics?
  • What are the factors that make a student select the option they did?
  • Are they demonstrating an awareness of other ideas?

The answers to these questions will tell you whether or not your students are thinking critically.

Just like with any other skills, the assessment of critical thinking needs to happen both formally and informally. We need to consider both the process and the final product. And in doing so, we need to carefully design rubrics that differentiate language skills and metacognition.

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    Lesser-known differences between British and American English

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    British and American English are two well-known varieties of the English language. While the accent is often the first difference people notice, there are also subtle distinctions in vocabulary, grammar and even style. Many know about how Brits say boot and lift, while Americans would say trunk and elevator, but what about a few lesser-known differences?

    Here, we take a look at a few of the more obscure differences between British English (BrE) and American English (AmE).

    Note: British English is underlined and American English isÌýitalicized.

    1.ÌýFootballerÌýandÌýfootball player

    Along with the well-known difference of how in the U.S., football refers to American football, while football in Britain is what Americans like me call soccer, Americans also use player after the sport to denote someone who plays the sport. In British English, the sport with an added -er suffix is more common, like footballer and cricketer, not football player or cricket player.

    This is not universal, though. For some sports, the -er suffix is used in both dialects. Both Brits and Americans use the term golfer, not golf player. There are also sports where the -er suffix is never used, like for tennis, cycling and gymnastics. Nobody says tenniser, tennis player is used instead.

    People who cycle are cyclists and people who do gymnastics are gymnasts. Sometimes, badminton players are even called badmintonists. Overall, there aren’t really any concrete rules for what to call each player of a sport. Each sport has its own way of calling someone who participates in that sport.

    2.ÌýI ³¦´Ç³Ü±ô»å²Ô’t care lessÌýandÌýI could care less

    The American version (I could care less) means the same thing. Although technically incorrect, it is still widely used in North America as an idiom and will be interpreted as not caring at all about something. Although popular, both variations can be heard in North America. Regardless, miscommunications do happen surrounding this phrase.

    “I could care less about who Harry Styles is dating right now.â€

    “Oh, I didn’t know you were interested in tabloid news.â€

    “I’m not! I just said I didn’t care about it.â€

    “No, you said that you could care less, meaning that it is possible for you to care less about who he’s dating.â€

    “Ugh! What I mean is that I ³¦´Ç³Ü±ô»å²Ô’t care less. Happy?â€

    3. American simplification

    Both British and American dialects are filled with many minuscule differences in spelling and phrasing. For example, the words plough (BrE) and plow (AmE) mean the same thing, but are spelled differently.

    When two words differ, American English generally favors the simpler, more phonetic spelling. Hey, there’s another one! Favour (BrE) and favor (AmE). It’s apparent in pairs like analyse (BrE) and analyze (AmE), and neighbour (BrE) and neighbor (AmE).

    Many of these small spelling differences can be attributed to Noah Webster, author of Webster’s Dictionary, who sought to distinguish American from British English by simplifying many of the words.

    Some of his simplifications to American English are swapping the s for z, (specialised to specialized), dropping the u in words ending in our, (colour to color), and changing words ending in -tre to -ter (theatre to theater).

    4. Courgette and zucchini

    The history of this vegetable, whatever you may call it, tells us why zucchini is used in American English and courgette is used in British English. If you’ve studied languages, you can probably guess what country each name originated from. England was introduced to this cylinder-shaped vegetable in the 19th century by its French neighbors, while Americans were introduced to it in the early 20th century by the large influx of Italian immigrants.

    The word zucchini is something of a mistranslation from Italian, however. What Americans use (zucchini) is the plural masculine form of the proper Italian word, (zucchino).

    5.ÌýAnticlockwiseÌýand counterclockwise

    These terms mean the same thing, the rotation against the way a clock runs. In British English, this movement would be called anticlockwise, and in the U.S., they use counterclockwise.ÌýThe prefixesÌýanti- andÌýcounter- mean similar things.ÌýAnti- means against, andÌýcounter- means contrary or opposite to.

    You should use antibacterial soap in order to stop the spread of germs.ÌýBuying cheap clothes that only last you a few months is counterproductive in the long term.

    Can you guess how they described this movement before the invention of clocks with hands and circular faces? English speakers this long ago used sunwise. This direction at the time was considered auspicious and the opposite of the other direction.

    6.ÌýHaveÌýand take

    Have and take are used often before nouns like shower, break, bath, rest and nap.ÌýIn the U.S., peopleÌýtakeÌýshowers andÌýtakeÌýnaps, while in the U.K., peopleÌýhaveÌýshowers andÌýhaveÌýnaps. Another example of this is how AmericansÌýtakeÌýa swim and BritsÌýhaveÌýa swim. These are called delexical verbs and we use them all the time in English, both British and American.

    Although often different, both groups of English speakers have arguments, make decisions and take breaks.

    7.ÌýQuite

    This word is spelled the same in both American and British English, but means something different. In the U.S.,ÌýquiteÌýis typically used as an intensifier, like the wordÌývery.ÌýIn the U.K., it’s normally used as a mitigator, like the wordÌýsomewhat.

    It can also mean completely if it modifies certain adjectives. (e.g., It’s quite impossible to learn a language in one month.)

    American English: That Mexican food we had yesterday was quite spicy.

    Translation: That Mexican food we had yesterday was very spicy.

    In British English, quite means something more on the lines of kind of, or a bit.

    British English: Thank you for the meal, it was quite good.

    Translation: Thank you for the meal, it was somewhat good.

    8. Clothing differences

    The category of clothes is one of the richest, with differences between the two English variants.ÌýHow about those pants that people used to only wear at the gym and around the house, but now wear them everywhere?

    Brits call themÌýtracksuit bottomsÌýand Americans call themÌýsweatpants. What about a lightweight jacket that protects from wind and rain?ÌýBrits might call this anÌýanorakÌý(derived from the Greenlandic word), but Americans would call it aÌýwindbreaker. Both variants also useÌýraincoatÌýfor this article of clothing.

    9.ÌýTorchÌýandÌýflashlight

    As an American, I’ve been confused before when coming across the word torch while reading the work of an English author.

    To Americans, a torch is a piece of wood with the end lit on fire for light.ÌýWhat Brits are referring to when they use the wordÌýtorchÌýis aÌýflashlight (AmE), a small, battery-run electric lamp.

    10.Ìý±·±ð±ð»å²Ô’t and don’t need to

    Ah, the English contraction. Many English learners don’t particularly love learning these, but they are an essential and everyday part of the language. ±·±ð±ð»å²Ô’t, however, is one that I don’t think I’ve ever heard another American say.

    In the U.K., this contraction is fairly common. ±·±ð±ð»å²Ô’t, when separated, becomes need not.

    British English: “You needn’t come until Tuesday night.â€

    Americans would say the relatively simpler don’t need to.

    American English: “You don’t need to come until Tuesday night.â€

    Don’t be fooled into thinking British English has necessarily more difficult contractions than the U.S., though. Just come to the American South and prepare to hear famous (or infamous) contractions like y’all (you all) and ain’t (am not, is not, are not)!

    Conclusion

    There are hundreds of differences between British and American dialects, we’re only scratching the surface here.ÌýSome of these make more sense than others, but luckily, both Brits and Americans can usually understand the meaning of any English word through context.

    Some people would even say that Brits speak English while Americans speak American.ÌýAlthough each dialect from across the pond seems very different, they have far more similarities than differences.

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