Using technology to teach critical thinking skills

Results from the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) set off alarm bells when they revealed that US high school students lacked critical thinking skills. The test, designed to measure the capacity for 15-year-old students to apply reading, mathematics, and science knowledge to real-world settings, found that American students ranked 31st in math, 24th in science, and 21st in reading, in a comparison with students from 65 other countries. These findings indicated that American students not only struggle to recall rote procedures and facts, but they also had trouble analyzing, reasoning, and communicating effectively as they solved or interpreted problems.