This book explores the concept of combining effective classroom techniques for teaching students to become good thinkers with effective strategies to engage students in thoughtful learning of the regular elementary school curriculum. The technique of lesson design and instruction that results is called "infusing critical and creative thinking into content instruction." Part one, which explains the lesson plans concept and designing infusion lessons, also provides reproducible lesson plan forms. Part two addresses engaging in complex thinking tasks and provides sample lessons and reproducible materials in the areas of decision making and problem solving. Part three focuses on understanding, retention, and clarifying ideas. This section provides sample lessons and reproducible materials on comparing and contrasting, classification, determining parts and whole relationships, sequencing, finding reasons and conclusions, and uncovering assumptions. Part four addresses creative thinking and provides sample lessons and reproducible materials on generating possibilities and creating metaphors. Part five focuses on critical thinking and provides sample lessons and reproducible materials on determining the reliability of sources, causal explanations, prediction, generalization, reasoning by analogy, and conditional reasoning. Part six addresses designing and teaching infusion lessons, focusing on instructional methods, the role of metacognition, and selecting contexts for inclusion lessons. (SD)

This book presents an innovative teaching experiment and an analytical study of critical thinking and the sociocultural theory of learning to illustrate the cognitive learning development mechanisms. It addresses the issues in developing critical thinking, including the controversy surrounding the definition, measurement and teaching of critical thinking, particularly in the L2 context. The book explains how infusion-thinking lessons can be structured to help students develop critical thinking along with language learning. Further, it uses a case study as a real-world example to examine the applicability and feasibility of infusion-thinking lessons in the EFL context and their effectiveness in developing students’ critical thinking and language learning. Packed with thinking activities and techniques, this practical, hands-on manual provides original ideas and empirical data, giving teachers everything they need to plan their lessons to improve students’ critical thinking within language courses and evaluate their teaching.