Transform Your Teaching

What does it mean to “think critically?” What role does developing critical thinking play in developing AI literacy? Why is it so important to train students to apply critical thinking to AI outputs? Join Rob and Jared as they discuss the importance of critical thinking. 
  
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What is Transform Your Teaching?

The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.

Narrator:

This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.

Ryan:

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles focus in on critical thinking as part of our series on AI literacy. Thanks for joining us.

Jared:

So Rob, we are continuing our series on AI literacy and we just finished talking with a bunch of really cool industry, people who have over and over again echoed to us the need for AI literacy in our graduates as they come through higher education. Yeah. And this episode is really going to kind of explain a bit of how we see AI literacy being delivered or taught in the best way. At least I think anyway, or at least maybe not the best way.

Jared:

Maybe this is like the best method to approach AI literacy. And maybe you can correct me if it sounds if I'm kind of not really hitting the right words for it. But we're we really wanna talk about critical thinking and the need of it.

Rob:

Yeah. I mean, it's really talking about where does the human side of things, where's human responsibility in the use of this tool, especially as it comes to AI literacy intersect with our educational experience, especially training students. And here at Cedarville, it's for us, it's for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ. I like to break that up into word, wisdom, and witness. And for me, we're talking today about the wisdom part and specifically, how do you know?

Rob:

I mean, because critical thinking has everything to do with not just accepting what comes, i.e., the outputs that we see coming from AI. Mhmm. Right?

Jared:

Yep.

Rob:

But being able to evaluate it as to whether it's true or not.

Jared:

And this is something that's isn't new No. By by all stretch of the imagination. I mean, when you think about critical thinking, the first time that it really kind of that I wanted to emphasize it as an educator was when I taught high school and we were looking into student usage of social media. And we were seeing how with the growth of social media, it seemed like people lacked the ability to look at something they saw that was posted and critically evaluate it on whether it was true or not.

Rob:

Right.

Jared:

Yeah. So you would see that. And of course, it happens before that too. You think about the old what was the name? Maybe you remember this.

Jared:

Back one of the first early websites that taught about the importance of critical reading and critically evaluating sources. There was a website that involved like some sort of monster or some sort of event that a lot of English teachers would use to, and maybe this exists only within the realm of English education and K 12, but it was a website commonly used that it looked legit. But then if you actually critically looked at it, you're like, this is completely bogus. Yeah. And a lot of English teachers would use it as a way of showing students the importance of critical thinking.

Rob:

Evaluating your sources.

Jared:

Yeah. Right. And there's all different methods of doing that. But we see this critical thinking now in almost the same aspects as we talk about generative AI outputs.

Rob:

Yeah. It's been on it's been on the educational landscape for quite some time. I remember as as educational leaders, just in the public sector, but in the private sector as well, there was just a really big movement towards twenty first century skills. Yeah. I know if you remember that and critical thinking was one of the largest.

Jared:

My favorite's that it's twenty six years into the twenty first century, and we're still talking about twenty first century skills.

Rob:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so critical thinking, I don't disagree. The I think the challenge is what do we mean by it?

Rob:

Yeah. Right. And having to understand how you do that. And honestly, and this is going to sound maybe laborious and pedantic to most who are listening, but it really is a philosophical exercise. Critical thinking stems from understanding philosophy and ultimately, the ultimate questions, not just around knowledge, but around God, around anthropology, what it means to exist, how did this world come into being.

Rob:

And so you're asking these questions, and the problems that we're seeing is that people are readily accepting probably these systems as authorities because that is one of the sources of knowledge Mhmm. Is authority. Yep. And we're allowing these these LLMs to become our authorities.

Jared:

Right.

Rob:

And it happens so quickly, and I think it's probably the way God designed us. I mean, we are to be dependent on him, and we're always looking for a leader as well. I mean, you you can see that taking responsibility for ourselves and our own thinking is probably too difficult. And like water, we're always looking for the lowest easiest route to go. Oh, yeah.

Rob:

So why think about it myself? Because it hurts my brain. I'll give it to I'll just depend on, you know, Jared. He's a smart guy.

Jared:

Oh, yeah. Totally.

Rob:

Dr Pyles will will lead me in the right direction. He will never

Jared:

I'll lead you in a direction. He will never let me down. Right? He's the authority. And and I think therein lies the issue is that when you take something like OpenAI or Anthropic or Gemini or any of these computer systems that can legitimately return or output answers to problems that are clearly valid, like most of us would say, we'd look at it, evaluate it, and say, it's 90 some percent valid. That's a whole lot better than just googling

Jared:

Totally.

Jared:

which is what most students were doing.

Rob:

And then I would argue it's probably a whole lot better than getting information from social media

Jared:

Agree.

Rob:

Whether that be Instagram, TikTok, you know, you name it.

Jared:

Right.

Rob:

YouTube. Although there have been a lot of people who've gotten a lot you know, I've fixed my car because of YouTube. Right?

Jared:

Yeah. Totally.

Rob:

You've probably done things like that on YouTube.

Rob:

But usually, you know when it's not right because you go to do something if it if the dude told you something and it's like, yeah. No. I don't have that.

Jared:

Yeah. That's doesn't look like mine.

Rob:

You know, I stopped listening to that. But that's not the case in with LLMs. I think we're gonna find people who are super attached to their chatbots

Jared:

Yeah.

Rob:

Who've turned them into their friends. And that's just yeah.

Rob:

That's that's where you set your brain aside and you attach yourself like I would a friend like you or having a relationship with you or a family member, my wife or you know, there are people who are that deep Yeah. Into some of these conversations. And I think those are the things we've got to put into our AI literacy frameworks where we're saying, you know, you've heard me say this a lot. Like, it is not a person.

Jared:

Yep.

Rob:

Don't speak to it like it is. That's the first step.

Jared:

You wouldn't befriend a wrench. Yes.

Rob:

Most people would like and say, that's probably not good.

Jared:

That wrench is talking to me.

Rob:

No. Pardon me. I'm I'm talking to my coffee cup right now, which some some some might do.

Jared:

Like Sometimes I do talk to my coffee. Please be extra caffeinated today.

Rob:

I think that's part of critical thinking is to question. Yep. Question sources. That's one. Evaluate truth.

Jared:

But everyone says that, and then we need to evaluate truth and we need to verify. But not everyone's doing it. Everyone's like, we need to do this. And I mean, it's happened to me. Like, we've talked about the only way to really recognize, especially with LLMs, you have to know it.

Jared:

You have to use it to know it. And so you'd be able to spot whenever, like, em dashes or the it's not this, it's this kind of a thing.

Rob:

Or hard hard rule lines across the top.

Jared:

Yeah. Exactly.

Rob:

Or separated sections.

Jared:

or green checks and check marks-- all that other stuff.

Jared:

But then you get into audio and video and it becomes like, I've I've fallen prey to several, like, images, especially images. Especially stuff that's related to political stuff that's happening in our nation right now.

Rob:

Yeah.

Jared:

Yeah. And I have to be like, oh, wait a minute. Like, that looks terrible. Then I'm like, wait, hold on. Maybe that's not actually what it so I have to but it's so easy to bite into that, especially when you're not even an authority thing, but it becomes more of a confirmation bias idea where it's like, oh, yeah. That totally aligns.

Rob:

That was the thing.

Jared:

Yeah. I knew that's what happened.

Rob:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jared:

I I can't believe that happened again. You know what I mean? So but it's so I've it's not like we're these exemplars of critical thinking because we're falling victim to it-- At least I am falling victim to it-- as well.

Rob:

I don't I don't disagree with you. But, you know, I think as we move forward, when we talk about AI literacy to get back to that topic, I think we need to develop a healthy mistrust

Jared:

Oh, yeah.

Rob:

Of AI and have algorithms for ourselves personally that goes through and it checks. Because the time you don't check reminds me of the conversation that we had with one of our industry persons who said, I gave somebody a task to do, and they just fed it to ChatGPT Yep. And then gave it back to me

Jared:

Yep.

Rob:

Without evaluating it, without changing it, without actually using their own minds Yeah. And represented it as done. And that individual found themselves without a job. And I think that underscores you know, obviously, a business need, a work need, but also personally, don't just take something and throw it out there as if it's yours. Mhmm.

Rob:

You need to go through a process of checking. And so, you know, we're not gonna get into what does that look like today. We're just surfacing this issue that it really needs to be a part of any AI literacy

Jared:

Right.

Rob:

Piece that anyone has and it needs to be a personal thing. And I think it also probably needs to be well, totally needs to be in higher education and K - 12.

Jared:

I think a lot of, Bloom's, when it comes to this and, you know, we've you and I have talked about the need of like structuring a course. And we've talked about it over and over again on this podcast about the importance of, you know, establishing your course in a way that if you're introducing new material, you want to start with those low levels of Bloom's and define, identify, to make sure you have the strong foundation. And then from there you can then use that, that baseline to then do the higher level evaluate, analyze, compare and contrast, but you need to have that baseline first. I think the same can be true with, generative AI usage. And it plays into the idea of what you just said of the AI literacy and critical thinking.

Jared:

Because if you don't know the base material, how do you know when the output it gives you is accurate or not?

Rob:

Right.

Jared:

The same thing applies. Like, that industry professional saw that and said, "Well, this clearly is wrong." Right?

Jared:

And it would if the person who produced that would have looked at it and said, "No, wait. This is incorrect. This is incorrect," because they had a baseline knowledge of it.

Rob:

Mhmm.

Jared:

I've I've heard other stories of people just writing, drafting emails and not just even like the the cadence or the the terminology or the method in which that it produces those outputs. We talk about the green check marks and all other stuff. But like just being able to critically look at that because you have a baseline knowledge of it. And that's where I think it's important to not really bring in AI, for example, into a classroom until students have that baseline knowledge under their belt so that they can critically evaluate and critically look at the output and go, oh, well, of course, students knock, like if someone were to throw me into a 4,000 level chemical engineering or mechanical engineering course and tell me to do this, I would panic first off and try try to wake up from the nightmare that I was in only because not because I don't like this stuff because I'm so over my head, but I would turn to something that I saw it as authority. It could be Chat GPT.

Jared:

Let's use Chat GPT for the example. And then I'd be spitting out and say, this is what I need to do. Please help me do this. And it would just and I would use that. But I don't have the baseline knowledge to understand that.

Jared:

And I think we our students need to realize and our educators need to realize that if you're gonna bring this into this and expect students to be able to critically evaluate it, they have to have that baseline knowledge set before they can even consider critically evaluating it.

Rob:

Yeah, I think what it comes down to, you know, as we talk about evaluating, right, it's one, even in that, like, if you're going to use a reflexive model here, I would say you could talk about critical thinking, but more than that, you need to think about critical thinking. Like, how does it actually happen? And what are the mechanisms that we use every day intuitively and sometimes we need to stop ourselves

Jared:

Mhmm.

Rob:

Because there are certain pathways that we should go down and we don't. So I think that's understanding, one, the sources of knowledge or where things come from. And, you know, if we can put those in the Mhmm. I can put links to those in the notes, the show notes. I'm I'm not gonna, like, sit here and dissertate on sources of knowledge.

Rob:

But probably the most important part is once you know the sources of knowledge, which there's five, you would then evaluate that knowledge. And so how do you do that? And there's a couple of theories. There's correspondence theory and there's co coherent theory, like does it actually correspond with other things that I know to be true, or does it, you know, or does it, you know, cohere? In other words, does it fit with other things?

Rob:

And so when you're trying to triangulate, usually, you want multiple sources. Yep. So not just authority, but it could be through your own senses, but it also for those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, I would say we would not just us, but there are others who would also use Revelation. Okay? So that would then be another source that we would use.

Rob:

And so all those would need to either cohere or correspond, and you would try to triangulate those things in terms of critical thinking. And if you're falling asleep at the wheel right now as you're listening to this, please wake up. But these are the kinds of processes that nobody wants to talk about. Yeah. But yet they're the processes that are the most important in terms of evaluating AI.

Rob:

Mhmm. And if you don't do them, you do it to your peril. Sometimes your job, but it could be somebody's life. Because these systems are going into health care.

Jared:

Yep.

Rob:

They're going into government. They're they're gonna have real impact on us financially, physically, emotionally.

Jared:

Yeah. And so It's so funny you said that because I just heard from a friend who went to the dentist and they did x rays and they have AI look at the x rays.

Rob:

Yeah.

Jared:

And the the AI found six problem spots, but then the dentist came in to check them and they're like, oh, it's all just shadows. It's not real cavities. So like, that's literally I I read about that ten minutes before we started this. Yeah. So it's right there.

Rob:

You could have had a dentist who was not ethically motivated in a proper way.

Jared:

Yeah. It's true.

Rob:

Thankfully, the person said, you know, hey, no. But just the fact that it's out there means it has to be dealt with. And the reality that people don't understand is you're talking about a dental thing, but I know for a fact that they've been using it in the Ohio systems. Mhmm. Ohio State has a huge huge implementation of AI, like, looking at people's tests.

Jared:

Yeah. Right.

Rob:

And thankfully, the doctors are still trained. But when I talk to the docs, they're telling me, yeah, it's actually getting really good. Yeah. Right. So it is improving and and it is one that I talked to said it actually caught something that they had missed.

Jared:

Right. Even as it gets better though, it's important to keep the human in the loop.

Rob:

We must. Think that's the key here, especially when we're talking about, you know, critical thinking is critical thinking requires a human.

Jared:

Yeah.

Rob:

And you can't take that out of the equation.

Jared:

You can't have

Rob:

You can never

Jared:

Critically think for bot

Rob:

Correct, you can never take that out of the equation.

Jared:

Yeah. To deliver on what I thought what I could remember from earlier, it's the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. It was the website. Save help save the endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus from extinction.

Rob:

I would love to.

Jared:

Yeah. So the guy I mean, there's photos. It's hilarious. But it was used as a way of, like, teaching students the importance of evaluating your sources. But you know who, found it for me was Chat GPT.

Jared:

Because I was like I was like, I know this exists, but I can't remember what it was. And the first thing it said, well, this is it right here. So we'll put a link to it in the show notes

Rob:

And you evaluated the source. You went and found it.

Jared:

I found it. Yeah. And here it is. So I now I trust ChatGPT solely with all of my questions. But I really think, like, it's just important.

Rob:

That's a joke, by the way

Jared:

I don't know if we necessarily have a direct here's how you do this. I think it's more of just to be aware of this and push the idea of critical thinking in in your courses and in your teaching and be aware of it because it's something that's needed and it's something that we're doing less and less of, unfortunately. Right. And you've got things like the fake news mentality. You've got just because I don't agree with it, you've got confirmation bias.

Jared:

You've got all these things that are at play in our heads and we're not immune from it. It's still going to be there. So we need to stop and evaluate and look and double check.

Rob:

That's it right there. It's a a comprehensive looking. It's not assuming. And we all know how quickly you get yourself into trouble when you assume things. Even things you're like, oh, yeah.

Rob:

No. That's the way it it's always been that way. And then all of a sudden, you find out, oh, no. Wait a minute. It hasn't been.

Rob:

So take the time, slow yourself down. And that's the difficulty. It comes so quickly with with AI. Yeah. It comes so quickly that you also feel an urgency to move on.

Jared:

Yeah. The the convenience of it.

Rob:

Yeah. You're like, okay. I got it. I can move on.

Jared:

The rapidity. Yep.

Rob:

And it's like, okay. Stop. Mhmm. You know, maybe we need something like stop, drop, and roll. I I don't know.

Rob:

Oh. But I think you I think talking about it, yes, is most important, but I honestly, it would be like having two power cords in your hand. One has the juice, the other one doesn't. And if you don't put them together, you can't get the tool to work.

Jared:

Yeah.

Rob:

I think saying, oh, I've got critical thinking here in my hand and I've got wisdom over here. You you have to do more than just have them in You your gotta put them together. Yeah. You gotta actually figure out let's not talk about critical thinking. Let's actually figure out what it is and find things to put it in place and train our students to think that way.

Jared:

Yeah. Totally agree, my friend. Now to try to save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus. I mean, this was originally from 1998. So, I mean, this is some good Photoshop.

Jared:

Yeah. I'm sorry. It's not Photoshop. It's real. It's the rare photo of the elusive tree octopus.

Jared:

Enhance from crop telephoto, it says.

Rob:

You heard it here first, folks. No. Wait.

Ryan:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our episode on critical thinking, feel free to reach out to us at ctlpodcast@cedarville.edu. You can also connect with us on LinkedIn, and don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening!