Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in Government, Economics, and Contemporary World Issues. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press This book is part of the Greenwood Professional Guides in School Librarianship Series. Other titles in the series discuss using primary sources to teach critical thinking skills in history, geography, the sciences, world languages, and mathematics. The book is arranged into three parts. Part I presents an overview of critical thinking and discusses how critical thinking pertains to the social sciences. Part II defines primary sources and provides instructional strategies for using primary source documents in the classroom. Part III identifies 118 web sites containing primary source documents. Each site description contains an abstract of the site, a set of questions and activities designed to promote critical thinking skills, and a list of other related sites. Since teaching with technology, incorporating active learning techniques, and developing students' critical thinking skills are goals for many teachers today, a book providing practical suggestions for accomplishing these ambitious goals could prove extremely valuable. The first two sections provide a thoughtful framework and fairly lengthy bibliographies, and the third section provides specific suggestions for what sites to use. Overall, the book includes a nice balance of the theoretical and the practical. The authors are realistic about possible pitfalls involved in using Internet resources, and they discourage having students engage in activities requiring extensive surfing. Instead, they suggest directing students to primary sources that the teacher, with the help of this book, has identified. | |
|
