At its heart, the social sciences, which, at Trafalgar, includes humanities courses, are about understanding human society through many different lenses, the events, patterns, behaviours, and discoveries that have made our societies what they are today. They cover a wide range of disciplines, from History and Law to Geography, Anthropology, Psychology, and more, and they require analysis, interpretation, ethical reasoning, critical thinking and more.
Critical thinking is a vital component of these disciplines and one of the core Future-Ready competencies that Trafalgar Castle School incorporates into all of its learning. At Trafalgar, these disciplines enable students to make thoughtful and analytical judgements about the information they receive and to build their own opinions and conclusions about why things are the way they are.
Analyzing source bias and perspective is also fundamental to working in social science, which Trafalgar has its students do on the regular. Building the skills to draw conclusions and interpretations from evidence —historical sources, case studies or interviews — is invaluable to thinking independently and understanding the world beyond the Castle walls. In the real world, Trafalgar students are inundated with information and opinions. Leveraging critical thinking skills will enable them to sift through what they see and hear and draw independent thoughts, conclusions and decisions.
It makes sense that when it comes to using Generative AI (artificial intelligence technology that produces various content in a matter of seconds, such as text, synthetic data, imagery, and audio), Trafalgar Castle School students are encouraged to employ the exact skills they use in the social sciences to ensure they view this technological tool with a clear lens.
“Teaching students how to engage with GenAI actively (rather than passively) is another opportunity for critical thinking because they’re the ones who have to assess the quality of the output and whether it meets their standards,” says Amanda Boyle, Senior School Humanities teacher at Trafalgar Castle School, “Using constructive doubt to consider whether AI really gives the whole picture of a historical event has been an engaging and thoughtful activity for our students.”
For example, when working with GenAI to learn about women’s lives in the 1920s, Trafalgar students questioned whether diverse perspectives were included and if the descriptions AI created reflected the experiences of Indigenous women or women from lower income backgrounds as well as others. This put their critical thinking skills into action as students questioned the dominant narrative and explored missing perspectives using AI.
In the Social Sciences, Boyle sees GenAI as a useful first-draft “study buddy” for students to bounce ideas from, brainstorm, and scaffold their ideas. Boyle believes that for girls, who often think best in conversation, GenAI provides a digital conversation partner that can ask questions to expand their thinking, turning that “I don’t know where to start” slump into a meaningful conversation that gets their brains going. English and Law teacher Bailey Coyle agrees, saying that incorporating GenAI into Social Sciences gives students a one-on-one partner to work with and interview for immediate feedback on the ideas that they’re putting forward. In addition to this, however, leveraging critical thinking and constructive doubt when using GenAI in Social Science enables students to evaluate source bias and how to check the reliability of information.
“I feel Trafalgar Castle School is ahead of the curve when it comes to seeing AI’s value for education and the classroom.” she says, “Teaching students the tools they need to work with AI as a support, but also recognizing its limitations, allows our students to work with AI in an informed manner. Our students use critical thinking to evaluate information, judge its reliability, relevance, and usefulness, and think twice about the information presented. Learning not to trust AI at face value is important for maximizing its use.”
“We show students how limited the ‘thinking’ of AI truly is.” Boyle explains, “When our students use their own critical skills to evaluate the output of GenAI, they recognize AI’s gaps and the confines of its creativity. GenAI can’t come up with anything new, but students can, and that’s what we push them to think about.”
“GenAI is a useful tool as a starting place, but it can’t become the end goal.” Coyle adds, “Using it can be a way to push students beyond their initial ways of thinking by asking them to analyze and provide reasons for their judgement at deeper levels.”
Another benefit of GenAI in the Social Sciences at Trafalgar is its ability to enhance another Future-Ready Competency: collaboration. Coyle says that having GenAI serve as a one-on-one discussion partner allows students to develop and refine their thinking, which helps them build confidence in expressing their ideas within a group setting and contributing in collaborative spaces.
“Because GenAI helps students make their thinking more precise and supported in a one-on-one discussion context, it lets them see that they’re on the right track and, ultimately, gives them confidence to explain their reasoning and interpretations in group settings,” she says. Boyle concurs, adding that GenAI output also serves as fuel for student-led discussions, which is a great way to incorporate it into collaboration.
GenAI could never replace the hands-on, experiential work that Trafalgar Castle School does in establishing critical thinking, communication and collaboration with its students. In actuality, projects and experiences with real-world applications (like field trips to the Oshawa courthouse and evaluating and judging law cases for Grade 12 Law students or conducting small-scale archaeological digs with sand and tools in Grade 12 Classical Civilizations to replicate archaeological procedures) will always be paramount. That’s because Trafalgar sees the value in hands-on education in helping students understand the importance of varied perspectives and analyzing these perspectives as keys to building informed interpretations — which, essentially, makes Social Science what it is.
At the same time, Trafalgar Castle School recognizes that with AI’s capabilities and varied applications, it’s an exciting time to merge GenAI with education. Most importantly, the School acknowledges that with GenAI exponentially increasing in its capacities, Trafalgar students who are equipped with future-ready skillsets like critical thinking, communication and collaboration have the opportunity to shape its future.