Independent thinking

The question of independent thinking is one which has been bugging me over the past few weeks.

One of the feedbacks I received from a lesson observation included the suggestion that I was expecting the students to work too independently.

However, from other observations, it seems that the general consensus is to spoon feed and coax the students through their course; rather than to encourage them to think independently.

Now I'm new to this, and I was in a school that was completely different from my own educational upbringing (inner city comprehensive vs. rural grammar); but not encouraging independent thinking does not sit well with me.

I had both low ability and mixed ability classes; and I developed differentiation strategies in an attempt to meet the needs of all the students in my classes. Yet, it was the approaches which asked students to think for themselves which received the most criticism.

I'm certainly not saying that I went into classes and said, "today we're learning this. Off you go." My lessons did have structure, and modelled answers and whole class discussions before starting tasks. But I'm still (apparently) expecting the students to think too independently.

So, really, I guess, I'm wondering, how much is too much  independence when it comes to learning? Is the general consensus now to give the students the answers and ask them to match them to the questions? At some stages this is what it feels like I'm doing.