Abstract
Critical thinking is often taught as a concept (e.g. spending part of a lesson explaining what it is), rather than being pervasively developed as an intellectual skill. We take a developmental approach to teaching four foundational elements of critical thinking (identify evidence, clarify assumptions, seek alternative perspectives, make an interpretation) derived from the Paul and Elder (2006) model. We systematically integrate critical thinking practices by using structured pre-class assignments for each lesson that align with assessments. The roundtable will present data from more than 1300 students enrolled in a Behavioral Science course. We plan to loosely follow our four-element approach during our roundtable session: present background and evidence, clarify our assumptions, open up the discussion to attendees to gather multiple perspectives, and use the final part of the time to synthesize and make some interpretations as a group. We will create a discussion summary to share with round table participants.
Location
Room 2905
Recommended Citation
Scharff, Lauren; McCabe, Damian; and Nash, Michelle, "Practicing Integrated Critical Thinking in a First-Year Core Course" (2011). SoTL Commons Conference. 52.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2011/52
Practicing Integrated Critical Thinking in a First-Year Core Course
Room 2905
Critical thinking is often taught as a concept (e.g. spending part of a lesson explaining what it is), rather than being pervasively developed as an intellectual skill. We take a developmental approach to teaching four foundational elements of critical thinking (identify evidence, clarify assumptions, seek alternative perspectives, make an interpretation) derived from the Paul and Elder (2006) model. We systematically integrate critical thinking practices by using structured pre-class assignments for each lesson that align with assessments. The roundtable will present data from more than 1300 students enrolled in a Behavioral Science course. We plan to loosely follow our four-element approach during our roundtable session: present background and evidence, clarify our assumptions, open up the discussion to attendees to gather multiple perspectives, and use the final part of the time to synthesize and make some interpretations as a group. We will create a discussion summary to share with round table participants.
