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"We aren't teaching students how to think critically!" So goes the exasperated lament you have probably heard and possibly uttered. The thing is, that's a crazy hard thing to do. It may seem like a logic class should teach you to think in a more disciplined way, for example, but the sad fact is that those mental habits are very unlikely to transfer [PDF] beyond the walls of the logic course. There are many different styles and contexts of critical thinking, and there is no magic subroutine that we could insert into our mental programming that covers them all.
But despair is not the only option. Effective coursework can build important and useful critical thinking skills. Doug Bonn at the University of British Columbia and Stanford's N.G. Holmes and Carl Wieman focused on good scientific, quantitative thinking when teaching a group of first-year physics students. And like good critically thinking educators, they put their strategy to the test and published the results so they can be evaluated by others.
Original article from Ars Technica .
[Related]: How to improve students' critical thinking about scientific evidence
Original Submission
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday August 19 2015, @12:54PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:11PM
That is quite true in my experience. A large part of academia involves building mini cults of personality around the work that a scholar did in his or her PhD study. Many of those manufactured tropes tend toward the hip and provocative theories, because universities like that. It helps their marketing. They get to claim they represent the cutting edge of human thought. Nevermind if what the professors are saying is self-serving bunk. And it's not a phenomenon limited to 3rd- or 2nd-tier schools--it's everywhere.
The stated goal of universities in the 21st century sounds noble, "to increase the store of human knowledge," but in the end it is a business. The professors want to gain popularity to earn speaking fees and consulting fees and grant money and sell books and demand & get strong salaries. The university administrations want to keep the sweet, sweet student loan money and corporate dollars flowing their way (people who work in university administrations earn sick money).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Wednesday August 19 2015, @02:44PM
Teaching critical thinking is easy, but it would require a complete overhaul of how most schools handle classes. You need more time in class talking with other students about the content. You need more time taking classes that aren't in your major. And you need to have less emphasis on tests with correct answers.
It's definitely possible to solve the problem, the college I went to had the problem solved, it's just that it would require most colleges to completely change the way that they conduct themselves.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday August 19 2015, @03:22PM
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday August 19 2015, @04:41PM
I went to http://evergreen.edu/ [evergreen.edu] . Most of the classes are larger, my first year there I had one 48 credit course that spanned the entire year and 4 different subjects. There was a lecture component a seminar component and a lab component. It gave us ample time to actually use the information we were learning and discuss the information as well.
We didn't have any grades and there were no particular rules about which classes you took over all. Which gave me ample time to cover topics that I'd never have the chance to cover. My area of concentration was simple the subjects I spent the most time on rather than a formal process like you'd see at most other schools.
In the modern era where people change jobs regularly and even entire fields, it makes less and less sense to specialize in one area and more and more sense to get comfortable taking skills from one domain to another. Because, you're probably going to be changing fields at some point.
The main downside here is that if you're not self-directed and prepared to take some responsibility for your learning, you can get a crap education. But, if you're willing to select challenging classes that broaden your horizons a bit, I don't run into people as well educated from most other schools. In fact, I run into some people that are just completely useless outside of their field of study and barely educated in what they were studying.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday August 19 2015, @07:45PM
On the specialize vs breadth topic. Breadth is important and my school did it wrong. All the breadth was just to checkoff a box on the ABET accreditation form. Specialization is necessary to further one specific field for the sake of that field. My minor has done more for me than my major. I think you should be able to pursue any breadth if it is what you like not just the forced fit of the flowchart. Some people will just not like music or art appreciation and should be able to take something more personally meaningful.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday August 19 2015, @09:47PM
The only draw-back was it was a smaller program so most of the higher level classes (Calculus, choir, drama, AP sciences. languages, probably more) had to be taken at the local High School and under state law the kids were/are limited to two courses.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Thursday August 20 2015, @06:09PM
Teaching critical thinking is easy if you start in kindergarten. I think Krauss [wikipedia.org] is onto something when he says that [many types of] religious upbringing is child abuse, simply because a large part of such an upbringing consists in disabling the critical thinking faculty. If one was told 1000 times as a child that the highest, noblest, deepest, most certain truth comes from some sacred text, and witnessed how this belief shaped a functional community, wtf is one supposed to do? And how can we, as educators, hope to undo this brain damage in college? We must try anyway, I believe, but we simply can't hope for much impact at that stage.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday August 19 2015, @03:20PM
Teachers like all humans are inherently lazy. Taking all that extra thought is taxing. Teachers are especially taxed when students think of ideas or implications that the teacher had not already thought of. Teachers (especially Uni Professors) are prideful and it hurts them deeply when a student get ahead of them. These things, not an exhaustive list, combine to form a teachers pattern/attitude of it is easy for me when you don't think so just do what the book says and don't explore your world. Hence Uni has become a textbook fueled puppy mill of degrees.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Wednesday August 19 2015, @08:56PM
I disagree that humans are inherently lazy. Humans are inherently not altruistic, so sometimes that manifests as "I'm not working for you unless I get something out of it." But people who work for pride, or for seeing accomplishments, or for a respectable paycheck, they will work very hard. Some teachers don't actually have a love for their subject, so they will appear lazy when teaching it. But it really is more of a problem of just not caring.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:14PM
Given a subject/topic/task: People will expend effort up to a point then they coast. Some people will work crazy hard forever. I postulate that the first group is the norm and the second is the minority.
When teaching almost the same thing every year it would be very easy to fall into the first group. Yes some teachers don't care at all and that (or maybe interest or challenge) in relation to the subject/topic/task at hand may be what drives a person to one group or the other.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Thursday August 20 2015, @03:26AM
Sorry but where I'm at most of the profs in STEM fields voraciously take in new ideas. Actually this can be a problem as it's an important driver in sometimes being too eager to attract too many grad students, post-docs, and junior faculty.