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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: 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.