Education Commons^™

Using Sociological Images To Develop The Sociological Imagination, Georgiana Bostean, Lisa A. Leitz

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

We present a two-assignment series that developed students’ sociological imaginations and that could be done in a face-to-face or online course. The series used the Sociological Images blog and students’ own visual images (e.g., photographs) to meet course learning goals: (1) link sociological theories and concepts to social events/trends, (2) apply these ideas to real life by identifying sociologically relevant images in daily life, and (3) communicate sociological analysis in academic and popular written forms. The use of a blog encourages students to embrace public sociology. We present faculty and student assessment data (pretest from nonequivalent comparisons group) from six …

Research On Effects Of Grading, Heather J. Leslie Phd

Learning Design Center: Staff Scholarship

I believe we have shared goals for our students to become happy, ethical, caring, compassionate, independent, self-motivated, curious critical thinkers and lifelong learners. Decades of research on the effects of grades and grading undermines those goals. This executive summary presents just some of research on how grading affects students’ mental health, intrinsic motivation, critical thinking, and relationships with teachers and peers. Student survey results are included from a course taught without the use of grades.

Promoting Thinking Routines In Indian Classrooms, Divya Kapoor

Teacher India

In this article, Divya Kapoor shares some examples of thinking routines that practitioners can introduce in their own classrooms.

Teacher Resources On Higher Order Thinking Skills, Anannya Chakraborty

Teacher India

Teaching higher-order thinking skills right from school can bridge the education and employment skills gap. Our ACER experts share a list of free teaching resources on higher order thinking skills.

Assessment Of General Capabilities: Skills For The 21st-Century Learner. Final Report, Claire Scoular, Dara Ramalingam, Daniel Duckworth, Jonathan Heard

Assessment and Reporting

This report describes a project of the Centre for Assessment Reform and Innovation (CARI) at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to develop an approach for teaching and assessing general capabilities, also known as 21st century skills, in the classroom. The report is divided into two parts. Part one presents an overview of ACER’s approach to skills development. This approach is underpinned by the identification of three evident needs: to understand development, to monitor growth, and to ensure alignment across curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. Part Two outlines how the approach is applied in the context of assessment. An assessment …

Critical Thinking: Skill Development Framework, Jonathan Heard, Claire Scoular, Daniel Duckworth, Dara Ramalingam, Ian Teo

Assessment and Reporting

The ACER critical thinking framework has been developed to address the challenges associated with teaching and assessing critical thinking. While there are many definitions of the skill, which are outlined in the first part of this document, few provide a means to operationalise critical thinking in the classroom. This framework outlines critical thinking processes along prescribed strands and aspects informed by a sound evidentiary basis. The aspects contained within the framework are designed to provide foci for teaching and the basis of assessment. This paper is divided into three parts. Part 1 explores the development of critical thinking as an …

Student Self-Assessment: Boon Or Bane?, Ashtamurthy Killimangalam

Teacher India

Student self-assessment can help to improve learning outcomes, but only if used as a formative exercise, as Ashtamurthy Killimangalam explains.

Critical Thinking: Definition And Structure, Jonathan Heard, Claire Scoular, Daniel Duckworth, Dara Ramalingam, Ian Teo

Assessment and Reporting

The development of critical thinking as an essential skill in 21^st century learning is uncontested within educational and professional settings. The degree to which it is operationally defined, taught and assessed, however, remain at large. This incongruence complicates efforts to develop critical thinking in students, as well as devise intervention techniques and assessment tools. This framework has been developed to address the challenges associated with teaching and assessing critical thinking. While there are many definitions of the skill, as outlined in the first part of this document, few definitions provide a means to operationalise critical thinking in the classroom. …

Export Of Peter Taylor's Website, Peter John Taylor

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publication Series

The attached file is an export of Peter Taylor's website from January 28, 2020. Peter Taylor passed away on October 29, 2019.

To access the archived version of Professor Taylor's website, download and export the zipped/compressed file, and click on the "index.html" file in the folder "peter-taylor-website."

A Dialogical Exercise For Honors Students, J. Robert Baker

Honors in Practice Online Archive

To expand students’ abilities to think critically, honors instructors ask them to step aside from their objections to a passage in The Handbook of Epictetus to consider how that passage makes sense to Epictetus.

Critical Thinking And Problem-Solving, Amy Lightfoot

Teacher India

How can teachers help learners become critical thinkers and problem solvers while ensuring that they acquire the necessary knowledge for each subject?

Risky Honors, Andrew J. Cognard-Black

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Most educators today are likely to proclaim a commitment to teaching critical thinking. Willingness to take intellectual risks such as questioning orthodox teachings or proposing unconventional solutions is an important component of critical thinking and the larger project of liberal education, yet the reward structures of educational institutions may actually function to discourage such risk-taking. In light of the extra importance placed on grades and high-stakes entrance exams in an increasingly competitive educational marketplace, this problem might presumably be magnified among honors students. This essay concludes by calling on honors educators and other interested parties to contribute their voices, their …

Place-Based Education And The Teaching Of Social Studies, Greg A. Smith

Summer Institute June 2019

No abstract provided.

With Great Privilege Comes Great Responsibility, Anne Dotter

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay contends that honors education should seize the opportunity to expose our students to the horrors of our society such as “the violence against those among us with the least amount of power.” We can affirm our curricular foundation (writing, reflection, and critical thinking) by supplementing it with histories of oppression in order to better equip our students with the tools necessary to become change agents. Such a shift in curricular content and pedagogies could engender changes in our institutional practices that model successful collaboration across races, cultures, and disciplines for our students, ultimately leading the way to a …

Systems Thinking In A Second Grade Curriculum: Students Engaged To Address A Statewide Drought, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Amy Ardell, Laurie Macgillivray, Rachel Lambert

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Faced with issues, such as drought and climate change, educators around the world acknowledge the need for developing students’ ability to solve problems within and across contexts. A systems thinking pedagogy, which recognizes interdependence and interconnected relationships among concrete elements and abstract concepts (Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2012), has potential to transform the classroom into a space of observing, theorizing, discovering, and analyzing, thus linking academic learning to the real world. In a qualitative case study in one school located in a major metropolitan area in California, USA teachers and their 7- and 8-year-old students used systems thinking in …

Writing Renewal Retreats: The Scholarly Writer, Contemplative Practice, And Scholarly Productivity, Edward Brantmeier, Cathryn Molloy, Jennifer Byrne

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article offers an exploratory case study of a program for faculty that blends contemplative practices, scholarly productivity, and renewal of faculty as writers at a retreat in a natural setting. We share faculty learning outcomes, logistics, a retreat agenda, and evaluation data from four writing renewal retreats conducted over two years to present initial insight into a contemplative approach to writing retreats that fosters a connection to self, to scholarship, and to a community of writers—key elements of a successful writing life. Through critical reflection on the role of contemplative practices, scholarly productivity, and faculty well-being, we offer a …

The Use Of Song To Open An Educational Development Workshop: Exploratory Analysis And Reflections, Lawrence Lesser, Song An, Daniel Tillman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Song has been used by faculty of many disciplines in their classrooms and, to a lesser extent, by educational developers in workshops. This paper shares and discusses a new song (about an instructor’s evolving openness to alternatives to lecture only teaching) and its novel use to open an educational development workshop. Self reported participant data from an exploratory survey suggest that the song was most effective in reducing stress as well as in increasing motivation, morale, engagement, and connection. Practical implications and implementation considerations are discussed regarding the song as well as related creative work.

Transitioning From Following To Making Your Own Path Through Critical And Creative Thinking, Cassie Tighe-Hansen

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

In my experience Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) will work to open minds and help transition a person. It can take someone from a place of not being open to challenges and having a closed mindset to one of openness and allowance for ambiguity and new ideas. This paper shows the transitions I have made in my career by way of a tragic incident and the structure I hope to create in a new class focusing on the college freshman. Included is a sample of the CCT curriculum I hope to teach to this class- both more thorough, concrete plans …

Teaching Tolkien: Language, Scholarship, And Creativity, Adam Kotlarczyk

Faculty Publications & Research

Why Tolkien?

Let us start with the obvious—if cynical—question, almost certain to come from a skeptical administrator or colleague: why would any serious, self-respecting English teacher want to teach an author whose work is about dragons, fairies, and the fantastic? With all the increased attention to standardized testing and with the demand for rigor in read- ings in the average English curriculum, choosing a popular text might raise eyebrows among critics. The question that an English teacher may be asked (or indeed, may ask him- or herself) is: doesn't teaching Tolkien as "serious" literature just fan those flames?

Pedagogy Of Curiosity: Initial Explorations Of Instructional Practice In A Critical Thinking And Curious Classroom, Michael Chalukian

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Through research on critical thinking, instructional practice, and curiosity I have developed the Pedagogy of Curiosity. This approach is implemented in the Curious classroom and a workshop for secondary teachers. The Curious classroom creates a structure and focus to encourage and develop curiosity and critical thinking of students. A questioning and research design redefines the learning expectations and the corresponding teacher and student roles in the classroom. An environment is constructed for students to take steps to become autonomous reflective learners.

This synthesis identifies two sources that inform my endeavor: 1) The accountability and results driven focus of No Child …

Critical Thinking And High-Level Discourse: Teaching, Learning, And Professional Development In A 1:1 Environment, Valorie L. Zonnefeld, Ryan G. Zonnefeld

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

No abstract provided.

Welcome To The University Libraries Poster Session!, Erin E. Rinto, Melissa Bowles-Terry, Rachelle Weigel, Nancy E. Fawley, Rosan Mitola, Amanda Melilli, Amy Jo Hunsaker, Jennifer L. Fabbi

Lied Library Open House for the 2014 American Library Association Conference

Over the past eight years, the UNLV Libraries have led and contributed to campus initiatives to revise the undergraduate curriculum and student learning outcomes at UNLV. Through formal and informal leadership roles, librarians helped to create the University Undergraduate Learning Outcomes (UULOs) in the areas of Intellectual Breadth and Lifelong Learning, Communication, Inquiry and Critical Thinking, Global/Multicultural Knowledge and Awareness, and Citizenship and Ethics and a revised model for general education.

In Fall 2011, the Faculty Senate approved a vertical pathway of key courses, which serve to integrate and assess the UULOs from a student’s first year of college through …

Information Literacy Skills As A Critical Thinking Framework In The Undergraduate Engineering Curriculum, James E. Van Loon, Heather L. Lai

Library Scholarly Publications

Information Literacy (IL) instruction embedded into the engineering design curriculum can provide a framework for the development of critical thinking skills which are essential for students to master to solve open-ended engineering problems. At Wayne State University, a lecturer in biomedical engineering (BME) and a science librarian are collaborating in an ongoing effort to integrate IL instruction into the BME undergraduate design curriculum. The paper will provide a vision and rationale for integrating IL instruction into the engineering design curriculum, and discuss aspects of the Wayne State effort to effect this integration. A review of the place of critical thinking …

Borrowing Avid Inquiry: Getting To The Essential Question In The English Classroom, Kaidi R. Stroud

English Literature Graduate Theses and Projects

There is a danger as new teachers struggle with how to implement their educational theories in the classroom to fall back into teaching how they have been taught, regardless of whether or not that method is appropriate to their beliefs or considered best-practice. In order to combat that tendency, this teacher-research project was designed to problem-solve the often-times conflicting relationship between curriculum and theory that all too often results in fall-back teaching. But also, this project aimed to collect and analyze student work in order to better inform instruction in a way that was both reflective and active. Specifically, the …

The Effects Of Cooperative Learning Techniques On Perceived Classroom Environment And Critical Thinking Skills Of Preservice Teachers, Antone Michael Goyak

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study analyzed the effects of cooperative learning techniques versus lecture techniques on the following aspects of a higher education classroom: (a) the perception of a student's learning environment and (b) a student's critical thinking skills. Preservice teachers at a small Midwest college completed the College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI) and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Form-S (WGCTA-FS). Results revealed significantly higher means in the cooperative learning group in four of the eight constructs within the CUCEI. Results within the WGCTA-FS disclosed no significant differences between the means of the two groups. The outcomes of this study suggest …

Cultivating The Librarian Within: Effectively Lntegrating Library Lnstruction Into Freshman Composition, Jesse Ulmer, Nancy E. Fawley

Library Faculty Publications

It has become common practice for library instruction to be included in lower-level college composition courses. Students are typically required to visit the library once or twice a semester to receive instruction on how to find books and journal articles for an upcoming writing assignment that incorporates formal research. But does this current model of instruction truly address course outcomes that seek to produce students who are information literate, critical thinkers and life-long learners? Faculty who teach such courses are often reluctant to surrender precious class time to a librarian, but this paper argues that the merging of bibliographic instruction …

Blessed Unrest: The Power Of Unreasonable People To Change The World, Stephanie Pace Marshall

Publications & Research

In her keynote address at the 2008 NCSSSMST Professional Conference, Dr. Stephanie Pace Marshall addresses what work can be done with the collective resources of its Consortium members which beg to be shared and connected--and also explores what the source of "...our Blessed Unrest that will give us the courage to become unreasonable advocates for our children and for STEM transformation?"

La Discussió Deliberativa: Usar El Discurs De Classe Per Promoure El Pensament Crític, Mark Felton

Faculty Publications

Per potenciar el pensament creatiu a classe cal comprendre les arrels d’aquest pensament en el raonament argumentatiu. El pensament crític inclou la recerca i l’avaluació de les raons que hi ha darrere d’una afirmació. Per prendre part en aquesta activitat d’investigació, cal entendre els elements sobre els quals es discuteix i com aquests es combinen per justificar una conclusió. Les investigacions es mostren cada vegada més unànimes en el fet que els estudiants experimenten una millora substancial en el desenvolupament del pensament crític (i que aquesta millora es transfereix també a nous temes) a mesura que van adquirint experiència en …

Improving Group Work: Voices Of Students, Brian K. Payne, Elizabeth Monk-Turner, Donald Smith, Melvina Sumter

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Group work is increasingly being used in a variety of college courses. A number of strengths have driven the increase in the use of this form of collaborative learning. Still, a number of problems potentially limit the use of group projects. In this study, we report on research in which we examined how students recommended changing group projects. Results are categorized into student-centered themes and faculty-centered themes. Implications are provided.

Faculty-Librarian Collaboration To Teach Research Skills: Electronic Symbiosis, Navaz P. Bhavnagri, Veronica Bielat

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

This article discusses faculty-librarian collaboration to integrate technology in a course that focuses on teaching empirical research methodologies and library research skills to elementary and early childhood education graduate students. Vygotsky’s theory, standards in teacher education, and information literacy standards form the conceptual framework that supports this collaboration. The purpose and procedures of this collaboration, as well as student, faculty, and librarian outcomes, are discussed. This present collaboration on bibliographic instruction and the use of Blackboard courseware is framed within the context of past history of collaboration and future plans to expand this collaboration.