Education Commons^™

Infusing Critical Thinking Into Communication Courses, James P. Dimock, Kristen P. Treinen, Daniel Cronn-Mills, Robert S. Jersak

Daniel Cronn-Mills, Ph.D.

The importance of critical thinking is generally recognized by educators and during the past 20 years numerous initiatives have been taken to improve critical thinking. Although research demonstrates courses in communication study can have a positive impact on critical thinking skills, we argue that instruction in critical thinking can be more explicitly covered in basic communication courses. This article details our efforts to infuse critical thinking into an entrylevel communication course and outlines a guide to help communication teachers integrate critical thinking into their courses.

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

Adam Kotlarczyk

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?

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

Adam Kotlarczyk

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?

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

Adam Kotlarczyk

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?

A Socratic Café For Critical Inquiry, Jody Piro, Gina Anderson

Jody Piro

This presentation will explore the completed research inquiry that developed from our overt attempt to promote critical thinking in an online forum. The implications for advancing critical inquiry in online formats for interdisciplinary university content areas will be addressed. The objectives of this session are twofold: 1) to introduce participants to the nine intellectual standards (Elder & Paul, 2007) used to analyze the critical thinking and Socratic questioning in our research, and 2) to discuss the structuring of critical analysis in participants' own classrooms. Participants can expect to participate in a cooperative learning activity to practice the use of Intellectual …

Building-Up Student Success, Maria Babiuc-Hamilton

Maria C. Babiuc-Hamilton

Students' ability to think critically is essential in achieving success not only in college, but also later in their jobs. In order to increase students' long term performance, the general education program at our university was completely restructured to allow the introduction of three required credit hours in critical thinking across curriculum at the freshmen level. The dissemination of the learning outcomes is complicated, because this course is not content driven. The solution is for students to including a meta-cognitive reflection with their assignments, describing their personal academic plan and their experience with the learning process. This proposal presents the …

Student Collaboration Online In A Critical Thinking Course, Bob Schoenberg

Bob Schoenberg

This article identifies several benefits of student online collaboration and describes a number of collaborative tools that can be used without charge. The author also shares with readers several different strategies for promoting collaboration, including some of his personal tips and suggestions, based on his experience of teaching an online course on Critical Thinking at UMass Boston. The author argues that online education offers many opportunities for students to learn a variety of subjects, think critically and work collaboratively. However, for online faculty to be effective in their teaching they need training and experience.

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

Nancy Fawley

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 …

Thinking Like Thinkers: Is The Art And Discipline Of An "Attitude Of Suspended Conclusion" Lost On Lawyers?, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

In his 1910 book, How We Think, John Dewey proclaimed that “the most important factor in the training of good mental habits consists in acquainting the attitude of suspended conclusion. . .” This Article explores that insight and describes its meaning and significance in the enterprise of thinking generally and its importance in law school education specifically. It posits that the law would be best served if lawyers think like thinkers and adopt an attitude of suspended conclusion in their problem solving affairs. Only when conclusion is suspended is there space for the exploration of the subject at hand. The …

Cognitive Effects Of Argument Visualization Tools, Michael H.G. Hoffmann

Michael H.G. Hoffmann

External representations play a crucial role in learning. At the same time, cognitive load theory suggests that the possibility of learning depends on limited resources of the working memory and on cognitive load imposed by instructional design and representation tools. Both these observations motivate a critical look at Computer-Supported Argument Visualization (CSAV) tools that are supposed to facilitate learning. This paper uses cognitive load theory to compare the cognitive efficacy of RationaleTM 2 and AGORA.

An Act Of Translation: The Need To Understand Students' Understanding Of Critical Thinking In The Undergraduate Classroom, Tiffany Gayle Chenault, Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello

Tiffany Chenault