Critical thinking
I find that our new generation of students demonstrate very poor critical thinking, and that common sense is no longer common!!
As a teacher, it's challenging to develop such a "critical skill" over such a short period of time.
Parents are the first teachers of our future professionals. They are accountable for stimulating and developing the way their offspring think and create from a very young age.
But, I love what I do, and with all the different methods discussed in this course, I try my best to teach them the importance of improving their "soft skills", such as critical thinking.
It sure is the case and since I teach programming courses, critical thinking is a must as we are always dealing with logic.
Therefore, I spend a lot of extra time doing analysis of a problem, role-playing as the client and have the students ask pointed questions about what I need before they can write any code.
I also make them read the story problems line-by-line, asking them "what did you learn" from that 1 line of the paragraph... all of this to help them think more critically and grab on to what is important data and what is just a good story.
Nadine,
They certainly like instant gratification though!
Shelly Crider
Somen,
I have taught a critical thinking class before and loved the book. A good task to do with students is just what you said...have them repeat what they have learned!
Shelly Crider
I could have written that same statment. I instruct adult students on the basics of internal cubustion 4 and 2 stroke motors and it bothers me that the simplelist statement has to be exsplained. We have a lot of on hands training that follows my class and that means that i have alot responcesibilty to get the student prepaired to be succesful in his /hers course.I have found that several different approsches must be used in a set pattern to help them retain the maxium amount material.Having peir tutoring has also been very effective.
I found the same problem with my adult learners. They lacked critcal thinking skills. At first I was really thrown off by the amount of common sense that seemed to be missing, but after a while I noticed a trend. When I talked to my students before or after class,individually,our conversations really took off. My opinion of my students began to change. Many of them had a lot of common sense. What was the problem in class that was missing after class let out? I tried several different delivery methods and discovered that when my students sit, they start to become inactive. They may be writing, and nodding but the brain is in "idle mode" if you will. To deter this idling of the brain, I am constantly asking open ended questions about the previous topic, and relate that to the current topic. They have to give the answers together verbally. I continute to do this throught the day. The next day, I review all the questions I asked the day before...building their level of activity and confidence. It's a review and makes them active in the learning process.
William,
Peer tutoring is a great tool. This gives confidence to both parties!
Shelly Crider
James,
This is a very insightful post. Many students will sit there and nod their head, but really not collecting the knowledge.
Shelly Crider
I also seemed to find that my studendts lacked critical thinking skills but I find that I can "force" if you will some critical thought in labs by making the students find answers and figure certain aspects of the lab for themselves then I will ask them to show or tell me how they arrived at a concnlusion and I find they are usually thinking correctly or "critically" they just dont always verbalize very well.
Brian,
I like this.....make students use critical without them thinking it is critical thinking!!
Shelly Crider
I have some of the same problems with my students. They are good at memorizing parts of an object but they don't know how it works. So I make sure during lab activities that I ask them how they arrived with answer they have.
It seems to me that one can initiate critical thinking when the subject matter is delivered in a way that the student can relate to (either from personal experience or real world analogies).
The difficulty I encounter is is in applying these concepts to the different learning styles present in each class. Peer to peer learning is helpful to a point, but then responses in writing or orally seem to become collective in nature as opposed to individual responses.
In class discussions, the students feed off each others responses and there can be some positive results. Then again, in some situatons when discussions are one to one, the student responses become vague and they tend to want to be lead through the thought process.
Joseph,
It is good for students to know that we as instructors keep learning as well!
Shelly Crider
Donald,
Good point. Some students do need to be lead through thought processes, but let's hope this will help them on their own as well.
Shelly Crider
I am an instructor in an environment that also has labs.
As they complete a lab I will have them explain as you do, but I will have the one I think might have the weakest understanding of it to explain. This makes it a learning process for all in the group, as one may be a leader that wants to do the work, the talking, and the directing of the group, with a tendency to leave others not understanding what they need to learn. By making the group stop going forward with other labs until all in the group can explain it, usually starting with the weaker, it makes the leader slow down and make the others understand it be fore they move on. I will take turns as to who I ask in the group, but they do not move forward until I believe each has a reasonable understanding of the lab.
In the field they are about to enter, they are most likely going to be paid flat rate. If a person cannot logically think his/ her way to a solution, he/she can’t get paid for repairing the vehicle. It is a solution orientated field with no free rides. Each one has to become a solution orientated person or they are going to find themselves hungry.
Thomas,
Excellent plan to have students reiterate why they did what.
Shelly Crider
I work in a school that teaches the subject matter and then applies what is learned to hands on in the mechanical field. When helping my student develop their critical thinking skills (or "problem solving" as I deliver it to them)I ask them questions that I feed to them that will always include the "who, what, when , where, why, and how" of the subject being performed. I find that many students can do a task without understanding why. The Q&A helps to remind them of subject matter already delivered and then gets them deeper into the project. I also pose many scenarios "What if this happened?" and so on to get them thinki9ng past the delivered materials and begin to solve problems themselves.
Michael,
This is a great tool for critical thinking skills as seeing is believing!
Shelly Crider
I try to relate difficult concepts to everyday life by using analogies the students can understand. It makes it easier for them to understand, and quite frankly easier for me to explain sometimes.
However, it's hard sometimes to teach critical thinking. If they don't know how to think their way through a problem rationally and step-by-step, then they aren't going to be able to solve the problem. Thanks for your insight!
Kathy,
Students really love hearing stories that relate to their own career choice.
Shelly Crider
