The IDEA Center

with Susan K. Wolcott

Professors in all disciplines agree that important educational outcomes include the development of critical thinking skills. However, professors often struggle to understand the mental processes that underlie skill development and to design coursework that efficiently fosters improved student thinking.

This workshop helps participants explore innovative and practical ways to enhance their students' critical thinking skills. Participants will:

with Craig E. Nelson

Option 1 (Time 4 to 7 hours): Sophistication in thinking is prerequisite to many of the goals of liberal and professional education. We will both examine two major frameworks for fostering critical thinking: cognitive science (mental models and misconceptions, novice v. expert distinctions, models for thinking about thinking) and intellectual and ethical development (especially Perry; Belenky et al. and Baxter Magolda) and explore the implications of each for classroom practices. An underlying theme will be that often critical thinking can be fostered best by increasing the ratio of support offered for a given level of challenge. Processes: Mini-lectures alternating with writing and small- and whole-group discussions of applications to your own teaching.

with Barbara J. Millis

Students engaged in higher order thinking typically manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications, such as when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesize, generalize, explain, hypothesize, or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows students to solve problems and discover new (for them) meanings and understandings. Such higher order thinking occurs when faculty deliberately structure tasks to capitalize on student peer coaching and interactions where they encounter the alternative viewpoints that challenge existing beliefs and assumptions. Writing-to-learn activities embedded in course objectives involve peer responses, an audience beyond the faculty member, and relevant, meaningful activities. In this workshop, faculty will experience at least three specific activities that promote higher order thinking.

with Susan K. Wolcott

Virtually all college programs state that critical thinking is a desired learning outcome. Yet, educators often struggle to identify ways to reliably assess critical thinking outcomes and to “close the assessment loop” — i.e., use assessment results to improve student critical thinking skills.