Critical Thinking Seminar Program

Longview Community College, Lee's Summit, Missouri

Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Project

Interested in getting started in integrating Critical Thinking Across your Curriculum? Trying to get your faculty colleagues interested in Critical Thinking for their courses? We can help. Our cadre of presenters (all of them teaching faculty) are here to assist you in getting a Critical Thinking Project started on your campus.

Our approach involves discussion and activities designed to address four essential tasks. The seminar is designed to devote one session to each of the tasks so that faculty will, at the end of the seminar, have concrete ideas as to how they can integrate Critical Thinking into their courses.

Part of the frustration which arises when faculty meet to discuss Critical Thinking is the seeming lack of agreement as to what skills should be included in a definition of Critical Thinking, as well as problems with assessing students' ability to think critically. We believe this is because Critical Thinking involves the identification of successful patterns of thought so that they can be expressed in a somewhat formal manner. This will facilitate the application of the generalized forms to individual disciplines. With this in mind, we have designed the following seminar schedule:

Session 1. Identify what counts as "success" in a particular discipline:

This will be different for different disciplines - nurses are concerned with accurate diagnosis and effective care - Automotive techs are concerned with correct diagnosis of mechanical problems and repair. A Writing or Reading teacher is concerned with effective communication - understanding what is written and making oneself understood. What we need to do is to identify the standards of success (usually pragmatic) and the underlying assumptions behind these standards. This will require is that we think critically about our own disciplines/teaching.

Activity: Identify presuppositions - What is taken for granted in each discipline? What is important in the discipline? What is it that we want our students to learn in our classes?

Assessment: How do you find out if the students are understanding the basic concepts and aims of the course? How do you correct misconceptions about what a __________ is supposed to be/do?

Session 2. Identify the patterns of successful reasoning in each discipline:

Each of the goals identified in the first session will be attained more effectively by certain patterns of thought, while other patterns of thought will be less successful in a discipline. A pattern which may facilitate success in one discipline may not have the same effect in another. At the CTAC site, we feel it is essential that those who teach in the field are the "experts" in these patterns, and thus are the best equipped to identify and formalize these patterns for their respective disciplines.

Activity: How do we want our students to think/solve problems/conceptualize in the discipline? Can we construct Flow Charts for each discipline - what is the process? How could you teach this process? Is the class designed to follow the process?

Assessment: How would you best test for knowledge of these patterns?

Session 3. Identify the core concepts and methods by which these successful patterns are taught:

If we are to integrate Critical Thinking into our classes, some standard terminology is essential to prevent confusion among the students and the instructors . A student will be able to understand the different patterns required for each discipline if a core set of concepts is used as the basic referent. In addition, while the exercises and examples which facilitate an identification of these successful thought patterns may differ, it is our belief that the process by which these patterns are identified will be similar across the disciplines.

Activity: Introduce and discuss standardized material that can apply to almost any course - CTAC site, SmartPrim, LogicWorks.

Assessment: This is built into SmartPrim and LogicWorks - but are there other methods which are not dependent on access to technology?

Lunch Break

4. How to integrate the "tools of discovery" as well as the core concepts into the curriculum:

This is perhaps the most challenging step - to get all the faculty to consciously facilitate the kind of learning of the thought processes that they already have (hopefully!). Some standard methodologies will be essential - like the modeling of the patterns for the students by the instructor - and applying critical standards in all areas of the course (including the administration of the course).

For example, the value of "Socratic Questioning" and self-discovery of the patterns for the student will be central to the integration of Critical Thinking in all disciplines. Of course, an Automotive Tech instructor will ask different questions than the Philosophy instructor - but we are both attempting to guide the student to a realization of the successful patterns of thought in our discipline.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle is the "formalization" of these methods - concrete examples of what some instructors are doing to deliberately integrate critical thinking into their courses - this is the primary motivation behind the CTAC web site - to provide examples of such integration.

Activity: Generate at least three "projects" or "lessons" which could get students thinking critically about your subject matter - (two in class exercises and one outside of class exercise.)

Assessment: How would you assess that the students are able to apply the tools to situations not discussed in the book/lecture?
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Q&A and final comments.

All of the examples, test questions or assessment methods generated during the activity phases of the sessions will be formatted into HTML documents and posted on the CTAC web site for easier reference and/or distribution. Exceptional classroom exercises will also be developed into Web-Based materials. Of course, credit for authorship will be given to those faculty responsible for the examples.

Copyright © 1998
Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Project
Longview Community College , Lee's Summit, Missouri - U.S.A.
One of the Metropolitan Community Colleges
"Where a Smart Future Begins"
An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer
Inquiries to: connelly@longview.cc.mo.us

Last modified: 8/7/98