Read articles written by SCC faculty and administration on the role of critical thinking in teaching and learning.
Who is Responsible for Student Learning?
Kathy A. Foster, Instructor, Psychology
"Research indicates that for true learning to take place, the learner must be actively engaged in the learning process, not passively absorbing facts/data. But how do we get students to move from the idea that it is the teacher's job to 'teach me', rather than it is my job as a student to learn? In other words, how do we engage the student?"
Critical Thinking in a Global Context
Aaron Bowman, Instructor, Anthropology and Sociology
"If we, as a society, were in fact critical thinkers, what would this mean? The ultimate goal of critical thinking goes well beyond being able to analyze a problem, dissect an article's various viewpoints, appreciate a work of art or appropriately apply geometry to an archaeological excavation. While advancing one's critical thinking skills will lead to all these previously mentioned things, that is not the end purpose. The ultimate goal for critical thinking has to be a just, fair and equitable global community."
Unforgettable: Fostering Fair-mindedness
Susan MacLeod, Director, Advertising and Graphic Design
"When our students leave our classes, and our college, what will they remember? Gerald Nosich, Richard Paul and Linda Elder, from the Foundation for Critical Thinking, worry that students forget most of the content learned in classes. They also worry that, with a rapidly changing world, educators can't possibly teach content today that will be relevant in a future job market. So, instead of teaching reams of forgettable, dated content, what if we coach our students as they acquire and practice important skils - skills that might be useful to them in future life settings?"
The Importance of Applying Critical Thinking to Children's Learning
Lisa Mabe, Director, Early Childhood Education
"Critical thinking is being used across campus at Surry Community College to help our students learn to think more clearly, to question the world around them, and become better students, individuals, and members of society. The burning question I have had since I began teaching college courses is what happened to learning the basics before college? What happened to the education of our children to create productive adults? And if the concept of critical thinking was taught to young children from the earliest possible 'teachable moment,' what kind of college student would I see entering my classroom?"
Can Less Be More? Refining Content in Computer Courses: A Critical Thinking Strategy
Kim White, Instructor, Computer Science
“In our concern for the many terms and concepts in our textbooks that we feel students need to grasp, we can’t expect them to memorize hundreds of terms thinking it is the same as really knowing what they mean. As Richard Paul says, 'Don’t confuse knowledge with remembering what the textbook said.' According to Paul, we don’t memorize things like dictionaries, encyclopedias, or the Physician’s Desk Reference. Rather, we learn to use those as valuable tools and resources to find information that we need. Helping students to know what tools and resources are out there, and how to use them can be the most important thing that we do in our field. Students will encounter problems every day in their jobs and personal lives in which there is no perfectly spelled-out answer on page 10 of a textbook. We need to teach them to be problem-solvers and methodically step through the elements of thought and intellectual standards in search of solutions.”
Competency Based Education and Critical Thinking in Medical Assisting Curriculum
Erica S. Walker, Instructor, Medical Assisting
“Assessment techniques are extremely important in competency based education (CBE). The days of multiple choice questions are gone. Students should be able to read it, state it on their own, and educate others about the material. Some assessment techniques that are helpful are using case studies and requiring students to process the scenario and give explicit directions as to how they would and should handle the scenario and the rationale for their plan. This forces students to think through the problem and form a plan to resolve the problem. It is not realistic that problems in an ambulatory healthcare setting can be solved by choosing A, B, C or D. Students need to know how to handle situations.”
Easter, Multiculturalism, the Nazi Party, and Critical Thinking
Jonathan Thomas, Instructor, English
“As instructors, we must not be afraid of the intellectual work required to make this initiative effective. Critical Thinking does have implications for our classroom instruction methods and materials. It will require us to re-examine how we teach what we teach, and, more importantly, why we teach it this way. And self-examination is not the most comfortable exercise. When we stare into the mirror, we may not like what we see. Couple this with the idea that we often resist change, and the task of truly learning the Critical Thinking model and implementing it in our classes is truly daunting. But if we are going to encourage our students to be life-long learners, we must lead by example.”
Will We Get Out Early Today?
Michael Ayers, Chair, Science Division
“The learning college philosophy encourages faculty to focus on student learning and not on teaching. This seems like such a simple, little shift in perspective. However, when fully embraced, it is a monumental change in philosophy. When I became more focused on student learning than on my teaching, many things changed in my classroom. One thing became very obvious: I would never have enough time. I use different variations of the following ideas to improve and expand student learning even if there are only a few minutes left in class.”
Ticket Work and Accountability
Darin Cozzens, Chair, English/Communications
"When I first heard Linda Elder speak of a 'ticket' into class, I was sold. Here was simple, direct, consistent accountability: If you haven't done the work, you don't come in. No debating or haranguing or bluffing or deadbeating. This is college. If you're not prepared, you don't come in. In nineteen years, no single thing I have tried as a classroom teacher has proved more conducive to learning. My argument for ticket work can best be made by responding to seven of the most common counter-arguments, from valid practical concerns to more debatable philosophical reservations."
After the Test: An Oral Examination of Fundamental/Powerful Concepts
Jonathan Thomas, Instructor, English
"I know that testing student retention of fundamental/powerful concepts is a challenge for any discipline, but this can be especially difficult in literature, fine arts, and humanities courses. While the majority of textbooks are about 300 pages long, multi-volume texts like The Norton Anthology of English Literature contain about 3,000 pages per volume. Therefore, a text like this one may contain ten times as many concepts as the average textbook... [H]ow do you test a student's retention of fundamental/powerful concepts in a course where students may have literally thousands of concepts to learn?"
Tradition and Education
Darin Cozzens, Chair, English/Communications
"By nature, I lean toward trusting the old and distrusting the new. The most innovative thing I do in the classroom is to alternate the colors of my dry-erase markers.... Is an emphasis on critical thinking anything new? No, the subject has a very long and honorable history. Is there any novelty in trying to teach it in college? Let's hope not."
The Role of Critical Thinking in Students' Acquisition of Foundational and Factual Knowledge
Steve Atkins, Vice President and Chief Academic Officer
"[C]ritical thinking concepts and strategies should not be absent from students' acquisition of factual knowledge and basic skills. Self-reflection, Intellectual Standards, and the Elements of Reasoning, as detailed in Richard Paul and Linda Elder's model for critical thinking (2001), should be applied to even the most basic levels of knowledge. The metacognitive aspects of the model are necessary for learning foundational material as well as for developing deep understanding of advanced concepts."
The Role of Critical Thinking in Nursing Education
Yvonne O. Johnson, Assistant Director, Nursing
"Critical thinking must... be woven throughout nursing education in order to accomplish the goals of (1) student understanding and comprehension of nursing knowledge for the ultimate purpose of application in the clinical setting, and (2) transformation of the student into a professional nurse who is able to interact with patients, colleagues, and other health care professionals..."
Critical Thinking in the Humanities: A Tool for Subjective Disciplines
Danajean Mabry, Chair, Humanities/Social Sciences
"Human beings naturally attempt to create meaning and construct concepts from the information gathered in the world around them, but particular ways in which we make sense of the world are learned. Through critical thinking, instructors in the Humanities can create independent thinkers and autonomous learners who actively make sense of their own meaning of the world and become productive citizens with a sophisticated world view."
Beyond Short and Sweet
Darin Cozzens, Chair, English/Communications
"Until students actually consider their thinking and the language in which it is embodied, they approach college-level writing the same way they have approached numberless fill-in-the-blank 'worksheets' in their school experience - that is, as a challenge to find the shortest, easiest distance between starting and stopping. The goal, in other words, seems to be the express-lane response... Ultimately, whether or not writing is considered has less to do with length than with labor. So it is that the short-and-sweet stance is very nimble and comfortable and, at bottom, lazy. Thinking about thinking - untangling, sorting, ordering - is a lot of work."
The Dirt on Learning: Examining Jesus' Parable of the Sower as a Case Study for Learner-centered Education
Scott Kyles, Adjunct Instructor, Religion and Humanities
"As educators, we need to turn our emphasis from seed-spewing to fruit-bearing in our respective disciplines, from mere teaching to genuine learning. Learning is not real until learners understand, retain the learning, apply the learning to their lives, and bear fruit. This is Parable-of-the-Sower kind of learning."
The Meat of the Matter: Thoughtful Questions (and Their Opposite)
Darin Cozzens, Chair, English/Communications
"Generally speaking, in critical discourse, the sooner we get to - or at least aim at - the heart of the matter, the better. At least that's my premise in recommending something beyond yes-no and I.D. questions."
