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Critical Thinking or the Facts?The purpose of this exercise is to present some arguments and examples which might encourage you to look at your teaching in a different way. Which Should I Teach: Critical Thinking or the Facts? Can I do Both?A Practical Course in Critical Thinking
Much of the information to be presented here is based upon a personal reflection and revision of my own teaching in the area of anatomy and physiology. For many years, I considered myself to be an excellent teacher; my student evaluations were excellent, and I received a university award for teaching excellence. I had developed better course outlines; I had added technology to my classroom; I had prepared note packets to guide students through my courses... I was working to improve my teaching, but I had failed to reflect on what my students were actually learning. In conversation with several students one day, I was shocked to learn that the more work I was doing to provide information to my students, the less work the students were doing to prepare for class. One student boldly stated that my outline notes were all he needed; there was no reason to purchase the text. My students were concentrating on learning isolated facts to pass factual objective exams. I came to realize that many of them could communicate only in "fill in the blank" or "sound bite" responses and were not able to answer questions through sentences or paragraphs. They were not able to effectively use and apply their anatomical and physiological knowledge in other classes or in the clinic. It was this frustration and concern that led me on a quest to find a way to return the responsibility for learning to the students and regain my enthusiasm for teaching. The material which follows will focus on teaching content as a mode of thinking, designing ways to facilitate critical thinking skills, and designing tactics to improve the effectiveness of instruction. WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING? Critical thinking is a popular concept in American education today. Many universities offer general critical thinking courses while many professions, such as nursing, have adopted critical thinking as an important professional outcome of clinical course work. The word "critical", meaning to question, make sense of, or analyze, is often used in a negative context. Thinking critically in a learning context, however, connotes a positive process to challenge your thinking or the thinking of others. There have been many "definitions" of critical thinking proposed in the literature. Chaffee defines critical thinking as "an active , purposeful, organized, cognitive process we use to carefully examine our thinking and the thinking of others, in order to clarify and improve our understanding." (1) Critical thinking involves a set of thinking abilities and attitudes coupled with the Elements of Reasoning (Table 1) and also includes the ability to assess your own reasoning.
Table 1--Elements of Reasoning
Source: Center for Critical Thinking, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA
HOW DOES A CRITICAL THINKING APPROACH TO TEACHING DIFFER FROM DIDACTIC TEACHING? Didactic (or fact-focused teaching) is a comfortable form of teaching for most of us. It is the manner in which most of us were taught at the undergraduate level. In didactic teaching, the focus and responsibility is on the teacher. Students are taught content in a form (generally lecture style) that does not require them to think things through. Learning for the moment, or for the test, often occurs from rote memorization. Students are rarely challenged to grasp the logic or theory of the content. The use of a critical thinking approach to teaching requires a paradigm shift which refocuses on the student. In this form of teaching, content "lives" in the form of thinking. Only those students who are able to "think through the content" will truly be able to take possession of the content and make it theirs. Teaching through critical thinking involves thinking about thinking. Students who think critically will begin to think at a higher level and improve the clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and effectiveness of their thinking. HOW CAN INSTRUCTION BE DESIGNED TO PROMOTE CRITICAL THINKING? If teaching content effectively involves teaching it as a mode of thinking, then everything we have learned thus far about critical thinking provides insight into how we should design our instruction. For example:
Apply the elements of reasoning to the teaching in your particular area of expertise. Ask yourself or how you might design instruction to include the elements of reasoning. As you redesign your course to include opportunities for students to learn to think, you will be formulating different or additional course objectives. In redesigning three sequential courses (anatomy and physiology 1, 2 and cardiopulmonary physiology) for students in the clinical professions to more effectively focus on critical thinking, I have integrated the following objectives to the anatomical and physiological objectives across my three course sequence. The student will:
If you are to include critical thinking in your instruction, what new objectives will you include in your course or courses? Keep in mind that teaching critical thinking is a long term process and that it cannot be accomplished in one course HOW IS CRITICAL THINKING REFLECTED IN THE COURSE SYLLABUS? The course outline or syllabus should clearly reflect your intended goals. Below are some sample sections from a course outline from an upper level course in cardiopulmonary physiology. As you will note in the sample sections of the course outline, I have made it clear to the students that "thinking" and "communicating" are as important as the physiological information. I have included a general plan for the class which introduces them to the expectations of preassigned work, in-class group discussions, and the language of assessment. Try rewriting parts of your course outline to reflect a change from didactic teaching to a critical thinking approach. Course Description: Course Objectives
Everything we do in this course will focus on improving your ability to think critically about cardiopulmonary physiology and examine the basis of normal function or consequential clinical outcomes. Improving your ability to think and to figure things out based on what you know will enable you to analyze information and make decisions in a clinical setting. General Plan: A major objective of this class is that you will begin to think, speak, and write clearly and precisely. In order to move on and apply anatomical and physiological concepts in the clinical setting, you cannot be vague, imprecise, or obscure in your definitions and explanations of anatomical structure or physiological functioning.
What are some general tactics and strategies that I can use to promote critical thinking in my courses? 1. Include critical thinking goals and intellectual standards in the syllabus and speak about them in the introductory class. 2. Require reading and writing prior to each class. Hold students responsible for pre-requisite information... do not reteach information from last semester but provide opportunities for students to use that information to solve problems or clinical cases. 3. Assist students with reading the text by providing focus questions. Teach lower level students how to read the text more effectively by modeling how you would read a section, by having them summarize a section, or by having them create possible exam questions from a section. Teach students how to rephrase text headers into discussion questions. 4. Randomly grade pre-class writing assignments or use a one question writing quiz to promote adherence to the reading requirement. Consider dismissing students who have not completed the assigned reading during discussions of the reading... send them into the hall to read. 5. Assist students in developing strategies for learning. Design learning activities which promote learning strategies. Model or suggest good learning strategies other than memorization whenever possible. 6. Use class time to solve clinical problems, apply concepts, and make meaningful connections and application of knowledge. Avoid repeating all of the information in the book. You may need to mini-lecture difficult concepts but try to use class time to apply and integrate knowledge. Question students rather than lecturing... probe their thinking and encourage further questioning which may lead the group or individuals to answers beyond the normal scope of the class. Encourage students to make connections between related concepts and to apply knowledge to their clinical experience. 7. In class, assign problems to pairs or small groups for part of the class time. Summarize the problems or issues by calling on groups to present their answers as well as their thought process. To encourage critical listening, call on other class members to add additional information or to restate parts of the presentation. 8. Model thinking by thinking aloud or having students puzzle aloud through a problem. Apply the intellectual standards to your thinking. 9. Discourage "sound bites". Require complete sentences in spoken as well as written responses. Insist on correct terminology and continually ask students to define or interpret terminology... Show me the acromion process... Define cardiac output in words (not as CO = HR x SV). Encourage students to speak as a professional; to speak as they would to another professional or to a patient. 10. Call on students who do not speak often. Be gentle with them but encourage their participation. Encourage these students to be willing to begin to solve a difficult problem... to contribute one portion, or to suggest the information needed to solve the problem. 11. Ask students to summarize and add to the answer of another student to promote active listening. 12. When asking questions, allow students the opportunity to think. Do not always allow spontaneous answers. Ask how many students agree or disagree with the answer and why? 13. Use diagrams, flow charts, and other graphics as the basis of discussion. Put an overhead up or show a film clip and call on students to summarize the concepts illustrated in the graphic or film. 14. Provide frequent opportunities for students to write and to have writing assessed. Provide examples of good writing... for example, show them a good paper from last year or post some good essay exam answers. Give students the opportunity to write a practice essay answer before the exam... lead a class discussion on the content. Provide students with the assessment tool to be used in grading term papers. Provide students the opportunity to write and document the integration of their academic and clinical knowledge and skills using reflective journals or case studies. 15. Use the 1 minute end-of-class paper or another self-assessment tool at least once a week. You and the students need to be encouraged to assess what they understand and what needs clarification. 16. Be sure that your evaluative mechanisms (quizzes, exams, papers) reflect your critical thinking objectives. Do not profess to encourage critical thinking if your exams consist only of lower order, factual based objective questions. 17. Teaching critical thinking takes time. One hour classes are difficult. If possible, schedule class for a minimum of 90 minutes per session. 18. Use methods of self-assessment, peer assessment, and random grading to reduce the written assignments that you personally evaluate. 19. Design teacher evaluation tools which reflect the focus on student learning. Many teaching evaluations are focused on the delivery of knowledge by the teacher using the lecture method.
Sample assignments and exercises. Below are three sample assignments and exercises that I have used to promote critical thinking in my classes. Design one assignment to use in your class which will promote one or more of the elements of reasoning. 1. An in-class small group discussion on cardiac function at the end of a week of reading and discussion in a junior level class in Cardiopulmonary Physiology. Based upon your understanding of normal cardiac function, discuss how the following heart pathologies might affect pressures, blood flow, contractility, stroke volume, cardiac output, or any other cardiac mechanism (45 minutes). Be prepared to present any one of the pathologies to the class during the summary discussion (45 minutes).
2. An in-class writing exercise in Anatomy and Physiology II, the week before the midterm exam. Without using your notes or books, independently write an answer to the following practice essay question. You will have 10 minutes to prepare your answer. When instructed to do so, you will exchange papers with a partner. Following the exchange, you will have 10 minutes to read and evaluate your partner's answer. In evaluating your partner's response you may use your notes or text. Feel free to make notes or marks on your partner's paper. Your evaluation should consider clarity, physiological accuracy, precision and detail, relevance of points to the question, depth or completeness, and logical order of thought. The feedback you give to your partner should include constructive suggestions for improvement. You will then each spend 5 minutes providing feedback to your partner. Before the next class, your assignment is to rewrite the question independently, recalling the points you have learned in this class session.
The question: Following an auto accident, a patient arrives at the emergency room hemorrhaging and has a rapid, thready pulse. Upon arrival, the patient's blood pressure is within normal limits. Describe the compensatory mechanisms which are maintaining blood pressure despite blood loss. 3. An out-of-class writing and self-assessment writing assignment in a junior level class in Cardiopulmonary Physiology. Higher Order Thinking Question: What are the progressive clinical consequences of an aging cardiovascular system? Are there smaller questions or problems within that question? Here are some things which you might consider in thinking about that question:
Are there additional items or issues you would want to include? Compose a well organized 1-2 page response to the major question. Assess your answer using the following criteria on the sheet provided.
1. Chaffe J. Thinking critically, ed 4. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1994. |