Ask students to make senseless project (exercise), but seemingly valuable. Then, after implementation, explain the absurdities.
Critical thinking may be judged by asking a simple question and expect to deduce quantitative analysis.
Ability of a student to solve practical problems by the application of acquired knowledge plus a bit of imagination.
Good question !!
Wonder how ??
May be - by looking at the fundamental analysis of things .
Also , the approaches used for solving things
Having a team debate on an issue/trend relating to a course topic. I have found the latter to be quite engaging for them which developing their critical thinking as shown in this conference presentation:
Conference Paper Debating: A Dynamic Teaching Strategy for Motivating Student...
Best regards,
Debra
I have seen the Socratic questioning method as a very good approach in eliciting and analyzing the critical thinking skills of students in higher education.
Critical thinking, reasoning, and use of evidence in justification and making a decision are critical component of the curriculum and should be well-represented in subjects taught. I am against the idea of teaching this as a subject on its own because it will be mainly a theoretical subject rather than being an application to what the students are learning. For assessment, I think you could use a range of tools:
- a matter covering research, and aiming at students in small groups of three or four working on a research topic and ending with a research report, and possibly a publication, could test the ability of students to identify problem, generate hypothesis, format a research question, search the literature, collect data, critically analyse what they have collected, select valid and reliable method, conduct statistical analysis, interpret findings, create a report, justify their conclusions, provide evidence and cite the work of other researchers, etc.
- Problem-based learning questions, usually these questions are scenario based questions and target critical thinking and cognitive skills such as generating hypotheses for problems identified, making inquiry plans, justifying their views, weighing the evidence for and against theories, interpreting laboratory findings and other investigations.
- Scenario-based multiple choice questions are targeting cognitive skills. Images plus a scenario are usually used in these types of questions. Usually, the development of these questions is a challenging task and need the expertise to teach teachers how to develop these questions.
- Short answer questions with a higher level of cognition. These questions again could use images, or short videos, or a brief scenario.
- In clinical examination, we have OSCE and other tests that could be written by experts to test critical thinking
These are some examples, and there are other tools in the assessment that we use to test cognitive skills and critical thinking
this link is useful
http://cae.org/images/uploads/pdf/The_Case_for_Critical_Thinking_Skills.pdf
regards
Hello,
Critical thinking may be improved by exposing students to reasoning strategies in argumentation through a course like analytical writing. Helping learners to see how flaws in argumentation may lead to logical fallacies affecting the quality of one's rhetorics is a practical way of sensitizing them to the benefits of critical thinking.
Best regards,
R. Biria
Independent learning of critical reading of texts and contexts
Learn to read the explicit and the implicit
Know and interpret the content of texts and contexts
Learn to investigate and develop essays contrasting thesis and antithesis, drawing their own conclusions with logical and valid arguments
I offer an example of a publication where the above described in the learning of medicine is applied.
Article Lectura crítica. Modelo de comunicación para el aprendizaje ...
The following link can provide you with more detailed information on the issue.
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137378033
Asking questions or giving tests that require students to think critically.
Critical thinking should be the backbone of education, and even more conspicuous in higher education than elsewhere. As lecturers/educators, we should continuously encourage critical thinking. This may be done by help of excersizes - instead of asking essentialistic question, we can ask students to discuss by, for example, taking two (or more) perspectives, by putting in "why's" and "wherefrom's" and so on. Some meta talk on why critical thinking is necessary for scholars, professionals and citizens, and to actually focus specifically on critical thinking in some sessions. In my experience, discussions (preferably in groups), are better than lectures for this purpose, for example on the basis of an article or some other concrete material. After all, every student brings their own perspective and experiences to your course, and even in a relatively homogenous group the differences and variations may be brought to the fore in such a discussion.
Good luck!
Critical thinking should be insipulated - and even enforced - at every stage of education. Nowadays, learning to learn only by heart is pointless. The ability to think critically gives you the necessary flexibility and allows you to adapt to changing conditions, allows you to critically perceive the world. During classes with students, it is important to inspire you to express your own opinions, ask questions even in seemingly obvious situations. For self-thinking and a unique approach to a topic should be some bonus to encourage.
In my view as Literature works lecturer, the good performance task to assess critical thinking are: "Essay creative writing" and "Fiction Creative Writing".
*Through Essay creative writing, the students will show their skill and knowledge in writing their ideas about particular given issues. They will combine between reality and perception as well.
** through Fiction Creative Writing, the students will use their imagination in constructing plot of the fiction (short story, novel, etc.). therefore, how interesting and challenging their product, automatically will show their critical thinking.
I think creative writings mentioned in Markus DELI Girik Allo's post would be interesting practices.
I also think that educators may need to do some critical thinking when checking writings. Sometimes students don't really understand what they are writing about. Potential confusions in students' work can be inferred from misplaced terms, hollowly referred theories, and bluffing or as-if-known details(my academic writings contained all these when I was a student).
Creative writings would be more tolerating. To have creative writings help in encouraging critical thinking, I guess related ideas have to be sufficiently taught, and conversations between educators and their students have to be sufficiently established.
Doing creative writing, view above, provides or can provide a sense of form to essays, moving them towards greater cognitive complexity. The story or description functions on a number of levels, reader, author's public and inner voice, balanced direct and indirect information formation. Its a good exercise and believe me gives results.
Ask the students about views on common current and subject related topics and concepts and then the logic behind their views and ideas and also ask for the real life examples related to concept.
A teacher need to play the role of only facilitator in the class
An interesting tool to assess and develop students' critical thinking
https://www.macat.com/critical-thinking-educators
The interplay between reflective thinking, critical thinking, self-monitoring, and academic achievement in higher education
Afsaneh Ghanizadeh
Higher Education 74 (1), 101-114, 2017
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-016-0031-y
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