Hi Martin
I think it's important to demystify the concept of critical thinking for new first years and direct entry students.
Initially, I get students to think about something they do in their own lives, buy a car, open a bank account, choose a holiday destination and gradually reveal all the thinking that goes into these everyday activities. These involve choice, weighing up information from a range of sources, emotional input, etc etc. which leads to a balanced decision.
Just getting students to sit round the table and discuss these everyday processes helps not only to demystify the process but also reveals how we select, trust and discount different sources, gather relevant information and perhaps discard some of it, and weigh it all up to come to a conclusion about something. I think that relating it to students' everyday experience helps them to begin to see how this applies in an academic context. This isn't a progression framework that you are looking for Martin, but I find it helps as a starting point.
Chris
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From: learning development in higher education network [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eloise Sentito [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 27 September 2012 17:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: UG progress in critical thinking
Hi Martin and all,
I think simply ‘questioning’ does it superbly :)
But for a robust, technical articulation, I like the SEEC levels descriptors (all the sections under ‘cognitive skills’) for this http://www.seec.org.uk/sites/seec.org.uk/files/SEEC%20Level%20Descriptors%202010.pdf, though seldom refer students to them, do you? I confess I haven’t read the QAA’s subject specific descriptors: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/ASSURINGSTANDARDSANDQUALITY/SUBJECT-GUIDANCE/Pages/Subject-benchmark-statements.aspx.
In my learning development work (in a centrally located team) I go by feel and a general inclination to push students to go as far as they are intellectually able, whatever their year of study. I come across teaching staff who say they don’t expect first years to critique and evaluate, but I don’t think they award first class marks if they don’t, so there’s a tension there! I certainly *do* expect them to think critically as early as possible, and see that as my core job. I put my linear version of John Hilsdon’s critical thinking model in our study guide (http://www.learningdevelopment.plymouth.ac.uk/LDstudyguides/pdf/8Criticalthinking.pdf) alongside Bloom’s taxonomy of learning and simply point out to students that the latter parts of both carry more marks (because that’s where the more sophisticated thinking unfolds) and become increasingly important as they progress through the years. Admittedly that might be more broad brush than you were seecing ;)
Eloïse
Eloïse Sentito
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From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin Hampton
Sent: 27 September 2012 17:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: UG progress in critical thinking
Hello all - after years, I'm still wrestling with useful (to students) articulations of 'critical thinking', especially in relation to progress as an undergraduate (i.e. Levels 4-6). Has anyone encountered - or devised! - a progression framework for crit thinking that is explicitly linked to Levels 4-6?
best to all
Martin H.
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