Teaching Critical Thinking

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Chronicle of Higher Education article. Discusses critical thinking and the necessity of pushing past skepticism to consider the importance of values.

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Three arguments why we need the believing game: to help us find flaws in our thinking, to help us choose among competing claims, and to achieve goals that the doubting game neglects.

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This essay is a revised version of the "Introduction" to Critical Literacy in Action, edited by Ira Shor and Caroline Pari (1999). Discusses and defines critical literacy and links to critical pedagogy.

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For students, a concise review of how to evaluate the authority, usefulness, and reliability of the information found through the process of library research. Including: books, periodical articles, multimedia titles, or Web pages – whether looking at a citation, a physical item in hand, or an electronic version on a computer. Links to lengthier discussions.

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This interview was recorded in November 2012 in Jonathan Z. Smith's Hyde Park graystone. Professor Smith offers insights into how he thinks about his classroom teaching and his students' learning through descriptions of various assignments and classroom activities he has developed over more than forty years of teaching. The discussion ranges broadly over such topics as: how students read, the failure to adequately prepare graduate students as teachers, students' faith commitments, the use of newspapers (and humor) in the classroom, and the role of definition, de-familiarization, and critique of the study of religion in introductory classes. The discussion presents vivid glimpses into Jonathan Smith's teaching practice and his teaching persona, including the time a student brought a minister to class to do an exorcism because she thought he was the Devil.

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Purdue University site helping students evaluate bibliographic citations, content in a source, as well as internet sources. Links to further resources.

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One page Teaching Tactic to help students engage course readings.

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Distinguishes critical thinking and critical pedagogy in educational research. Traces critical pedagogy from the work of Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. Offers an alternative that focuses on the practice of criticality. Originally published in Critical Theories in Education, Thomas S. Popkewitz and Lynn Fendler, eds. (New York: Routledge, 1999).

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A practical nuts and bolts guide for teachers from any discipline who want to design interest-provoking writing and critical thinking activities and incorporate them into their courses in a way that encourages inquiry, exploration, discussion and debate. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Foreword
The Author

ch. 1 Using Writing to Promote Thinking: A Busy Professor's Guide to the Whole Book
ch. 2 How Writing Is Related to Critical Thinking
ch. 3 Engaging All Learners: Valuing Professional and Personal Writing
ch. 4 Dealing with Issues of Grammar and Correctness
ch. 5 Formal Writing Assignments
ch. 6 Informal, Exploratory Writing Activities
ch. 7 Designing Tasks for Active Thinking and Learning
ch. 8 Helping Students Read Difficult Texts
ch. 9 Coaching Thinking Through the Use of Small Groups
ch. 10 Alternative Approaches to Active Learning in the Classroom
ch. 11 Enhancing Learning and Critical Thinking in Essay Exams
ch. 12 Encouraging Engagement and Inquiry in Research Papers
ch. 13 Coaching the Writing Process and Handling the Paper Load
ch. 14 Writing Comments on Students' Papers
ch. 15 Developing and Applying Grading Criteria

References
Index

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Podcast series. Offers insights for amplifying critical thinking in daily life.  This podcast is for anyone who wants to understand the ins-and-outs of how our brains work when it comes to thinking, but it’s also great for educators who want to understand how their student’s brains work!  Smarterer! Is a humorous, short, and immediately useful.  

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"Developing Critical Thinkers" is a book practitioners and others interested in applying critical thinking principles will find extremely useful. The writing is clear, the examples are many, and the ideas are well grounded in theory and research. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Understanding Critical Thinking in Adult Life.
Practical Approaches for Developing Critical Thinkers.
Helping Adults Learn to Think Critically in Different Arenas of Life.

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There appears to be a significant gap between faculty expectations for incoming college students and these same students perceptions of their abilities. Incoming college students are not very confident of their critical thinking abilities, yet faculty expect students to enter college already being able to critically evaluate information and to reach conclusions based on a critical analysis of the data. The current study challenges the preconception that critical thinking cannot be taught and delineates a model for critical thinking that can be employed regardless of one’s discipline. Outcome data strongly suggests critical thinking can lead to both proximal and distal increases in student success.

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"Learning Through Storytelling in Higher Education" explores ways of using storytelling as a teaching and learning tool. When storytelling is formalized in meaningful ways, it can capture everyday examples of practice and turn them into an opportunity to learn - encouraging both reflection, a deeper understanding of a topic and stimulating critical thinking skills. The technique can accommodate diverse cultural, emotional and experiential incidents, and may be used in many different contexts eg formal/informal; one-on-one/group setting. The authors outline the different models of storytelling and explain how to make use of this technique and encourage a 'storytelling culture' within the workplace or in tutorial sessions. Academic yet accessible, this book provides a new perspective on learning techniques and will be a great asset to any educator looking to improve reflective practice. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements

ch. 1 Introduction
ch. 2 Storytelling Influences
ch. 3 Storytelling Developments
ch. 4 Storytelling as a Theory of Learning
ch. 5 Finding Stories
ch. 6 Telling Stories about Practice
ch. 7 Expanding Stories through Reflection
ch. 8 Processing Practice Stories
ch. 9 Reconstructing Stories within a Group Setting
ch. 10 Ethical and Assessment Considerations
ch. 11 Reflections

References
Index
Subject Index
Biographical Notes

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This unusual book begins each chapter by posing a question with which college and university teachers can be expected to identify; and then goes on to answer the question by presenting a series of examples; finally, each chapter closes with 'second thoughts', presenting a viewpoint somewhat distinct from that taken by John Cowan. This book will assist university teachers to plan and run innovative activities to enable their students to engage in effective reflective learning; it will help them adapt other teachers' work for use with their own students; and will give them a rationale for the place of reflective teaching and learning in higher education. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface - Why This Book Was Written

ch. 1 Introduction
ch. 2 What is Meant in Education by 'Reflecting'?
ch. 3 What Does Reflection Have to Offer in Education?
ch. 4 Is There a Methodology You Can and Should Follow?
ch. 5 What Can You Do to Encourage Students to Reflect?
ch. 6 What is Involved for Students in Analytical Reflection?
ch. 7 What is Involved in Evaluative Reflection?
ch. 8 How Can You Adapt Ideas from My Teaching, for Yours?
ch. 9 How Should You Get Started?
ch. 10 How Can Such Innovations Be Evaluated?
ch. 11 Where Should You Read about Other Work in This Field?

A Postscript: Final Reflections
References
Index

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From Indiana University: Discussion is important to learning in all disciplines because it helps students process information rather than simply receive it. Includes: Preparing for Discussions; Problematize the Topic; Select a Discussion Format; Choose a Method to Assign Students to Groups; Choose a Debriefing Method; Problems with Discussion; Strategies for Building Discussion throughout a Class Session

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A multi-part exposition of constructivism, with special attention to the roles and practices of the teacher and learner in a constructivist classroom.

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A well-organized collection of assessment rubrics for critical thinking and problem-solving. These include instructor assessments and self-assessments. Also valuable for fostering faculty discussion of critical thinking.

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The Common Core State Standards clearly define the skills students need for success in college and the 21st century workplace. The question is, how can you measure student mastery of skills like creativity, problem solving, and use of technology? Laura Greenstein demonstrates how teachers can teach and assess 21st century skills using authentic learning experiences and rigorous, varied assessment strategies. Based on the best ideas of renowned experts in education, this book provides a framework and practical ideas for measuring

• Thinking skills: critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and metacognition
• Actions: communication, collaboration, digital and technological literacy
• Living skills: citizenship, global understanding, leadership, college and career readiness

Included are numerous rubrics and checklists, a step-by-step model for developing your own classroom assessments, a lesson planning template, and sample completed lesson plans. Assessing 21st Century Skills gives you the tools and strategies you need to prepare students to succeed in a rapidly changing world. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author

ch. 1 Introduction
ch. 2 A Synthesis of 21st Century Skills
ch. 3 Assessment Fundamentalsv ch. 4 Assessment Strategies
ch. 5 Assessing Thinking Skills
ch. 6 Assessing Actions
ch. 7 Assessing Skills for Living in the World
ch. 8 Multipurpose Assessments
ch. 9 Moving Assessment Into the 21st Century

Appendices
References
Index

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A short article in which a teacher-scholar defines what she means by “active and meaningful learning,” discusses unstructured cooperative learning and critical thinking, and reflects on experience in using these concepts in the courses she teaches and the textbooks she writes. Idea Paper no. 34, from the series developed by the Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development, Kansas State University.

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Engaging students in a course in the Sociology of Religion can be a challenge, particularly when working with student populations in a homogeneous region of the country who have limited experience with religious diversity. We approached the course from a sociological/anthropological perspective, requiring each student to complete an in-depth participation/observation research experience and write an ethnographic account of a religion or belief system different from his or her own. While other instructors have used a similar pedagogy, using ethnography with our student population was generally successful as a learning and writing tool.

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Recommends theoretically grounded and empirically supported strategies to improve the development and assessment of students’ thinking skills – with bibliography. Idea Paper no. 37, from the series developed by the Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development, Kansas State University.

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Reviews research and explains several concrete best practices on how to motivate students. Idea Paper no. 1, from the series developed by the Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development, Kansas State University.

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The Bible is a non-western text subject to a variety of interpretations and applications – constructive and destructive. The academic study of the Bible, therefore, requires critical thinking skills and the ability to engage with diversity. The reality is that most first-year college students have not yet developed these skills. Rather than bemoan students' lack of development, the essay explores ways of teaching and applying critical thinking within the context of an introductory Religion course. The essay claims that first-year college students can better learn the content of the discipline and function in a pluralistic world if the teaching of critical thinking skills is a part of the pedagogy.

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When Cathy Davidson and Duke University gave free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said they were wasting their money. Yet when students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for their music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light-as an innovative way to turn learning on its head.

This radical experiment is at the heart of Davidson's inspiring new book. Using cutting-edge research on the brain, she shows how "attention blindness" has produced one of our society's greatest challenges: while we've all acknowledged the great changes of the digital age, most of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century. Davidson introduces us to visionaries whose groundbreaking ideas-from schools with curriculums built around video games to companies that train workers using virtual environments-will open the doors to new ways of working and learning. A lively hybrid of Thomas Friedman and Norman Doidge, Now You See It is a refreshingly optimistic argument for a bold embrace of our connected, collaborative future. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction - I'll Count -- You Take Care of the Gorilla

Part One - Distraction and Difference: The Keys to Attention and the Changing Brain
ch. 1 Learning from the Distraction Experts
ch. 2 Learning Ourselves

Part Two - The Kids Are All Right
ch. 3 Project Classroom Makeover
ch. 4 How We Measure
ch. 5 The Epic Win

Part Three - Work in the Future
ch. 6 The Changing Workplace
ch. 7 The Changing Worker

Part Four - The Brain You Change Yourself
ch. 8 You, Too, Can Program Your VCR (and Probably Should)

Conclusion - Now You See It
Acknowledgments
Appendix - Twenty-first-Century Literacies -- a Checklist
Notes
Index

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Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Here is a new text that fulfills an emerging need in both higher and public education and stands to break new ground in addressing critical skills required of graduates.

When working on their last book, It Works for Me, Creatively, the authors realized that the future belongs to the right-brained. While Daniel Pink and other visionaries may have oversimplified a bit, higher education is ripe for the creative campus, while secondary education is desperately seeking a complement to the growing assessment/teach-to-the-test mentality. You don’t have to study the 2010 IBM survey of prominent American CEOs to know that the number one skill business wants is students who can think creatively.

To meet the demand of new courses, programs, and curricula, the authors have developed a 200-page “textbook” suitable for secondary or higher education courses that are jumping on this bandwagon. Introduction to Applied Creative Thinking, as the title suggests, focuses not on just developing the skills necessary for creative thinking, but on having students apply those skills; after all, true creative thinking demands making something that is both novel and useful. Such a book may also be used successfully by professional developers in business and education.

For this book, Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet are joined in authorship by Rusty Carpenter. He not only directs Eastern Kentucky University’s Noel Studio for Academic Creativity but has co-edited a book on that subject, Higher Education, Emerging Technologies, and Community Partnerships (2011) and the forthcoming Cases on Higher Education Spaces (2012).

Introduction to Applied Creative Thinking is student-friendly. Every chapter is laced with exercises, assignments, summaries, and generative spaces. Order copies now or contact the publisher for further information. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword
Preface: Developing a Creative Thinking Literacy
Acknowledgements
Introduction

ch. 1 What Is Applied Creative Thinking
ch. 2 Rationale: The Critical importance of Applied Creative Thinking
ch. 3 The Great Debate: Can Creative Thinking Be Taught?
ch. 4 Myths of Creative Thinking
ch. 5 Enemies of Creative Thinking
ch. 6 Basic Creative Strategies: Shifting Perception
ch. 7 Basic Creative Strategies: Piggybacking
ch. 8 Basic Creative Strategies: Brainstorming
ch. 9 Basic Creative Strategies: Glimmer-Catching
ch. 10 Basic Creative Strategies: Collaborating
ch. 11 Basic Creative Strategies: Going with the Flow
ch. 12 Basic Creative Strategies: Playing
ch. 13 Basic Creative Strategies: Recognizing Pattern
ch. 14 Basic Creative Strategies: Using Metaphor
ch. 15 The Creative Thinking Environment
ch. 16 Assessing Creativity from Many Angles
ch. 17 Synthesizing: Putting It All Together
ch. 18 Academizing Creative Thinking: The Creative Campus Movement
ch. 19 Domain-Specific Creative Thinking
ch. 20 Creative Thinking and the Digital Media
ch. 21 The Creative Class: Creative Thinking in a Creative Environment

Afterword

Appendixes
Creativity Articles for Further Reading
Definitions of Creativity
Further Exercises

About the Authors

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Here is a compelling read for every teacher in higher education who wants to refresh or reexamine his or her classroom practice.

Building on the insights offered by recent discoveries about the biological basis of learning, and on his own thought-provoking definitions of teaching, learning and education, the author proceeds to the practical details of instruction that teachers are most interested in — the things that make or break teaching.

Practical and thoughtful, and based on forty years of teaching, wide reading and much reflection, Robert Leamnson provides teachers with a map to develop their own teaching philosophy, and effective nuts-and-bolts advice.

His approach is particularly useful for those facing a cohort of first year students less prepared for college and university. He is concerned to develop in his students habits and skills that will equip them for a lifetime of learning.

He is especially alert to the psychology of students. He also understands, and has experienced, the typical frustration and exasperation teachers feel when students ingeniously elude their teachers' loftiest goals and strategies. Most important, he has good advice about how to cope with the challenge.

This guide will appeal to college teachers in all disciplines. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface

ch. 1 Thinking About Thinking About Teaching: How a philosophy of teaching develops and why it is important to have one
ch. 2 The Biological Basis of Learning: Learning as brain change, rather than brain use
ch. 3 Language: On the questionable utility of unexpressed ideas
ch. 4 Today's First-Year Students: Culture, motivation and preparation
ch. 5 Teaching and Pedagogy: How the way we teach affects the way students learn
ch. 6 The Classroom: The classroom as dynamic arena - What students are really doing
ch. 7 Writing and other Technologies: Technology, old, and new, and as a means to an end
ch. 8 Final Thoughts: Reflections and ruminations

App Two sample assignment sheets
References
Annotated Bibliography
Index

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Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Teaching the Moral Traditions of Others: Editor's Introduction (Fred Glennon)
ch. 2 Educating Students as Immanent Critics of Religious-Moral Traditions (Rosemary B. Kellison)
ch. 3 Marriage and Moral Traditions of Others: Teaching Religious Ethics and World Religions (Irene Oh)
ch. 4 Using Group Work and Case Study to Teach about Islamic Law (Nahed Artoul Zehr)
ch. 5 Critical Thinking and Teaching the Religious Traditions of Others (Steven Benko)
ch. 6 Wider Moral Communities: A Framework for Teaching Comparative Religious Ethics (Mark Larrimore)
ch. 7 The Personal is Pedagogical: Embracing Moral Debate in the Religious Studies Classroom (Elizabeth Barre)

Resources

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(Text not available on web.) This paper focuses on methods to improve the reading abilities of college students. A list of five elements college instructors (who are not reading specialists) should establish in a content reading agenda is offered; (1) an instructional basis for the reading process which will work for them; (2) content literacy environments; (3) insights into the skill level characteristics of readers; (4) working relationships with the campus reading program; and (5) inclusion of reading strategies in their content instruction. Stating that students must know the purpose of the course and understand what is to be done with the information provided through lectures and textbook reading assignments to successfully interact with the text, the paper offers methods of establishing the five elements suggested. Also addressed are the unique challenges of social science, mathematical, and scientific reading instruction. The paper concludes with a brief summary and suggestions for collaboration between the content specialist and the reading staff.

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Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: In this new collection, contributors from a variety of disciplines provide a critical context for the relationship between feminist pedagogy and academic feminism by exploring the complex ways that critical perspectives can be brought into the classroom.

This book discusses the processes employed to engage learners by challenging them to ask tough questions and craft complex answers, wrestle with timely problems and posit innovative solutions, and grapple with ethical dilemmas for which they seek just resolutions. Diverse experiences, interests, and perspectives—together with the various teaching and learning styles that participants bring to twenty-first-century universities—necessitate inventive and evolving pedagogical approaches, and these are explored from a critical perspective.

The contributors collectively consider the implications of the theory/practice divide, which remains central within academic feminism’s role as both a site of social and gender justice and as a part of the academy, and map out some of the ways in which academic feminism is located within the academy today. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Feminist Pedagogy in Higher Education (Renée Bondy, Jane Nicholas, and Tracy Penny Light)

ch. 1 A Restorative Approach to Learning: Relational Theory as Feminist Pedagogy in Universities (Kristina R. Llewellyn and Jennifer J. Llewellyn)
ch. 2 Feminist Pedagogy in the UK University Classroom: Limitations, Challenges, and Possibilities (Jeannette Silva Flores)
ch. 3 Activist Feminist Pedagogies: Privileging Agency in Troubled Times (Linda Briskin)
ch. 4 Classroom to Community: Reflections on Experiential Learning and Socially Just Citizenship (Carm De Santis and Toni Serafini)
ch. 5 Fat Lessons: Fatness, Bodies, and the Politics of Feminist Classroom Practice (Amy Gullage)
ch. 6 Engaged Pedagogy Beyond the Lecture Hall: The Book Club as Teaching Strategy (Renée Bondy)
ch. 7 Teaching a Course on Women and Anger: Learning from College Students about Silencing and Speaking (Judith A. Dorney)
ch. 8 Beyond the Trolley Problem: Narrative Pedagogy in the Philosophy Classroom (Anna Gotlib)
ch. 9 The Power of the Imagination-Intellect in Teaching Feminist Research (Susan V. Iverson)
ch. 10 From Muzzu-Kummik-Quae to Jeanette Corbiere Lavell and Back Again: Indigenous and Feminist Approaches to the First-Year Course in Canadian History (Katrina Srigley)
ch. 11 Don’t Mention the “F” Word: Using Images of Transgressive Texts to Teach Gendered History (Jacqueline Z. Wilson)
ch. 12 Rethinking “Students These Days”: Feminist Pedagogy and the Construction of Students (Jane Nicholas and Jamie Baroud)
ch. 13 Feminist Pedagogies of Activist Compassion: Engaging the Literature and Film of Female Genital Cutting in the Undergraduate Classroom (Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez)
ch. 14 “I Can’t Believe I’ve Never Seen That Before!”: Feminism, the “Sexualization of Culture,” and Empowerment in the Classroom (Tracy Penny Light)
ch. 15 Jane Sexes It Up . . . on Campus? Towards a Pedagogical Practice of Sex (Maggie Labinski)

About the Contributors
Index

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Students need more than just academic skills for success in college and career, and the lack of an explicit instructional focus on the “soft skills” critical to postsecondary success poses a challenge for many students who enter college, especially the underprepared.

Based upon a multi-campus, cross-disciplinary collaboration, this book presents the resulting set of habits-of-mind-based strategies that demonstrably help not only low-income, ESL, and first-generation college students overcome obstacles on the path to degree completion; these strategies equally benefit all students. They promote life-long, integrative learning and foster intellectual qualities such as curiosity, openness, flexibility, engagement, and persistence that are the key to developing internalized and transferrable competencies that are seldom given direct attention in college classrooms.

This contributed volume, written with full-time and adjunct faculty in mind, provides the rationale for this pedagogical approach and presents the sequential instructional cycle that begins by identifying students’ assets and progressively focusing on specific habits to develop their capacity to transfer their learning to new tasks and situations.

Faculty from both two-year and four-year colleges provide examples of how they implement these practices in English, math, and General Education courses, and demonstrate the applicability of these practices across course types and disciplines.

Chapters address key factors of college success, including:
* The link between habits of mind and student retention and achievement
* Using an assets-based approach to teaching and learning
* Supporting and engaging students
* Creating inclusive learning communities
* Building confidence and self-efficacy
* Promoting transfer of learning
* Teacher networks and cross-disciplinary collaboration

By foregrounding habits of mind as an instructional lens, this book makes a unique contribution to teaching in developmental and general education settings. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword (Emily Lardner)
Prefact
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Why Habits of Mind Matter (Jennifer Fletcher)

ch. 1 Discovering Assets (Hetty Yelland)
Superpower Essay (Lydia Graeyn)
Reflecting Home Culture (Adela Najarro)
Book Building (Adela Najarro)
Opening-Week Activities (Ken Rand)

ch. 2 Creating Communities (Adela Najarro)
Pass as a Class (Lydia Graecyn)
Building a Supportive Community in the Classroom (Tina Sander)
Forming Familias (Adela Najarro)

ch. 3 Engaging Leaners (Jennifer Fletcher and Hetty Yelland)
Lazy Teacher of Genius? A Case for Vocabulary Enhancement through Playing Scrabble in the Classroom (Hetty Yelland)
Recess (Jennifer McGuire)
The Great Debaters? Well, Close Enough (Maria Boza)
Gender and Miscommunication (Sunita Lanka)
Letters to the Editor (Kathleen Lenoard)

ch. 4 Building Confidence (Jennifer Fletcher)
Bordom Busters (Jennifer Fletcher)
A Diference You (Jennifer Fletcher)
Working the Workshop (Lydia Graecyn)
Proofreading: How Can We Polish Our Essays When Our Brains and Computers Have Such Limitations? (Tina Sander)

ch. 5 Developing Students’ Self-Efficacy (Adela Najarro)
Academic Essay Structure (Adela Najarro)
Group Projects: Turning Students into Teachers (Olga Blomgren)
Students Respond to Instructors’ Comments on Essays (Rhea Mendoza-Lewis)
Cheating? Everyone Cheats (Daphne Young)

ch. 6 Promoting Transfer of Learning (Jennifer Fletcher)
Using the Habit of Mind as a Reflective Tool (Natasha Oehlman)
Reading, Writing, and Habits of Mind Reflection Essay (Olga Blomgren)
Words of Advice (Jennifer McGuire)
Negotiating Transfer within Sustainability: From Consumer to Policy Maker (Rebecca Kersnar)
Writing in the Math Class (Ken Rand)

Conclusion (Jennifer Fletcher)
Appendix A: Making Cross-Disciplinary Intersegmental Collaboration Work
The Story behind the Exemplars (Jennifer Fletcher and Becky Reed Rosenberg)
Appendix B: Connective Learning Log
Questions for Reflecting on Transfer of Learning
Appendix C: Habits of Mind Lesson Student Feedback Form
Appendix D: Presurvey of Math
Appendix E: Presurvey of Writing
Appendix F: Postsurvey of Math
Appendix G: Postsurvey of Writing
About the Editors and Contributors
Index

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Excellence. Originality. Intelligence. Everyone in academia stresses quality. But what exactly is it, and how do professors identify it?
In the academic evaluation system known as “peer review,” highly respected professors pass judgment, usually confidentially, on the work of others. But only those present in the deliberative chambers know exactly what is said. Michèle Lamont observed deliberations for fellowships and research grants, and interviewed panel members at length. In How Professors Think, she reveals what she discovered about this secretive, powerful, peculiar world.

Anthropologists, political scientists, literary scholars, economists, historians, and philosophers don’t share the same standards. Economists prefer mathematical models, historians favor different kinds of evidence, and philosophers don’t care much if only other philosophers understand them. But when they come together for peer assessment, academics are expected to explain their criteria, respect each other’s expertise, and guard against admiring only work that resembles their own. They must decide: Is the research original and important? Brave, or glib? Timely, or merely trendy? Pro-diversity or interdisciplinary enough?

Judging quality isn’t robotically rational; it’s emotional, cognitive, and social, too. Yet most academics’ self-respect is rooted in their ability to analyze complexity and recognize quality, in order to come to the fairest decisions about that elusive god, “excellence.” In How Professors Think, Lamont aims to illuminate the confidential process of evaluation and to push thegatekeepers to both better understand and perform their role. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Contents

ch. 1 Opening the Black Box of Peer Review
ch. 2 How Panels Work
ch. 3 On Disciplinary Cultures
ch. 4 Pragmatic Fairness: Customary Rules of Deliberation
ch. 5 Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence
ch. 6 Considering Interdisciplinarity and Diversity
ch. 7 Implications in the United States and Abroad

Appendix: Methods and Data Analysis
Notes
References
Acknowledgments
Index

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This book presents successful programs, techniques, and strategies for helping adult learners tap into their rich and diverse life experiences as a basis for growth and lifelong learning. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Precipitating Critical Self-Reflection: Six Exemplary Programs.
Helping Learners Become Critically Reflective: Six Key Approaches.
Uncovering and Mapping the Personal Perspectives of Learners.

Additional Info:
How does one teach critical thinking, the procedures of an academic discipline, and the composition of plausible interpretations and arguments to students who are more facile with visual than with written modes of expression? How does one make real to students the construction of meaning in that unfamiliar epistemological space between brute fact and mere opinion? The "argument poster," a pedagogical strategy that helps students translate their skills for critical thinking from a visual frame to a written frame, results in better quality historical essays and research papers.

Additional Info:
Learning to think in a discipline is a demanding scholarly task that is not often associated with the development of university students. Although the intellectual development of postsecondary students is gaining increased attention, relating student development to the process of inquiry in different disciplines is unexplored terrain. This book attempts to come to a deeper understanding of thinking processes by exploring the approaches to thinking taken in different disciplines and then considering how these could be applied to student intellectual development.

Drawing on more than twenty-five years of research, Janet Donald shows how knowledge is structured and how professors and students perceive learning in their fields-and offers strategies for constructing and using knowledge that will help postsecondary institutions to promote students' intellectual development within and across the disciplines. The author first creates a framework for understanding student intellectual development and for learning to think in different disciplines. In succeeding chapters, she describes the principal methods of inquiry in each discipline and their effects on learning to think, examining what this means for students and how we might use it to improve the instructional process.

For faculty members, this book provides insight into the representation and development of curricula, courses, and programs to improve teaching and learning processes. Professors of education may find a specific use for the comparisons across disciplines in planning courses on teaching methods, as an aid in providing students with insight into how disciplines or fields of study are constructed, and in refining their own conceptual framework in their field. Administrators, particularly of programs and departments, will find suggestions for policy initiatives that are needed to create a supportive learning environment and for organizing teaching and learning. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
The Author

ch. 1 Learning to Think: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective
ch. 2 Orderly Thinking: Learning in a Structured Discipline
ch. 3 Hard Thinking: Applying Structured Knowledge to Unstructured Problems
ch. 4 Inductive Thinking: Knowledge-Intensive Learning
ch. 5 Multifaceted Thinking: Learning in a Social Science
ch. 6 Precedent and Reason: Case Versus Logic
ch. 7 Organizing Instruction and Understanding Learners
ch. 8 Criticism and Creativity: Thinking in the Humanities
ch. 9 Learning, Understanding, and Meaning

References
Name Index
Subject Index

Additional Info:
Argumentation in Higher Education offers professors, lecturers and researchers informative guidance for teaching effective argumentation skills to their undergraduate and graduate students. This professional guide aims to make the complex topic of argumentation open and transparent. Grounded in empirical research and theory, but with student voices heard strongly throughout, this book fills the gap of argumentation instruction for the undergraduate and graduate level.

Written to enlighten even the most experienced professor, this text contributes to a better understanding of the demands of speaking, writing, and visual argumentation in higher education, and will undoubtedly inform and enhance course design. The book argues for a more explicit treatment of argument (the product) and argumentation (the process) in higher education, so that the ground rules of the academic discipline in question are made clear. Each chapter concludes with practical exercises for staff development use.

Topics discussed include:

The importance of argument

The current state of argumentation in higher education

Generic skills in argumentation

The balance between generic and discipline specific skills

Information communication technologies and visual argumentation

How can we best teach argumentation so that students feel fully empowered in their academic composition? Professors (new and experienced), lecturers, researchers, professional developers and writing coaches worldwide grappling with this question will find this accessible text to be an extremely valuable resource.

Richard Andrews is Professor in English at the Institute of Education, University of London. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Illustrations
Acknowledgements

ch. 1 Why Argument?
The Importance of Argument
Argument and/or Argumentation
Argumentation in Higher Education
An Example
Is Argumentation Too 'High' a Term?
The Position of Argumentation
Theoretical justifications for the Focus on Argumentation
Is Argument a New Preoccupation?
The Structure of the Book
The Practical Dimension

ch. 2 The Current State of Argumentation in Higher Education
Who?
What?
To Whom?
Why?
A Case Study: Argumentation in History
The Practical Dimension

ch. 3 Generic Skills in Argumentation
Recent Models of Argumentation in Education
Definitions
Literature Review
The ‘Toulmin Model’
Models of Argument
Visual Argumentation
A Spectrum of Models
The Practical Dimension

ch. 4 Discipline-Specific Skills in Argumentation Richard Andrews Carole Torgerson Beng-Huat See
First-Year Students Believe Argument to be Important in Their Disciplines
Students Feel the Need for More Explicit Instruction
Students Tend to Draw on Argumentation Skills Learned in the Previous Stage of Formal Education
Most Students are not Sceptical in their Academic Reading
Differences Among Institutions, Disciplines and Individual Lecturers are Highly Significant
There is a Mismatch Between the Way Lecturers and Students see Argument
If Argument is Formally Assessed, it is More Highly Valued by Students
Argument in Three Disciplines: History, Biology, Electronics
History
Biology
Electronics/Electrical Engineering
Conclusion
The Practical Dimension

ch. 5 The Balance Between Generic and Discipline-Specific Skills
Generic Stages in the Development of an Argument
The Balance Between Generic and Discipline-Specific Skills
Argumentation and Academic Literacy/Literacies
Interdisciplinary
The Practical Dimension

ch. 6 Information and Communication Technologies, Multimodality and Argumentation
An Example of an Undergraduate Dissertation
What Does Argumentation Look Like From a Modal Perspective?
Argumentation and Information and Communication Technologies in Higher Education
Conclusion
The Practical Dimension

ch. 7 Further Evidence from Research
Argumentation at School Level: Lessons for Higher Education
Implications for Higher Education
Implications: The Conditions That Have to be in Place
Implications: Specific Activities
Transitions in Education: How Does Argument Change?
The Practical Dimension

ch. 8 Students' Views on Argumentation
Students Interviewing Other Students
Case Study 1 Argumentation in a Medical Course
Case Study 2 Argumentation in Mathematics
Case Study 3 Argumentation in Psychology
Case Study 4 Argumentation in Politics
Case Study 5 Argumentation in Literature Studies, Writing and Performance
Case Study 6 Argumentation and Discussion in a Vocational Course
Case Study 7 A More In-Depth Look at Argumentation in Chemistry
The Practical Dimension

ch. 9 Students' Essays and Reports in a Range of Disciplines
Two Examples
The End of the Essay?
The Personal Voice
Conclusion
The Practical Dimension

ch. 10 The Significance of Feedback from Lecturers
Feedback at Undergraduate Level
Feedback at Postgraduate Level
The Practical Dimension

ch. 11 Methodological Issues in Researching Argumentation
What Counts as Evidence?
Existing Evidence
New Evidence
Questions to Ask Regarding 'Evidence': A Provisional Checklist
What Kinds of Methods can be Used to Investigate Argumentation?
Argumentation and Scientific Method
The Practical Dimension

ch. 12 Conclusion and a Way Forward in Argumentation Studies in Education
Introduction
Looking Back
The Distinctiveness of the English Argumentational Tradition at Postgraduate Level
What are the Principles of Argumentation as Manifested in Postgraduate Student Writing?
Four Dissertations
Argument in Engineering: The Case of a Dissertation
The Critical Dimension
Interim Conclusion
Further Discussion

References and Bibliography
Index

Additional Info:
These days, when popular religious movements are enthusiastic rather than reflective, it is particularly helpful for students to be given better ways of grasping the significance and strengths of their own beliefs. Nancey Murphy's new book presents the methods of contemporary argumentation analysis in a way that helps readers develop habits of critical reading and thinking that serve them well not only in religion, but in other fields of experience and action. At one and the same time easy to read, and deep in its implications, her book is something of a tour de force. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Claims and Grounds
ch. 2 Warrants and Backing
ch. 3 Qualifiers and Rebuttals
ch. 4 Hypothetical Reasoning
ch. 5 Rhetoric and Communication
ch. 6 Academic Papers
ch. 7 Reasoning in Sermons
ch. 8 Reasoning in Ethics
ch. 9 Reasoning in History
ch. 10 Reasoning in Biblical Studies
ch. 11 Reasoning in Theology
ch. 12 Relating the Theological Disciplines
ch. 13 Philosophy of Religion
ch. 14 Apologetics and Religious Pluralism

Additional Info:
This essay explores how one might use the "problem" of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart as a learning opportunity in the classroom. The author identifies two pedagogical aims: (1) cultivating more sophisticated, critical readers of the Bible; and (2) helping students reflect on the contextual nature of interpretation. The essay discusses in some detail various ways of teaching the text, including an exercise in close reading, examination of sources, and a selective study of the history of interpretation. It also explores various lessons to be learned from these exercises, and addresses applicability of the approaches to other teaching contexts. An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the "Problem Texts" group of the consultation "Teaching the Bible in the 21st Century," held at the Wabash Center in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Additional Info:
Synthesizing the best current thinking about learning, course design, and promoting student achievement, this is a guide to developing college instruction that has clear purpose, is well integrated into the curriculum, and improves student learning in predictable and measurable ways.

The process involves developing a transparent course blueprint, focused on a limited number of key concepts and ideas, related tasks, and corresponding performance criteria; as well as on frequent practice opportunities, and early identification of potential learning barriers.

Idea-based Learning takes as its point of departure the big conceptual ideas of a discipline that give structure and unity to a course and even to the curriculum, as opposed to a focus on content that can lead to teaching sequences of loosely-related topics; and aligns with notions of student-centered and outcomes-based learning environments.

Adopting a backwards design model, it begins with three parallel processes: first, identifying the material that is crucial for conceptual understanding; second, articulating a clear rationale for how to choose learning outcomes based on student needs and intellectual readiness; and finally, aligning the learning outcomes with the instructional requirements of the authentic performance tasks.

The resulting syllabi ensure cohesion between sections of the same course as well as between courses within a whole curriculum, assuring the progressive development of students’ skills and knowledge.

Key elements of IBL include:
* Helping students see the big picture
* Building courses around one or more authentic performance tasks that illuminate the core concepts of the discipline
* Clearly identifying performance criteria for all tasks
* Incorporating practice in the competencies that are deemed important for students’ success
* By placing the onus of learning on the student, liberating faculty to take on the role of learning coaches
* Designing tasks that help students unlearn simplistic ideas and replace them with improved understandings

Edmund Hansen expertly guides the reader through the steps of the process, providing examples along the way, and concluding with a sample course design document and syllabus that illustrate the principles he propounds. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
List of Figures
Acknowledgments

ch. 1 Practical Benefits of Course Design
Faculty stressors in teaching
Benefits from idea-based course design

ch. 2 Backward Design
Traditional course design
Critique of the traditional design
The Backward Design Model
The importance of course design

ch. 3 Learning Outcomes
Problems with (conceptualizing) Learning Outcomes
Identifying Big Ideas
Deriving Enduring Understandings
Determining Learning Outcomes

ch. 4 Critical Thinking
Significance of critical thinking
Lay definitions of critical thinking
The confusing state of the critical thinking literature
Need for teaching critical thinking
Barrier 1: Human development
Barrier 2: Habits of mind
Barrier 3: Misconceptions
Barrier 4: Complex reasoning
Conclusion

ch. 5 Content, Part 1: Guiding Questions and Concepts
Topics
Two parts of course content
Essential Questions
Guiding concepts
Course content and critical thinking

ch. 6 Assessment, Part 1: Educative Assessment
Assessment for grading
Assessment for learning
A continuum of assessments
Assessment as coaching
Principles of assessing for understanding

ch. 7 Assessment, Part 2: Rubrics
Examples of assignments lacking clear criteria
The main parts of a rubric
Sample rubric: Critical Thinking
Common misunderstandings about rubrics
The triple function of rubrics for:

ch. 8 Content, Part 2: Learning Experiences
Examples of poor assignments
Authentic performance tasks
Assignment-centered instruction
Assignment-related competencies
Building-block designs
Principles for designing effective learning experiences

ch. 9 Course Design Document
Why create course design documents?
Elements of the course design document
Sample Design Document: Psychology 624 - Theories of Motivation
Summary of course design features and benefits
Translating the Course Design Document into a Syllabus

ch. 10 Implementing Course Design with Online Technology
Key characteristics of online teaching
Course design elements enhanced by online technology
Conclusion

References
Appendix
Syllabus for Theories of Motivation course

Additional Info:
A Grinnell College (Iowa) study investigated whether students (n=200) felt that balanced discussion of racial/diversity issues was possible and why they did or did not want to discuss the issues. Most thought balanced discussion was impossible, feared a single viewpoint would dominate, and feared reprisal for speaking against the dominant perspective. Further findings and implications are discussed.

Additional Info:
From the Publisher
Understanding college students' intellectual development is at the heart of effective educational practice. How do college students learn? How can educators maximize intellectual development in the college environment for both sexes—both in and out of the classroom? In this book Marcia B. Baxter Magolda demonstrates how educators can use a deeper understanding of the way students learn to teach more effectively. Drawing on a unique longitudinal study of more than one hundred college students, both male and female—and presenting information not available in single-gender studies—the author explains surprising gender-related patterns that affect the way students develop. Baxter Magolda uses data gathered from in-depth interviews over a five-year period to reveal four distinct "ways of knowing."

The book provides useful real-life examples of how instructional approaches, class expectations, peer interaction, evaluation methods, and other factors affect intellectual development in the classroom. Similarly, the author demonstrates how peer relationships, student organizations, educational advising, internships, employment, and international and cultural exchange can support and develop complex learning beyond the classroom. "Knowing and Reasoning in College" provides practical recommendations on how to respond to each of the four ways of knowing. It shows how, by designing instruction and interaction to reach students at every level, educators can maximize learning, promote skill acquisition and development of complex reasoning, and enrich students' overall college experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Table Of Content:
Preface
The Author

Part One: Understanding Gender-Related Patterns in Knowing
ch. 1 Studying Ways of Knowing
ch. 2 Gender-Related Patterns in Knowing
ch. 3 Absolute Knowing: Receiving and Mastering Knowledge
ch. 4 Transitional Knowing: Interpersonal and Impersonal Patterns
ch. 5 Independent Knowing: Embracing and Subordinating Others' Ideas
ch. 6 Contextual Knowing: Integrating One's Own and Others' Ideas
ch. 7 Relating the Patterns to Diverse Student Populations

Part Two: Implications for Academic and Student Affairs
ch. 8 Teaching Responsively to Different Ways of Knowing
ch. 9 Developing Students in the Classroom
ch. 10 Supporting Patterns of Knowing in the Cocurriculum
ch. 11 Promoting Cocurricular Learning
ch. 12 Becoming Responsive to Ways of Knowing in Higher Education

Resources:
A. Context of the Study: Miami University
B. Design and Methods Used in the Study
C. Study Interview and Questionnaire

References
Index

Additional Info:
A report from the Social Science Research Council (SSRS) that extends findings reported in the 2010 book "Academically Adrift" to document practices associated with improved student performance, as well as differences across individuals and institutions in the level of learning.

Additional Info:
This work responds to a renewed emphasis on teaching in the academy. Written from the perspective of a classroom teacher, it is a practical application of the principles behind the Critical Thinking movement to the study of religion. Emphasizing that the acquisition of critical thinking depends less on what is taught than on how it is taught, the author presents concrete examples from his own experience to illustrate a student centered approach to teaching. By demonstrating how the study of religion contributes to the development of critical thinking - through the acquisition of problem-solving, decision-making, and metacognitive skills - Penaskovic suggests its value to a broader liberal arts curriculum as well. Both a theoretical review of Critical Thinking and a "nuts-and-bolts" manual on how it can be used and assessed in the classroom, this work will challenge new and veteran teachers alike to re-examine and renew what they do in the classroom. The book includes a selected, annotated bibliography on Critical Thinking. Every teacher of religion will want to read this book. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgements
Preface

ch. 1 What Is Critical Thinking?
ch. 2 Barriers to Critical Thinking?
ch. 3 The Three Levels of Learning
ch. 4 Teaching in the Active Mode
ch. 5 Cooperative Learning
ch. 6 Critical Thinking and Creativity
ch. 7 The Assessment of Critical Thinking
ch. 8 Unsolved Mysteries

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms
Select Annotated Bibliography

Additional Info:
One page Teaching Tactic: students increase comprehension of reading by learning to analyze the structure of a text.

Additional Info:
Offering insights into the effective use of writing to teach students to think like professionals in various fields, this book is the result of a 7-year naturalistic study. The book documents how a writing specialist paired with an experienced professor in another discipline (business, history, psychology, and biology) to study: (1) teachers' expectations about "good" writing and thinking in each discipline; (2) the kinds of difficulties students encountered in trying to meet those expectations; and (3) how teachers' methods and students' strategies helped or hindered progress. Chapters in the book are: "Preview of the Book" (Barbara E. Walvoord and Lucille Parkinson McCarthy); "Research Theory and Methods" (Lucille Parkinson McCarthy and Barbara E. Walvoord); "Managerial Decision Making: Sherman's Business Course" (Barbara E. Walvoord and A. Kimbrough Sherman); "Arguing and Debating: Breihan's History Course" (Barbara E. Walvoord and John R. Breihan); "Using Social Science to Help Oneself and Others: Robison's Human Sexuality Course" (Barbara E. Walvoord and Susan Miller Robison); "Conducting and Reporting Original Scientific Research: Anderson's Biology Class" (Virginia Johnson Anderson and Barbara E. Walvoord); and "Conclusion" (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Preview of the Book
ch. 2 Research Theory and Methods
ch. 3 Managerial Decision Making
ch. 4 Arguing and Debating
ch. 5 Using Social Science to Help Oneself and Others
ch. 6 Conducting and Reporting Original Scientific Research
ch. 7 Conclusion

Additional Info:
A unique tool designed to assess and promote the improvement of critical thinking and real-world problem solving skills. The instrument is the product of extensive development, testing, and refinement with a broad range of institutions, faculty, and students across the country. The National Science Foundation has provided support for many of these activities.

Additional Info:
An essential lifelong skill for students is to think about their learning, or be metacognitive about it. Karen M. Kortz, Ph.D., shares three activities that help students practice this important skill.

Additional Info:
The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our thinking. The quality of our thinking, in turn, is determined by the quality of our questions, for questions are the engine, the driving force behind thinking. Without questions, we have nothing to think about. Without essential questions, we often fail to focus our thinking on the significant and substantive. When we ask essential questions, we deal with what is necessary, relevant, and indispensable to a matter at hand. We recognize what is at the heart of the matter. Our thinking is grounded and disciplined. We are ready to learn. We are intellectually able to find our way about. To be successful in life, one needs to ask essential questions: essential questions when reading, writing, and speaking; when shopping, working, and parenting; when forming friendships, choosing life-partners, and interacting with the mass media and the Internet. Yet few people are masters of the art of asking essential questions. Most have never thought about why some questions are crucial and others peripheral. Essential questions are rarely studied in school. They are rarely modeled at home. Most people question according to their psychological associations. Their questions are haphazard and scattered. The ideas we provide are useful only to the extent that they are employed daily to ask essential questions. Practice in asking essential questions eventually leads to the habit of asking essential questions. But we can never practice asking essential questions if we have no conception of them. This mini-guide is a starting place for understanding concepts that, when applied, lead to essential questions. We introduce essential questions as indispensable intellectual tools. We focus on principles essential to formulating, analyzing, assessing, and settling primary questions. You will notice that our categories of question types are not exclusive. There is a great deal of overlap. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction: The Power of Essential Questions

Part One: Analytic Questions
ch. 1 Questioning the Structure of Thinking
ch. 2 Asking One System, No System, and Conflicting System Questions
ch. 3 Questioning Dogmatic Absolutism and Subjective Relativism
ch. 4 Question Concepts
ch. 5 Conceptual Tools for Conceptual Questions
ch. 6 Questioning Data, Information, and Experience
ch. 7 Questioning Questions: Identifying Prior Questions
ch. 8 Asking Complex Interdisciplinary Questions
ch. 9 Interdisciplinary Questions: An Example
ch. 10 Questioning in Decision-Making and Problem-Solving

PartTwo: Evaluative Questions
ch. 11 Determining Value, Merit, and Worth
ch. 12 Evaluating Reasoning (Overall)
ch. 13 Evaluating Reasoning (The Parts)
ch. 14 Questioning Clarity and Precision
ch. 15 Questioning As We Read
ch. 16 Questioning As We Write
ch. 17 Asking Ethical Questions
ch. 18 Questioning Bias and Propaganda

Part Three: Questioning Within Academic Disciplines
ch. 19 Questioning the Fundamental Logic of Academic Disciplines
ch. 20 Questioning the Status of Disciplines
ch. 21 Questioning to Understand the Foundations of Academic Disciplines
Essential Questions in Science
Essential Questions in the Social Disciplines
Essential Questions in the Arts

Part Four: Questioning for Self-Knowledge and Self-Development
ch. 22 Questioning Ourselves as Learners
ch. 23 Questioning Our Egocentrism
ch. 24 Questioning Our Sociocentrism
ch. 25 Questioning to Develop Intellectual Dispositions

Conclusion: Questioning Systematically and Socratically

Additional Info:
This book explores the wide range of contexts in which research into creating connections in learning and teaching may take place. Creating connections can encompass making links, crossing divides, forming relationships, building frameworks, and generating new knowledge. The cognitive, cultural, social, emotional and/or physical aspects of understanding, meaning-making, motivating, acting, researching, and evaluating are explored as constituent forms of creativity in relation to such connections.

From this exploration the authors identify varied connective contexts and means which include the learner, the educator, the organisation, and the relevant community. The crossing of divides, forming learner-educator relationships, bringing together diverse groups of learners, establishing networks and partnerships among educators, and establishing links between organisations and communities are all considered as connections which can be created by and within the learning and teaching dynamic.

By examining the factors which help to facilitate and/or restrict the possibilities for creating connections in educational contexts, implications for and outcomes of learning and/or teaching arise from the connections created. The final chapter of this book will explicate the realisations that have emerged for educators and researchers working to create connections. These offer suggestions for future directions and enunciate what and how connections might contribute to both educational institutions and the broader society. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Exposing Threads: Creating Connections in Teaching and Learning

Section I: Connecting Within School Contexts
ch. 1 Connecting Early Childhood Educators, Action Research, and Teaching for Social Justice (Karen Hawkins)
ch. 2 Inspire to Connect a Learning Desirec (Brad McLennan and Karen Peel)
ch. 3 Shared Values Connecting Parents, Teachers, and Students (J. Anne Casley)
ch. 4 Engaging Students Through Student Voice: Negotiating Pedagogy (Ian Fraser)
ch. 5 Relational Trust as a Core Resource for Building Capacity in Schools (Richard Scagliarini)
ch. 6 International Teachers Making Connections in Times of Change (Marie Davis)

Section II: Connecting Beyond School Contexts
ch. 7 Enhancing Relationships in Doctoral Student Supervision: Shibboleths, Signifiers, and Strategies (P. A. Danaher and Henriette van Rensburg)
ch. 8 Productive Partnerships: Cross-Departmental Connections in a Tertiary Context (Karen Noble and Robyn Henderson)
ch. 9 Addressing Offshore Disconnections Between Chinese and Western Business Academics and Students (Joe Peng Zhou and Cec Pedersen)
ch. 10 Curriculum Connections: Lessons from Post-Compulsory Vocational Education and Training (Lindsay Parry, R. E. (Bobby) Harreveld and P. A. Danaher)

Section III: Making Meaning From Lived Experiences
ch. 11 Look Who’s Listening: Using the Superaddressee for Understanding Connections in Dialogue (Warren Midgley)
ch. 12 Effective Cluster Collaborations: Transformation Through School and University Connections (Joan M. Conway and Lindy Abawi)
ch. 13 Linking Pedagogical Documentation to Phenomenological Research (Laurie Kocher)
ch. 14 Juggling Research with Teaching: Building Capacity in a University Research Team (Margaret Baguley and Helmut Geiblinger)
ch. 15 Sharing Japanese and Australian Culture: A Case Study in Second Language Learning (Junichi Hatai and Robert D. White)

Section IV: Making Virtual Connections
ch. 16 A New Zealand Tertiary Educator’s Online Journey (C. E. Haggerty)
ch. 17 Connecting Learners in Virtual Space: Forming Learning Communities (Lyn Brodie and Peter Gibbings)
ch. 18 Bridging a Discipline Divide Through the Lens of Community of Inquiry (Petrea Redmond and Christine McDonald)
ch. 19 Finding the Right Online Learning Connections: Comparing Models in Practice (Tina van Eyk)
ch. 20 Linking the Threads: Creating Clearer Connections (Lindy Abawi, Joan M. Conway, and Robyn Henderson)

Additional Info:
In this article I propose a method of selecting and assigning readings in the religious studies or theology classroom, such that these readings complicate one another, rather than standing in opposition or as simple alternatives. Such a strategy emulates key pedagogical insights of twelfth-century sentence collection, an activity at the very heart of the earliest universities in Europe. It also draws support from the theories of intellectual development advanced by William G. Perry, Jr. and the Women's Ways of Knowing Collaborative. Both precedents suggest a principle of “complicating views” that can be flexibly employed in a variety of ways and diverse pedagogical contexts, as illustrated by examples from several classes. Such strategies aim to avoid reinforcing intellectual patterns of dualism or undifferentiated relativism; instead, they attempt to promote students' ability to integrate discordant voices and to appreciate diverse points of view, while also staking their own claims relative to them.

Additional Info:
Faculty often worry that students can’t or won’t read critically, a foundational skill for success in academic and professional endeavors. “Critical reading” refers both to reading for academic purposes and reading for social engagement. This volume is based on collaborative, multidisciplinary research into how students read in first-year courses in subjects ranging from scientific literacy through composition. The authors discovered the good (students can read), the bad (students are not reading for social engagement), and the ugly (class assignments may be setting students up for failure) and they offer strategies that can better engage students and provide more meaningful reading experiences. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword by (Pat Hutchings)
Preface
Introduction

ch. 1 Different Courses, Common Concern
ch. 2 Can Students Read? Comprehension, Analysis, Interpretation, and Evaluation
ch. 3 Critical Reading for Academic Purposes
ch. 4 Critical Reading for Social Engagement
ch. 5 So Now What

Appendix One: Rubrics and Worksheets
Appendix Two: Taxonomy of Absence
Appendix Three: Coda on Collaboration

Additional Info:
One page Teaching Tactic: students apply earlier material to assess current reading assignment.

Additional Info:
A commitment to empathetic understanding shaped the field of religious studies; although subject to critique, it remains an important teaching practice where students are charged with the task of recognizing, and perhaps even appreciating, a worldview that appears significantly different from their own. However, when the focus of the course is historical trauma there are significant epistemological and ethical reasons empathetic understanding may not be our best pedagogical strategy. Drawing primarily on my experience teaching a general education class “The Holocaust and Its Impact” at California State University, Bakersfield, I advocate replacing empathetic understanding with engaged witnessing as a pedagogical framework and strategy for teaching traumatic knowledge. To make this case, I delineate four qualities of engaged witnessing and demonstrate their use in teaching about the Holocaust.

Additional Info:
An extensive website with multiple diagrams and links to extended presentations on the various aspects of the Bloom taxonomy of learning styles.

Additional Info:
Teaching students to doubt, that is, to "test," theological arguments as one might test any other kind of knowledge is challenging in that the warrant for such testing is not immediately clear. Stephen Toulmin, Richard Rieke, and Allan Janik's model of reasoning provides a conceptual framework that demonstrates the logical relationships between a claim, its grounds, warrants, and backing for warrants. Against such a model, the instructor and students may study religious claims, both biblical and theological, with the aim of analyzing the ways such claims find support or a lack of support depending upon the particular ways that claims and evidence have competing warrants. Several pedagogical benefits ensue. First, students see that the validity for theological claims rests as much upon warrants as it does upon grounding. Second, searching for ancient warrants privileges historical-critical investigation. Third, competing warrants for contradictory theological claims summon pedagogical metaphors of process and development.

Additional Info:

Additional Info:
A 1000 word essay on using media to teach theory.

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: The authors of Teaching Applied Creative Thinking: A New Pedagogy for the 21st Century believe this book to be the first in the field about teaching creative thinking in the new millennium. While many books talk about creativity and provide the justification for adding creative thinking as a student learning outcome, this book focuses on applying creativity to the teaching and learning process. The authors ask, “does anyone truly believe the world’s problems are going to be solved by students with only a high proficiency in common core competencies?”

With student learning outcomes as a goal, we must rethink teaching and learning to include creativity. Posed for the 21st-Century learner, their new paradigm, Mentor-from-the-Middle, replicates scholarly inquiry by developing a scholarly frame of mind. The teacher assumes new roles in this paradigm of scholar, mentor, facilitator, coach, model, and critical reflector. These roles in turn combine to help transform the learner into an active creative thinker.

"The authors’ goals in writing this book are to fill a void, to transform teaching, to create a new model, and to develop a new approach to teaching and learning. In the old world, before the coming of Google, the transfer of knowledge was the work of the teacher; now knowledge is available at the tip of our fingers. But the Google cannot solve the world’s problems. We will always need great teachers to transform and synthesize knowledge into skills, to teach creative thinking, to apply learning, and to create a love for learning that lasts a lifetime. The authors discuss new brain research, advanced technologies, the teaching environment, and pedagogy. They synthesize this knowledge in a wonderful way to encourage the reader to think deeply about how this research might affect the teacher and the learner. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Optimizing Student Learning

ch. 1 Why a Pedagogy of Creativity Studies, Why Now?
ch. 2 The Role of Authority in Teaching-Learning Paradigms
ch. 3 The Meddler-in-the-Middle Pedagogy
ch. 4 The Role of Authority in the Meddler-in-the-Middle Theory
ch. 5 The Learning Environment for Optimal Creative Thinking
ch. 7 Blinded by Science . . . Not
ch. 8 Starting to Build a New Pedagogy
ch. 9 Moving from Meddling to Mentoring-from-the-Middle: A New Paradigm
ch. 10 What the Mentor Teaches
ch. 11 Where the Mentor Teaches
ch. 12 Teaching Perception Shift
ch. 13 Teaching Piggybacking
ch. 14 Teaching Brainstorming
ch. 15 Teaching Glimmer-Catching
ch. 16 Teaching Collaborating
ch. 17 Teaching Going with the Flow
ch. 18 Teaching Playing
ch. 19 Teaching Pattern Recognition
ch. 20 Teaching Metaphor Usage
ch. 21 A Typical Opening Day Using the New Pedagogy
ch. 22 Crossword Puzzles: A Universal Tool for Teaching Creative Thinking
ch. 23 How Video Games Can Inform Teaching
ch. 24 The Creative Campus
ch. 25 A Proposal for Professional Development

Afterword
Appendix I

Additional Info:
One page Teaching Tactic: a free write exercise helps students reflect on and articulate their values.

Additional Info:
A classic matrix for thinking through classroom learning objectives as progressively more complex tasks and expectations

Additional Info:
The contributors to Education for Judgement maintain that the elements of great teaching can be identified and consciously practiced. Many of the essays describe the building blocks of successful group leadership: negotiating a "contract" governing the conduct of the group; orchestrating a constructive process of questioning,listening,and responding; encouraging independent thinking; and guiding participants toward useful roles in their interaction with one another. The other chapters in the volume take a broader,more philosophical view of discussion leadership. They cover the ethical considerations of discussion teaching,the special challenges of teaching technical material using this method,and one pioneering effort ot introduce a participative mode of medical education. First-person accounts of discussion leaders' experiences provide useful insights into the joys and pitfalls of teaching by the discussion method. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Forward
Preface

Part 1 Learning and Teaching
ch. 1 Barriers and Gateways to Learning
ch. 2 Premises and Practices of Discussion Teaching

Part 2 Personal Odysseys
ch. 3 Tulips, Tinfoil and Teaching: Journal of a Freshman Teacher
ch. 4 Great Beginnings
ch. 5 Changing Ground: A Medical School Lecturer Turns to Discussion Teaching
ch. 6 Every Student Teaches and Every Teacher Learns: The Reciprocal Gift of Discussion Teaching

Part 3 Building Blocks
ch. 7 Establishing a Teaching/Learning Contract
ch. 8 With Open Ears: Listening and the Art of Discussion Teaching
ch. 9 The Discussion Teacher in Action: Questioning, Listening and Response

Part 4 Critical Challenges
ch. 10 Patterns of Participation
ch. 11 Teaching Technical Material
ch. 12 "To See Ourselves as Others See Us": The Rewards of Classroom Observation
ch. 13 Discovering the Semester
ch. 14 Encouraging Independent Thinking

Part 5..Education for Judgment
ch. 15 Having It by Heart: Some Reflections on Knowing Too Much
ch. 16 Undue Influence: Confessions from an Uneasy Discussion Leader
ch. 17 A Delicate Balance: Ethical Dilemmas and the Discussion Process

Index

Additional Info:
In an attempt to engage students' higher-order thinking skills, we developed a documentary filmmaking project for our introduction to theology course. By documenting certain aspects of the theology of John Wesley and John Henry Newman (God, creation, revelation, Jesus, the church), students were able to delve deeply into these themes, better understanding them and their interrelationships. The project helped the students to actively practice historical theology, rather than passively learn about it through lectures. In addition, the project emphasized research skills, quality of writing and creative production, and a professional presentation at a screening.

Additional Info:
For those who learn through spatial representation, the skills and activities associated with Bloom's Taxonomy are laid out here in a complex diagram (various selections found in google search).

Additional Info:
Is higher education preparing our students for a world that is increasingly complex and volatile, and in which they will have to contend with uncertainty and ambiguity? Are we addressing the concerns of employers who complain that graduates do not possess the creative, critical thinking, and communication skills needed in the workplace?

This book harnesses what we have learned from innovations in teaching, from neuroscience, experiential learning, and studies on mindfulness and personal development to transform how we deliver and create new knowledge, and indeed transform our students, developing their capacities for adaptive boundary spanning.

Starting from the premise that our current linear, course-based, educational practices are frequently at odds with how our neurological system facilitates learning and personal development, the authors set out an alternative model that emphasizes a holistic approach to education that integrates mindful inquiry practice with self-authorship and the regulation of emotion as the cornerstones of learning, while demonstrating how these align with the latest discoveries in neuroscience.

The book closes by offering practical ideas for implementation, showing how simple refinements in classroom and out-of-classroom experiences can create foundations for students to develop key skills that will enhance adaptive problem solving, creativity, overall wellbeing, innovation, resilience, compassion, and ultimately world peace. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword (Gavin W. Henning)
Foreword (Ralph Wolff)
Acknowledgments
Preface (Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik)
Introduction: Rethinking How We Design, Deliver, and Evaluate Higher Education (Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik)

ch. 1 Basic Brain Parts and Their Functions (Matthew R. Everard, Jacopo Annese, and Marliee J. Bresciano)
ch. 2 Unpacking Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis (Matthew Evrard and Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik, with review by Thomas Van Vleet)
ch. 3 Strategies That Intentionally Change the Brain (Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik, Matthew R. Evrard, and Philippe Goldin, with review by Thomas Van Vleet)
ch. 4 (Re)Conceptualizing Meaning Making in Higher Education: A Case for Integrative Educational Encounters That Prepare Students for Self-Authorship (Emily Marx and Lisa Gates)
ch. 5 Intentional Design of High-Impact Experiential Learning (Patsy Tinsley McGill)
ch. 6 Enhancing Well-Being and Resilience (Christine L. Hoey)
ch. 7 Enhancing Creativity (Shaila Mulholland)
ch. 8 Enhancing Compassion and Empathy (Sara Schairer)
ch. 9 Balance Begets Integration: Exploring the Importance of Sleep, Movement, and Nature (Bruce Bekkar)
ch. 10 Enhancing and Evaluating Critical Thinking Dispositions and Holistic Student Learning and Development Through Integrative Inquiry (Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik, Philippe Goldin, Matthew R. Evrard, J. Luke Wood, Wendy Bracken, Charles Iyoho, and Mark Tucker)
ch. 11 Mindfulness at Work in Higher Education Leadership: From Theory to Practice Within the Classroom and Across the University (Les P. Cook and Anne Beffel)
ch. 12 A Mindful Approach to Navigating Strategic Change (Laurie J. Cameron)

Afterword: Adoption, Adaptation, and Transformation (Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik)
About the Editor and Contributors
Index

Additional Info:
The dissimilarity that exists between the historical and cultural situation of North American college students and the world described by the biblical authors poses a problem for theological and religious education. While the biblical authors tell fantastic stories of miracle and magic, the scientific and technological paradigm prevalent in western culture emphasizes the gathering of objective facts in the name of efficiency and pragmatism. Theological education tends to respond to this situation by embracing either a program of historical criticism or a form of Biblicism, both of which reinforce an objectivist approach to education. What is needed in theological education is an approach that "re-mythologizes" the Bible, enabling students to hear the theological message of the text addressed to their cultural and historical situation. One way this approach can be encouraged is through the teaching of the biblical text in conversation with the contemporary stories found in popular culture.

Additional Info:
Provides a brief explanation and instructions for students to encourage them to learn to annotate while reading texts — produced by a state university writing center. 

Additional Info:
One page Teaching Tactic: students learn to create models in order to increase their grasp of nuanced theological arguments.

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Research has demonstrated that cooperative learning is one of the most highly effective teaching strategies, while new findings from neuroscience confirm the brain’s natural inclination to think socially. But simply putting students in a group is not enough. The authors of The Power of the Social Brain see “interdependent thinking” as the missing piece of the collaborative puzzle. This authoritative book provides practical strategies, informed by research from neuroscience and education, to help groups function more effectively and thoughtfully. By adding the “cognitive dimension” to cooperative learning, this book will help readers apply new protocols and strategies for more successful, affirming, and productive group work in classrooms and professional educational learning communities.

Book Features:

Fresh parallel insights on interdependent thinking from the arts, architecture, business, the community, and sports.

Approaches for leveraging cooperative learning to improve thinking, problem solving, performance, and mutual support across a wide range of settings, including classrooms, teams, and professional learning communities.

Instructional strategies from experienced classroom teachers for teaching young people to think and work interdependently at home and at school.

Reflective questions at the end of each section to help guide thinking, stimulate conversation, and catalyze change within a learning community or classroom. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreward
Preface: Interdependent Thinking
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Thinking Interdependently – A Human Survival Mechanism

Part I – Interdependent Thinking In Life Settings
ch. 1 Creating and Influencing Momentum: The Challenges and Power of Adults Thinking Interdependently (Jerry Jennings)
ch. 2 Efficient Thinking with Architectural Teams (Peter Saucerman)
ch. 3 Thinking Together in Industry (James Heath)
ch. 4 Knowing the Score: Thinking Interdependently in the Orchestra(Virginia V. Baker, Elizabeth Baker, William Baker)
ch. 5 Thinking as a Team (Mark Jones)

Part II – Facilitation Strategies For Interdependent Thinking
ch. 6 A Virtual Continuum for Thinking Interdependently (Bena Kallick, Marie Alcock)
ch. 7 Creating Communities of Thought: Skills, Tasks, and Practices (Laura Lipton, Bruce Wellman)
ch. 8 Creating Interdependent Thinking Among School Staff (William A. Sommers, Shirley M. Hord)
ch. 9 Developing Smart Groups (Robert J. Garmston)
ch. 10 Working Smarter, Not Harder: Building Interdependent Communities of Practice Building Interdependent Communities of Practice (Diane P. Zimmerman)
ch. 11 In the Company of School Leaders (Patricia Reeves)
ch. 12 Thinking Maps for Meetings of the Mind (David Hyerle, Larry Alper)

Part III – Fostering Dispositions of Interdependent Thought
ch. 13 Cooperative Learning: Accessing Our Highest Human Potential (Judy Willis)
ch. 14 We Instead of Me: The Teacher’s Role in Engendering Interdependent Student Thinking (Patricia A. Roy)
ch. 15 We Think Better Together: Classroom Strategies for Interdependent Learning (Jill Barton, Mary Burke, Sabrina French)
ch. 16 Theater: Celebrating Interdependent Thinking (Sandra Brace)
ch. 17 Thinking Interdependently: The Family as a Team< (Lauren A. Carner, Angela Iadavaia-Cox) br> ch. 18 The Seven Habits of Highly Interdependent Teachers (Jeremy Little)
ch. 19 Teaching the Dispositions of Interdependent Thought (Arthur L. Costa, Pat Wilson O'Leary)

Reflecting on Part III
About the Editors and Contributors
Index

Additional Info:
What might a school that wholeheartedly values thinking look like? How can we encourage students to be active learners instead of passive recipients of knowledge? In this engaging book, Boostrom invites readers to think about the ways in which the practice of teaching unintentionally promotes nonthinking. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword

ch. 1 Categories of thinking
ch. 2 Arts and disciplines
ch. 3 The content of stories
ch. 4 Stories in context
ch. 5 The whole truth
ch. 6 Thinking for oneself

Additional Info:
This essay argues that teachers would be more effective at promoting students' willingness to work hard at course content that seems to them remote and abstract if teachers explicitly presented that content to students more as a means to their education rather than as the aim of their education. Teachers should confront the fact that most of the content they teach will be forgotten by students. Once this fact is accepted, then it follows that teaching content that teachers know will be forgotten as if it should never be forgotten is myopic and perhaps dysfunctional. An alternative teaching model is to use course content to stimulate the flourishing of developmental human skills--rationality, language, aesthetic responsiveness, imagination, introspection, moral and ethical deliberation, sociability, and physicality--in the service of a developmental notion of liberal education that can never go out of date and can never be forgotten because its effects become absorbed as developmentally advanced orientations of life, not crammed into short-term memory for the sake of passing tests.

Additional Info:
UNC Charlotte’s Learning Center provides this helpful example of a gradation of activities for assessment (specific to “social studies”), from classify, define, demonstrate, to  order, predict, solve, and state a rule

Additional Info:
A 1000 word essay in response to a Call for Papers on the wider context of your course.

Additional Info:
A quick scannable overview with solid advice.

Additional Info:
Critical thinking is becoming increasingly prominent as an academic discipline taught and examined in schools and universities, as well as a crucial skill for everyday life. To be a successful critical thinker it is vital to understand how the different concepts and terms are defined and used. The terminology often presents a stumbling block for the beginner, since much of it is used imprecisely in everyday language.

This definitive A to Z guide provides precise definitions for over 130 terms and concepts used in critical thinking. Each entry presents a short definition followed by a more detailed explanation and authoritative clarification. Armed with the tools and knowledge provided in these pages, the reader will be able to distinguish an assertion from an argument, a flaw from a fallacy, a correlation from a cause and a fact from an opinion. The book is an invaluable resource for teachers and students of critical thinking, providing all the tools necessary to effectively analyse, evaluate, question and reason for yourself. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Foreword
A to Z of Critical Thinking
List of Events

Additional Info:
A New Mexico State University Library site, with examples, suggestions, criteria, and bibliography.

Additional Info:
Ithica College library site, with 6 quick suggestions, 6 more criteria, and several exercises/assignments to test students’ discernment skills.

Additional Info:
This short, inexpensive guide is designed to help readers learn to think critically about any subject-matter. A combination of instruction and exercises shows how to use critical thinking to more fully to appreciate what they read, to see the connections of what they read to their day-to-day lives, and to become active readers rather than passive recipients of information. Using a fresh, lively approach, this book covers the definition of critical thinking; critical thinking within fields of study such as philosophy, biology, and sociology; the elements of reasoning; standards of critical thinking; and thinking through important critical-thinking questions. An excellent guide for those who want to improve their learning skills. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 What Is Critical Thinking?

Some Definitions of Critical Thinking. Some Prominent Features of Critical Thinking. Three Parts of Critical Thinking. An Example of Critical Thinking in Action. What Critical Thinking Is Not. Impediments to Critical Thinking. Deeper, More Pervasive Impediments to Critical Thinking. How Deep is Our Need for Critical Thinking? The Experience of Learning to Think Things Through. An Overview of the Book That Lies Ahead.

ch. 2 The Elements of Reasoning.

The Nuts and Bolts of Critical Thinking. The Elements of Reasoning. How to Analyze a Piece of Reasoning Using the Elements. Example: Thinking through the Logic of Getting Married. Trusting the Process.

ch. 3 What Is Critical Thinking within a Field or Discipline?

The Parts of Critical Thinking within a Field. Thinking Biologically, Thinking Sociologically, Thinking Philosophically, Thinking Musically … The Logic of the Field or Discipline. Learning the Vocabulary of the Discipline. Fundamental and Powerful Concepts. The Central Question of the Course as a Whole. The Point of View of the Discipline. Impediments to Thinking Critically within a Discipline. Trusting the Discipline.

ch. 4 Standards of Critical Thinking.

Clearness. Accuracy. Importance, Relevance. Sufficiency. Depth and Breadth. Precision. Understanding and Internalizing Critical Thinking Standards. Evaluating around the Circle. A Note on Reading as a Critical-Thinking Process.

ch. 5 Putting It All Together: Answering Critical-Thinking Questions.

The Core Process of Critical Thinking. How Do You Fit in the Picture: Becoming a Critical Thinker. Thinking through Important Critical-Thinking Questions.

Additional Info:

Additional Info:
Conducts research and disseminates information on critical thinking for K-12 and higher ed faculty, and students. (The website also calls itself the "Critical Thinking Community.")

Additional Info:
A brief annotated list that succinctly articulates what we mean by “critical thinking, assembled by the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Additional Info:
Five things that can make a big difference to help students read your texts with facility and intellectual engagement.

Additional Info:
Click Here for Book Review
Abstract: Critical and Creative Thinking: A Guide for Teachers reveals ways to develop a capacity to think both critically and creatively in practical and productive ways.

- Explains why critical and creative thinking complement each other with clear examples
- Provides a practical toolkit of cognitive techniques for generating and evaluating ideas using both creative and critical thinking
- Enriches the discussion of creative and critical intersections with brief “inter-chapters” based on the thinking habits of Leonardo da Vinci
- Offers an overview of current trends in critical and creative thinking, with applications across a spectrum of disciplines (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Website

Part One Introducing Critical and Creative Thinking
ch. 1 Essential Critical Thinking Concepts
What Is Critical Thinking?
Habits of Mind
Why Intellectual Habits and Character Matter
Overcoming Obstacles to Thinking
A Model for Critical Thinking
How You KnowWhat You Know
Perception and Knowledge
Being Wrong
Why Errors Persist
Applications
References
Interchapter 1 Facts and Knowledge

ch. 2 Essential Creative Thinking Concepts
What Is Creative Thinking?
Seeking Alternatives and Possibilities
Reversing Relationships
Cross-fertilizing
Shifting Attention
Denying the Negative
The Creative Habit
Creative Confidence
Creative Theft
Creative Crime
Creative Questions
Applications
References
Interchapter 2 Sustaining Curiosity

Part Two Practicing Critical and Creative Thinking
ch. 3 Becoming a Critical and Creative Thinker
Becoming a Critical Thinker
Intellectual Standards as Guidelines for Critical Thinking
Language and Thought
Reports, Inferences, and Judgments
The Prevalence and Power of Metaphor
Innovating through Analogy
Becoming a Creative Thinker
Developing the Creative Habit
Focus
Solo and Group Creativity
Concepts as Cognitive Tools
Applications
References
Interchapter 3 Embodying Experience

ch. 4 Critical Thinking Strategies and Applications
The Nature of Argument
Claims, Evidence, and Assumptions
Evidence: Claims and Warrants
Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
Sherlock Holmes as a Logical Thinker
Syllogisms, Enthymemes, and Argument
Argument and Authority
Argument and Analogy
Argument and Causality
Causality, Coincidence, and Correlation
Further Causal Consequences
Applications
References
Interchapter 4 Blending Art and Science

ch. 5 Creative Thinking Strategies and Applications
Imagination First
Imagination, Creativity, and Innovation
The Limits of Imagination
Capacities for Imaginative Thinking
Why Ideas Are Important
How to Get Ideas
Creative Whacks
Being Practical/What Iffing
Combining Things
Using Paradox
Thinking the Unthinkable
Applications
References
Interchapter 5 Combining Connections

Part Three Applying Critical and Creative Thinking
ch. 6 Decision Thinking: Making Critical Decisions
Making Decisions
Affective Forecasting
Achieving Insights that Affect Decisions
Institutional Decisions
Incentives and Decisions
Decisiveness
Making Tough Decisions
Making Group Decisions
Applications
References
Interchapter 6 Embracing Ambiguity

ch. 7 Ethical Thinking: Making Ethical Decisions
Basic Ethical Concepts
Ethics, Values, and Virtues
Ethical Imagination
Cosmopolitanism and Global Ethics
Technology and Ethics
The Ethics of Information
Ethical Decisions
Ethical Provocations

Applications
References
Index

Additional Info:
Analysis of interview and classroom observation data collected through four institutional case studies reveals some consistent findings regarding how writing assignments and class discussions can be made conducive to critical thinking development.

Additional Info:
Recommends theoretically grounded and empirically supported strategies to improve the development and assessment of students’ thinking skills – with bibliography. Idea Paper no. 37, from the series developed by the Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development, Kansas State University.

Additional Info:
One page Teaching Tactic: teaching critical thinking skills by interpreting real-life ethical issues.

Additional Info:
Should we stop teaching critical thinking? Meant as a prompt to further discussion, Critical Condition questions the assumption that every student should be turned into a “critical thinker.”

The book starts with the pre-Socratics and the impact that Socrates’ death had on his student Plato and traces the increasingly violent use of critical “attack” on a perceived opponent. From the Roman militarization of debate to the medieval Church’s use of defence as a means of forcing confession and submission, the early phases of critical thinking were bound up in a type of attack that Finn suggests does not best serve intellectual inquiry. Recent developments have seen critical thinking become an ideology rather than a critical practice, with levels of debate devolving to the point where most debate becomes ad hominem. Far from arguing that we abandon critical inquiry, the author suggests that we emphasize a more open, loving system of engagement that is not only less inherently violent but also more robust when dealing with vastly more complex networks of information.

This book challenges long-held beliefs about the benefits of critical thinking, which is shown to be far too linear to deal with the twenty-first century world. Critical Condition is a call to action unlike any other. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Acknowledgements
Preface: An Invitation

ch. 1 A Foolish Question: Isn’t It Time We Replaced Critical Thinking?
ch. 2 The Baby and the Bathwater: The Birth of Critical Thinking
ch. 3 A Hitch or Two: Polemic, Violence, and the Case for Critical Thinking
ch. 4 We Can’t Go On Together (with Suspicious Minds)
ch. 5 An Immodest Proposal: Let’s Replace Critical Thinking with Creative, Loving, Open-Source Thought
ch. 6 “Sure, It Works in Practice, but Will It Work in Theory?”
ch. 7 Conclusion: An Open Invitation—Some Final Ideas and Questions

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Additional Info:
The Critical Thinking Initiative podcast is a response to the low critical thinking outcomes among U.S. students across all levels of education. Each episode dispels myths about teaching critical thinking education and discusses cutting-edge, research-supported ways to actually improve critical thinking in any discipline.

Additional Info:
Journal Issue. Full text is available online.

Table Of Content:
ch. 1 Theology as Critical Inquiry (Paul E. Capetz)
ch. 2 Reenacting Ancient Pedagogy in the Classroom (Marjorie Lehman)
ch. 3 Forming a Critical Imagination (Karen-Marie Yust)
ch. 4 Critical Thinking and Prophetic Witness, Historically-Theologically Based (Glen H. Stassen)
ch. 5 Social Theory as a Critical Resource (Paul Lakeland)
ch. 6 Ethnography as Critical Theological Resource (Mary McClintock Fulkerson)
ch. 7 Contextualizing Womanist/Feminist Critical Thought and Praxis (Rosetta E. Ross)
ch. 8 Critical Perspective in Biblical Studies (Robert Coote)
ch. 9 Liturgical Theology as Critical Practice (Bruce T. Morrill)
ch. 10 The Parish Context: A Critical Horizon for Teaching and Learning Ethics (Cheryl J. Sanders)
ch. 11 Critical Reflection and Praxis in Developing Ministerial Leaders (Emily Click)
ch. 12 New Wine in Old Vessels: Enabling Students to Enter an Age-old Conversation (Norman J. Cohen)

Additional Info:
In this essay, I explore an exam format that pairs multiple-choice questions with required rationales. In a space adjacent to each multiple-choice question, students explain why or how they arrived at the answer they selected. This exercise builds the critical thinking skill known as metacognition, thinking about thinking, into an exam that also engages students in the methods of the academic study of religion by asking them to compare familiar excerpts and images. As a form of assessment, the exam provides a record of students' knowledge and their thought processes, and as a learning strategy, it encourages students to examine the thought processes they use to understand religion(s) and its many manifestations.

Additional Info:
This fine sourcebook provides college and university teachers, across the curriculum, with specific classroom-tested activities and assignments to stimulate and develop student critical thinking.

The book consists of fifty modules, each containing:

* A description of a critical thinking assignment,

* An explanation of the assignment's purposes and benefits,

* A discussion of ways to use or modify the assignment in the classroom, and

* Suggested related activities, including relevant bibliographical sources.

Most modules were developed by the author; in other cases, the author shaped, refined, and expanded on material that has been developed and used by colleagues. Some modules are discipline-specific, some are suitable for a number of disciplines; and many can easily be modified for use in a wide variety of fields. The assignments vary in scope, difficulty and complexity. Some are deigned for introductory freshman courses, while others have been used in graduate courses but could be adapted for lower level courses.

Each module stands alone, but the modules are loosely grouped into five sections:

(1) Problems and Puzzles
(2) Analyses and Critiques
(3) Opinions, Decisions, Values
(4) Projects, Experiments, Adventures
(5) Student as Teacher, Teacher as Student.

The sourcebook also includes an introductory chapter on the nature and importance of critical thinking, a cross-referencing of all activities by discipline, and a wide-ranging bibliography. Cultivating Judgment has been extensively tested in college classrooms, then revised, expanded and significantly improved. The author has conducted extensive research on the teaching of thinking skills, and discovered that discovered that no existing source filled the need for a book that spells out and demonstrates how to teach critical thinking in virtually any discipline, from liberal arts to more specialized career programs.

You will find Cultivating Judgment to be an engaging book, and one that combines intellectual rigor with a playful, creative spirit – and, one that can be used as a textbook in a general course on critical thinking, or as a resource for teachers across the curriculum! (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Preface
Introduction: Thinking About Critical Thinking
Activities by Discipline
Section One: Problems and Puzzles
Activity 1: Thinking on Another Planet (Testing Critical Thinking)
Activity 2: Who Killed Harry Skank? (Solving Problems and Puzzles)
Activity 2: Handout: Murder Mystery
Activity 3: Do Bees Build It Best? (Solving Mathematical Problems)
Section Two: Analyses and Critiques
Activity 4: Is the Earth Hollow? (Distinguishing Fact from Opinion)
Activity 4: Handout: Fact vs. Opinion
Activity 5: From the Known to the Unknown (Making Inferences)
Activity 6: I’m Taking Medication—You’re on Drugs (Detecting Slanting)
Activity 6: Handout on Evaluating Internet Sources
Activity 7: For the Semantically Challenged (Deciphering Euphemisms)
Activity 8: Weighing the Evidence (Evaluating Evidence and Statistics)
Activity 8: Handout: Evaluating Evidence
Activity 9: Eyewitness (Observing, Remembering, Describing)
Activity 10: Asking the Right Questions (Asking Questions, Getting Information)
Activity 11: The Guiding Light (Using Study Guides Collaboratively)
Activity 11: Handout: Study Guide to When She Was Bad
Activity 11: Handout: Study Guide to "Ode to a Nightingale"
Activity 12: What Do Men Want? (Comparing Student Opinions)
Activity 13: At First Blush (Analyzing Behavior)
Activity 14: The State vs. Rumpelstiltskin (Using Evidence, Applying Principles)
Activity 15: It’s a Bird, It’s a Bootie Bird (Defining Terms, Applying Definitions)
Activity 16: The Pecking Order (Applying Concepts, Using Examples)
Activity 17: Incident Report (Reporting Events, Making Decisions)
Activity 18: Who Fired the First Shot? (Analyzing Historical Accounts)
Activity 19: You Write Like a Girl (Analyzing Literature, Detecting Stereotypes)
Activity 20: Can Shakespeare Be Trusted? (Writing Critically about Literature)
Activity 21: The Prisoner’s Dilemma (Using Cost-Benefit Analysis)
Activity 22: Just Because (Using Causal Analysis)
Activity 23: Dissecting Words Instead of Frogs (Analyzing Scientific Articles)
Activity 24: What Did That Prove? (Analyzing Experiments)
Section Three: Opinions, Decisions, Values
Activity 25: Coping 101 (Using Critical Thinking in Self-examination)
Activity 26: Tracing the Family Tree (Examining Family and Cultural Heritage)
Activity 27: A Personal Declaration of Independence (Making Decisions)
Activity 28: Dealing with the Devil (Examining Personal Values)
Activity 29: Defending the Indefensible (Examining the Vocabulary of Motive)
Activity 30: Crimes and Punishments (Making Judgments, Defining Consequences)
Activity 31: Who’s the Worst Offender? (Making Ethical Judgments)
Activity 32: How Will We Be Judged? (Making Historical Judgments)
Activity 33: In This Writer’s Opinion (Presenting Opinions Persuasively)
Activity 34: The Devil’s Advocate (Analyzing Arguments, Responding to Criticisms)
Activity 34 Handout: Paraphrasing Exercise
Activity 35: It’s Debatable (Debating Issues, Refuting Arguments)
Activity 36: What Are the Alternatives? (Solving Problems, Comparing Solutions)
Section Four: Projects, Experiments, Adventures
Activity 37: Does a Dog Know Its Name? (Testing Hypotheses)
Activity 38: Anthropology Comes Home (Interpreting Cultural Rituals)
Activity 39: If I Had My Way (Creating Models)
Activity 40: Making the Case (Students as Consultants: The Case Method)
Activity 41: Trying Jekyll for the Crimes of Hyde (Conducting Mock Trials)
Activity 42: Suddenly You’re Old (Students as Actors: Playing Roles)
Activity 43: Playing with Literature (Students as Collaborators: Playing with Texts)
Activity 44: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Students as Artists)
Activity 45: Thinking Online and Off (Using Technology to teach Critical Thinking)
Activity 46: My Aquatic Uncle (Bringing the Disciplines Together)
Section Five: Student as Teacher, Teacher as Student
Activity 47: Seminaring (Students as Collaborative Teachers)
Activity 48: Back to the Classroom (Teachers as Students)
Activity 49: Time to Take Inventory (Student Self-Inventory)
Activity 50: What’s Missing from this Course? (Student Evaluations)
Activity 50 Handout: Student Feedback Survey
Appendix / Selected Critical Thinking Websites Bibliography

Additional Info:
This article draws six key lessons from cognitive science for teachers of critical thinking. The lessons are: acquiring expertise in critical thinking is hard; practice in critical thinking skills themselves enhances skills; the transfer of skills must be practiced; some theoretical knowledge is required; diagramming arguments ("argument mapping") promotes skill; and students are prone to belief preservation. The article provides some guidelines for teaching practice in light of these lessons.

Additional Info:
In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teaching issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today.

In a series of short, accessible, and enlightening essays, hooks explores of the confounding and sometimes controversial topics that teachers and students have urged her to address since the publication of the previous best-selling volums in her Teaching series, Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community. The issues are varied and broad, from whether meaningful teaching can take place in a large classroom setting to confronting issues of self-esteem. One professor, for example, asked how black female professors can maintain positive authority in a classroom without being seen through the lens of negative racist, sexist stereotypes. One teacher asked how to handle tears in the classroom. while another wanted to know how to use humor as a tool for learning.

Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today. (From the Publisher)

Table Of Content:
Introduction

ch. 1 Critical Thinking
ch. 2 Democratic Education
ch. 3 Engaged Pedaeos
ch. 4 Decolonization
ch. 5 Inteerit
ch. 6 Purpose
ch. 7 Collaboration
ch. 8 Conversation
ch. 9 Telling the Story
ch. 10 Sharing the story
ch. 11 Imagination
ch. 12 To Lecture or Not
ch. 13 Humor in the Classroom
ch. 14 Crying Time
ch. 15 Conflict
ch. 16 Feminist Revolution
ch. 17 Black, Female, and Academic
ch. 18 Learning Past the Hate
ch. 19 Honoring Teachers
ch. 20 Teachers against Teaching
ch. 21 Self-Esteem
ch. 22 The Joy of Reading
ch. 23 Intellectual Life
ch. 24 Writing Books for Children
ch. 25 Spirituality
ch. 26 Touch
ch. 27 To Love Again
ch. 28 Feminist Change
ch. 29 Moving Past Race and Gender
ch. 30 Talking Sex
ch. 31 Teaching as Prophetic Vocation
ch. 32 Practical Wisdom

Index