Welcome to the CIRTL Network’s Virtual Coffee Hour

Fostering Critical Thinking Welcome to the CIRTL Network’s Virtual Coffee Hour • Nancy Ruggeri • Susanna Calkins • Justin Notestein Session begins at 1PM CT When you join the room please run the Audio Setup Wizard: Tools Menu->Audio->Audio Setup Wizard While we wait for the session to begin, please feel free to test your microphone and webcam If you are experiencing problems and/or have questions, please type into the chat window

Ways to Interact during the Coffee Hour Discussion • Turn on/off your microphone: • Raise your hand if you have a question or comment • Turn on/off your video: • Use the chat window to add comments, ask questions, or request help

Susie Calkins, Assoc. Director, Searle Center for the Advancement of Learning & Teaching Justin Notestein, Asst. Prof, Chemical and Biological Engineering Nancy Ruggeri, Assoc. Director, Searle Center for the Advancement of Learning & Teaching

When I hear the term “critical thinking,” I have a good sense of what this means in my discipline. • Strongly agree • Agree • Disagree • Strongly disagree

What is Critical Thinking? Expanded Contemporary Emphasis Classical Emphasis Evaluate Arguments and Conclusions Evaluating Ideas And Plans Evaluate One’s Own Understanding Reasoning Problem Solving Developing Life-Long Learning Skills Communication Creativity Thanks to Barry Stein

Critical knowledge (argument validity, theory, socio-political consequences) Dimensions of critical thinking Critical Skills (challenge assumptions & biases, evaluate evidence, analyze arguments etc) Critical Disposition (willingness to be critical thinker, analyze own faults & biases, self-reflection) James, Hughes & Cappa, 2010)

To what extent do you try to incorporate methods to promote critical thinking into your teaching? (Or if you haven't taught, to what extent do you see other instructors promoting critical thinking in their teaching?) • To a great extent (in most or all class sessions) • On occasion, but not in every session • Not very much at all • Unsure

Critical Thinking Initiative in STEM (CTIS) Research Collaboration Research Questions Can we use the Critical Thinking Assessment Test (CAT) to: • Improve how faculty teach (and think about) critical thinking? • Increase the gains that students make in critical thinking? DUE-0942404

What we are doing… Present faculty with assessment data on student gains in critical thinking in their class… …To inspire faculty to make changes to their teaching to enhance critical thinking… …To see if changes in teaching result in greater gains in their students’ critical thinking

Skills Evaluated by CAT Instrument • Separate factual information from inferences. • Interpret numerical relationships in graphs. • Understand the limitations of correlational data. • Evaluate evidence and identify inappropriate conclusions Evaluating Information • Identify alternative interpretations for data or observations. • Identify new information that might support or contradict a hypothesis. • Explain how new information can change a problem. Creative Thinking • Separate relevant from irrelevant information. • Integrate information to solve problems. • Learn & apply new information. • Use mathematical skills to solve real-world problems. Learning & Problem Solving Communication Communicate ideas clearly

Developing Discipline Specific Analogs Aligning course assessments with critical thinking skills Ex. Identify alternative interpretations for evidence Ex. Identify new information needed to support an idea

Example from Geology Analog *planets that revolve around a star that is not our Sun.

Enhancing critical thinking skills in Chemical Engineering Chemical engineers are… exactly what you think they would be like. • Curriculum focuses on solving problems (equations) in math, science, and engineering using modern tools of the field. • Calculus, simulation, and hands-on experiment. • Generalities of course content must be approved by external accreditation board. • It is underappreciated that the real challenges are in critical thinking: • How to formulate ill-defined problems • How to interpret ambiguous results • How to chose which of many possible (constraints, fits, equations, solution methods, data sources) apply to a given situation

ABET Requirements

Significant obstacles The community feels engineering education is a zero-sum game. “The PI has begun to develop non-technical communication exercises for ChemE undergraduates, and has two years of evaluation results suggesting that students appreciate their value. The technical content from the introductory mass-and-energy-balance course that these exercises have or will displace is not specified.” (comment on 2010 NSF CAREER proposal) I argue that enhancing critical thinking is essential, and actually the core of engineering education Here, discuss ChE 210 First ChEcourse, covers underlying principles of the field Minimal math: IN – OUT = ACUMULATION First ‘engineering’ course: math with a context, overspecified/underspecified. Required to synthesize information, find ‘creative’ solutions Performance in this course often uncorrelated with the rest of the curriculum.

One example of the appearance of critical thinking • Calculating PVT relationships is a core competency • PV=nRT • MANY equations of state for ‘real gases’ • Theoretical derivations • Empirical Fits • Generalized expressions • Offered a bonus question: A prize to first person to calculate P of CH4 at some T • to 10% accuracy, to 1% accuracy • Many people gave very precise values using inaccurate relations

A critical thinking assessment (pre-test week 1, post-test week 8) % conversion % conversion Pressure of A Time (min) The following plots are obtained when a researcher is monitoring the conversion of compound A into compound B as a function of time at a set pressure (left) and for a constant time with increasing pressure (right). The researcher hypothesizes that conversion should increase linearly with time and should be independent of pressure. • Describe the plots. • The plots show a set of experiments where the conversion of a reaction is monitored at different pressures and times. • The plots show a set of experiments monitoring a chemical reaction. Generally, the data could be consistent with conversion increasing with time and relatively independent with pressure. • The plots show that conversion increases with time and no correlation can be drawn to the effect of pressure. • Conversion increases linearly with time, except for the third point, which is wrong. It is hard to draw conclusions about the effect of pressure. If the 4th point is wrong there may be a sinusoidal dependence.

Further questions requiring written responses Describe the plots. Does this plot support the hypothesis that % conversion is linearly dependent on time and independent of the pressure of A? Looking back at their work, the researcher suspects there may be an error in the collection of one or more data points in each experiment. Do these plots support the hypothesis that there is an error in the collection of one or more data point? Does your answer to part C change your answer to part B? Why or why not? Critical Thinking Skills Tested: A: Summarize a pattern of results without making inappropriate inferences B/C/D: Evaluate how strongly correlation-type data supports a hypothesis. Provide alternative explanations for a pattern with many possible causes. Provide relevant alternative interpretations of information. Provide alternative explanations for spurious relationships. Identify additional information needed to evaluate a hypothesis.

Summary of student responses • About 30% of students were able to summarize without making inappropriate inferences. • Students had a strong tendency to see a linear trend in graph 1. Students not clear on what it means for data to be ‘independent of pressure’. Many students were looking for any possible correlation – sinusoids, higher order polynomials, etc. • Most students assumed from the get-go that one data point was wrong, but no appreciation of error bars in data, no appreciation that axes are devoid of scale, etc. • Data treated as canonical – their job is to find the ‘right’ fit. • For the rest of the course, dealt with messy and ill-defined data sets. Many instances where multiple data sources give you similar, but certainly not the same results. • Saw no improvement with post-test, just a broadening of the distribution. • Students excel at the math of data fitting, but don’t know how or why. • Suggestions: address ‘real’ data early and often. Show that results can be interpreted in multiple ways, which may or may not be equally valid/general. Importance of ‘consistent with’ vs. ‘is’

A second type of critical thinking question (Week 2 and week 9) Process A: Patent 1,234,567, year 1978 Process B: Patent 4,567,890, year 2010 Reactant Reactant Byproduct Byproduct 20 m tall separator T = 200°C P = 50 psig compact separator T = 200°C P = 500 psig 1 m3 reactor Filled with catalyst T = 200°C P = 500 psig 100 m3 reactor T = 200°C P = 50 psig Product Product You are an engineer at Dow Chemical looking to make a new product by one of two processes A and B described in patents and summarized below. Both processes use the same reactants, have the same products, and generate the same overall yields. • Additional info: • The reactant is toxic. • Compressors are expensive to operate (electricity cost). • Temperatures above 150°C require special materials. • The catalyst and compact separator units are proprietary (separately patented and licensed) • 12 examples of process A have been built at scale; no examples of process B have been built at this scale. • The product is worth $1200/ton • The reactant costs $800/ton • To help you decide between the two processes, you hire a consultant with many decades of experience. For two processes that have the same overall specifications (use the same reactants, generate the same products), the major deciding factor for Dow will be total cost to build and operate the process. • Consultant recommends process A for a company that wishes to make 10,000 tons/yr of product. Does this mean that process A is lowest cost to construct? • Circle the most relevant pieces of information. • List at least three reasons why consultant would have recommended this process, other than it being the lowest cost to construct. • What additional info may have the consultant used to reach their recommendation?

A second type of critical thinking question (Week 2 and week 9) Process A: Patent 1,234,567, year 1978 Process B: Patent 4,567,890, year 2010 Reactant Reactant Byproduct Byproduct 20 m tall separator T = 200°C P = 50 psig compact separator T = 200°C P = 500 psig 1 m3 reactor Filled with catalyst T = 200°C P = 500 psig 100 m3 reactor T = 200°C P = 50 psig Product Product You are an engineer at Dow Chemical looking to make a new product by one of two processes A and B described in patents and summarized below. Both processes use the same reactants, have the same products, and generate the same overall yields. • Additional info: • The reactant is toxic. • Compressors are expensive to operate (electricity cost). • Temperatures above 150°C require special materials. • The catalyst and compact separator units are proprietary (separately patented and licensed) • 12 examples of process A have been built at scale; no examples of process B have been built at this scale. • The product is worth $1200/ton • The reactant costs $800/ton • Critical Thinking Skills Tested: • Evaluate whether spurious relationships strongly support a claim. • Determine whether an invited inference in an advertisement is supported by information. • Provide relevant alternative interpretations of information. • Separate relevant from irrelevant information when solving a real-world problem. • Identify suitable solutions for a real-world problem using relevant information. • Noted improvementsin this question over the course of the year, especially in the creativity of responses. • Suggestions – talk about the real-world issues behind the engineering problems. Acknowledge conflicts of interest and controversy. The motivations of Chaucer and a $21B gas-to-liquids plant are both subject to interpretation.

Consider a critical thinking skill you would like to develop in your students. Create a new assignment, project or activity that could develop that skill

Fostering Critical Thinking • Dr. Nancy Ruggeri, Associate Director of Graduate Programs, Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Northwestern University • Dr. Susanna Calkins, Associate Director, Faculty Development, Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Northwestern University • Dr. Justin Notestein, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University

Next Month’s Coffee Hours Building an Academic Career Series Teaching and Learning in the STEM Classroom Series Tenure and Promotion: What you should know, what you should ask April 25th, 2013, 12-1pm CT Facilitated by: Don Foss, Professor, Dept of Psychology, University of Houston Philip Cohen, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Dean, Graduate School, Professor, Dept of English, The University of Texas at Arlington Daniel Mosse, Professor, Dept Chair, Dept of Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh No More Coffee Hours in Series Please check back next September for next year’s Coffee Hours series To sign up to hear about these and other CIRTL events, emailinfo@cirtl.net.

Welcome to the CIRTL Network’s Virtual Coffee Hour