Bringing it Home: Critical Thinking at the Institutional Level

1. Bringing it Home: Critical Thinking at the Institutional Level 32nd International Conference on Critical Thinking July 26, 2012 Rush Cosgrove cosgrove@criticalthinking.org Patty Payette, Ph.D. patty.payette@louisville.edu

2. Session Goals • Deepen our understanding of long-term continuing professional development centered around the ‘learning community.’ • Develop a plan for improving teaching and learning for critical thinking at your home site.

3. Our Operating Assumptions • Scale and scope of working with critical thinking concepts is variable among participants. • Concepts, ideas and principles shared can be applied flexibly across contexts. • Participants will pick and choose which ideas fit for their professional contexts.

4. How did we get here?Rush: • Seven years as professional workshop coordinator • Historian of Critical Thinking • Small-scale research at university and high school level • Larger scope for current and planned research • Growing emphasis on communities of learning

5. How did we get here?Patty: • Faculty developer with 11 years of working professionally with faculty across disciplines on teaching and learning, including establishing and facilitating learning communities • Leading a long-term professional development effort at the University of Louisville (UofL) called Ideas to Action (i2a) • Associate director of the Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning at UofL • Working with Paul-Elder critical thinking concepts since September 2007

6. Ideas to Action, or i2a • Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) as part of reaccreditation process with SACS-COC • QEP focus on critical thinking across the curriculum and community engagement • Data gathered for improvement suggested students craved skills and knowledge that are relevant to real-world contexts • Global outcomes: “Students will be able to think critically.” “Students will develop the ability to address community issues.”

7. Critical Thinking & Faculty • Paul, 1996 • 140 randomly sampled California college faculty • indicate critical thinking is a primary objective of their instruction • could give a clear explanation of critical thinking • had difficulty describing how to balance content coverage with fostering critical thinking • could articulate how to assess critical thinking 89% 19% 77% 8-9% http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/critical-thinking-testing-and-assessment/594

8. Activity: Consider your context • To what extent are the realities discussed so far reflected at your home base? • To what extent are your colleagues aware of these problems? • To what extent are they ready to learn to teach critical thinking more explicitly, systematically, socratically? • What are some of your key questions you are bringing to this session? • What do you hope to accomplish or better understand?

9. Consider: Implicit model of professional development (Clarke and Hollingsworth, 2002)

10. Professional Development as Learning Cycle (Chism, 2004)

11. Key Concept: Learning Community • AKA community of practice, faculty or professional learning community • Common features: • Shared mission • Commitment to inquiry & learning • Ongoing structure and facilitation • Collaboration, sharing, and mutual support • Balance theory and practice • Explicit reflection & assessment • Climate of trust & safet

12. Faculty Learning Community on Critical Thinking at UofL • Included 12-13 faculty from across disciplines • Met regularly during semester while devising & applying critical thinking innovations based on • Background reading, homework, and sharing of new work • Individual consultation required • Library of artifacts submitted • Employed best practices in course design, assessment and critical thinking • Tri-level reflection: learning community, critical thinking, their own teaching growth • Participants expected to serve as advocates upon completion

13. Other learning community formats • Committees or workgroups • E-learning communities across institutions • Professional learning communities (PLC) • Faculty reading circles • Learning communities centered around cohorts (e.g. pre-service teachers; early career faculty; first-year student staff)

14. Learning Community: fundamental and powerful concepts Mission and Purpose: • Begin with backward design: “What is your desired result, no matter what else happens?” Curriculum/structure • Consider common text as starting point • Build structure & accountability throughout Scholarly Process • Focus on knowledge, application, sharing Build Community: • Expect a learning curve • Build group identity: a name, a symbol/catch phrase, Enablers and Rewards: • Create incentives that make sense (Cox, 2004)

15. Activity: plan your own learning community • What is the purpose and focus of your learning community? • What kind of tone do you want to set and how will you do that? • Who will facilitate? (choose resources, answer questions) • Who should be involved? How will they be recruited? • When will you meet? For how long? Structure of sessions? • How will peer feedback, observations or input be included? • Will ‘homework’ be involved? What kind? How often? • Where is a neutral or comfortable location to meet? • What resources, including people, can you draw upon to assist you?

16. Break!

17. Features of Effective Professional Development • Effective continuing professional development is: • Long-term • Volunteer-based • On-site • Cooperative (involving constructive critique as well as support and advice) • Is taken seriously, and personally, by administrators and key teachers • Includes opportunities for both learning and applying theory • CT Theory must be substantive • Harnesses local expertise

18. i2a professional development Learning Communities www.louisville.edu/ideastoaction

19. Principles of i2a PD • Scaffolded • Goals and assessment tightly aligned • Sensitive to discipline-specific realities • Connected to existing assessment or programmatic structures • Transparent about where we are/what we know & don’t know • Supported by administrative & opinion leaders • Begins ‘where they are’ and not where we want them to be • Hands-on, practical application • Support through learning curve • Model the use of P-E critical thinking framework • Know the answer to “What’s in it for me?” • “Resource-full”

20. Activity: Plan your own PD Begin to plan a professional development program for your home base • Which aspects that we have introduced seem most important? • Which are most immediately feasible? Which more long-term? • Who will be an early supporter? • Who will be an agent of change? • Which intellectual, financial, physical, or other resources can be harnessed? • Who are your main stakeholders? Can you describe a vision of the benefits of PD for each of your “audiences”? • What are the existing structures, groups, programs, or people you could leverage or “piggyback on” for your efforts? • What are your next steps? • What are the speedbumps you anticipate?

21. Q&A with Rush and Patty • Questions • Clarifications • Concerns • Suggestions

22. Wrap up: Ten “takeaways” from this session • Insights • Ideas • “Ah ha” moments • Concepts • Strategies