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Establishing Good Thinking Skills & Habits in Early Undergraduates

Establishing Good Thinking Skills & Habits in Early Undergraduates. Ashley Waggoner Denton University of Toronto STP Annual Conference on Teaching October 2018. One-Minute Free Write: How might you respond to a student who makes the following comments?.

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Establishing Good Thinking Skills & Habits in Early Undergraduates

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  1. Establishing Good Thinking Skills & Habits in Early Undergraduates Ashley Waggoner Denton University of Toronto STP Annual Conference on Teaching October 2018

  2. One-Minute Free Write: How might you respond to a student who makes the following comments? • “I hate when teachers discuss problems instead of just giving the answers.” • “If my belief is truly sincere, evidence to the contrary is irrelevant." • “No matter how complex the problem, you can bet there will be a simple solution.” • "I don't waste time looking things up.”

  3. The Problem

  4. Overview of Project 2015: Applied for funding ($ for grad student!) 2016: Developed and piloted four initial workshops (also received STP IRA) • Collected feedback from students 2017: Revised workshops and piloted again as a three-part series • Collected initial pilot data on critical thinking skills and dispositions 2018: Published instructional resource for Workshop 1 on STP website

  5. Workshop 1Setting the Stage: An Introduction to Good Thinking

  6. Learning Outcomes By the end of this workshop, we expect that students will be able to: • Explain why critical thinking is important and worthwhile. • Describe some key critical thinking skills and habits. • Identify specific habits/skills that they would most like to improve. • Set intentions for developing these skills/habits. • Explain the difference between ability and willingness when it comes to critical thinking. • Describe why critical thinking can be difficult. • Identify specific obstacles/barriers to their own good thinking habits. • Identify potential strategies for overcoming these difficulties.

  7. Student Feedback (Fall 2016)N = 165 (students attended for bonus marks) “This workshop will be useful for my courses.”

  8. Student Feedback (Fall 2016)N = 165 (students attended for bonus marks) “This workshop will be useful for my life (outside of courses).”

  9. Student Feedback (Fall 2016)N = 165 (students attended for bonus marks) “The workshop activities stimulated my learning.”

  10. Student Feedback (Fall 2016)N = 165 (students attended for bonus marks) “I will be able to continue developing the skills used in the workshop.”

  11. Lesson 1: Why is Critical Thinking Important? • Bad thinking can lead to bad outcomes! ACTIVITY: Students are asked to share a time when their own lack of critical thinking led to negative consequences for them.

  12. Lesson 2a: What is Critical Thinking? What are some habits of good and bad thinkers? ACTIVITY: Students think of a time they exhibited a thinking habit from each side of the table.

  13. Actively Open-Minded Thinking “In good thinking: • search is sufficiently thorough for the question; • search and inference are fair to all possibilities under consideration (including ones other than our initial/preferred position); and • confidence is appropriate to the amount of search that has been done and the quality of the inferences made.” (Baron, 1996)

  14. Lesson 2b: Distinguishing between willingness and ability when it comes to good thinking • E.g., Keith Stanovich’s notion of dysrationalia Demonstration of insufficient search Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person? • Yes • No • Cannot be determined (Stanovich, 2015)

  15. Lesson 3: Debate is essential to science and to good thinking in general • Variation and selection are necessary for progress Video: TEDTalk “Dare to Disagree” by Margaret Heffernan (story of Dr. Alice Stewart)

  16. Lesson 3: Debate is essential to science and to good thinking in general Activity: Mini-reflective essay (from Baron, 1996) Issue: Should we remove marks at university? • What is your initially preferred view? • Construct the strongest, most plausible argument possible for an alternative/opposite view. • Come up with a criticism or issue with that view that you consider most important. • Come up with a rebuttal if possible. • Evaluate how plausible each side is or come up with a new view that integrates what is good about both sides or overcomes the issues raised.

  17. Lesson 3: Debate is essential to science and to good thinking in general The “Split-Mind” Strategy Half of you is actively agreeing, extending, applying, making connections, refuting criticisms Half of you is actively disagreeing, questioning, thinking of counterexamples, problems ACTIVITY: Students read a brief passage while practicing the split mind idea

  18. Lesson 4: Why can good thinking be difficult? 1. Limited time/energy/brainpower • Importance of setting priorities for thinking • Importance of appropriate confidence 2. Biased motivation

  19. Conclusion: Summary & Goal Setting • After concluding, students outline their goals and implementation intentions for practicing good thinking (identifying potential obstacles and how they will overcome them)

  20. Additional Workshops • Workshop 2: Creating & Updating Frameworks for Thinking • Workshop 3: Recognizing, Creating, & Evaluating Good Arguments

  21. Workshop Assessment As shown earlier, student feedback is positive (they believe that the workshops are helpful) (Fall 2016) • But… are they really? (Fall 2017) • Actively Open-Minded Thinking Beliefs • Objectivism Scale (Leary et al., 1986) • Need for Cognition Scale (Cacioppo et al., 1984) • Critical Thinking Disposition Self-Rating Form (Facione, 2013)

  22. Answer yes or no Can I name any specific instances over the past two days when I: • Showed tolerance toward the beliefs, ideas, or opinions of someone with whom I disagreed? • Approached a challenging problem with confidence that I could think it through? • Tried to find information to build up my side of an argument but not the other side? Etc. (Facione, 2013)

  23. Itty bitty bit of evidence (N = 12) • Unsurprisingly, students attending the workshops indicated a greater tendency to engage in critical thinking at time 1 (M = 73, SD = 4.63) compared to those who did not attend the workshop (M = 69.28, SD = 3.52) • However, students attending the workshops also showed an increased in critical thinking disposition over time (MT2 = 82, SD = 3.74), a pattern not shown for those who did not attend the workshops (MT2 = 67.14, SD = 6.97)

  24. Thanks to: • Thalia Vrantsidis, MA • John Vervaeke, PhD • Suzanne Wood, PhD • U of T Advancing Teaching and Learning in Arts & Science grant • STP Instructional Resource Award

  25. More info here! • https://teachpsych.org/resources/Documents/otrp/resources/Waggoner.pdf OR contact me: Ashley Waggoner Denton • waggonerdenton@psych.utoronto.ca • http://TeachReflectRepeat.com • Twitter @TeachReflectRep

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