Critical Thinking Activities
Give examples of activities or questions that involve critical thinking in a course that you are currently teaching.
I have been lecturing on Diseases for awhile and the students seems to understand the data and do well on test. Though when they are put in front of a patient I notice they forget what they learn. So I now have started asking more questions during clinical to supplement my lecture to see how they would answer.
Examples at clinical: This patient has been informed he has COPD so what type of medications are you going to recommend?
This CXR shows middle lobe infiltrates so what treatment do you recommend? Since I know I have already talked about it I want them to know critical think about what is the best type of treatment for this patient.
Some critical thinking excercises that I tend to use in a class start out with questions about reviewed subject. After I cover one of the objectives of the course, I ask the students to do the analisis how this would apply into the objectives still pending to for review.
I teach a planning course. I start out by having them close their eyes and think about something that needs fixing around the house - an everyday item, nothing fancy. Then I run them through how they would go about figuring out a way to fix the item. The different methods, the different tools, how to analyze the different methods, etc. Then by the end of "fixing" the problem, they have really done planning from start to finish. We then go into detail of the process of planning.
Kinesiology is full of critical thinking the student must memorize muscles, origins insertions, actions, innervations, one step in this process is the student creating flash cards to study.
Critical thinking is a skill that has to be developed. I teach A&P to Medical Assistant Students and use several diseases (Diabetes, COPD etc.) for group projects for the students. In this I ask them to describe the consequences and co-morbidities of the disease, how it impacts family members, what to look for and what to teach the patient and family. This allows the student to think outside-the-box and even though at first they are a little afraid of the project, in the end I find they are very creative in their presentations. Some of them create brochures, handouts, videos etc. and seem to have fun doing patient teaching.
A Critical Thinking Activity which I have implemented in a Product Development course at a technical school is to present a variety of actual industry production errors to the students. They are given all of the particulars that surrounded the production problem and asked to come up with possible actions that would have prevented this problem. They are also asked to propose immediate solutions to save production.
When teaching head and neck anatomy we give the students skulls and materials, like play-do, stickers and markers, they have to locate anatomical landmarks as we lecture..they always find it funny at the beginning but they are always surprised at the end about how they remember the landmarks even more after the activity.
I think that is a phenomenal way to get participation and interaction from the students.
I teach several courses. One of the things that I do is teach research. I start by modeling how to do research, how to extract information that is useful for my own writing and perspective. Then I ask the students to pick a topic of their choice, and I have them follow the same steps that I modeled to find articles. Once the research foundation is set, then I have the students analyze how they can develop more research by doing things like conduct interviews, surveys, etc. Depending on the course, I have students role play how they would conduct an interview or poll. The students then get a chance to critically think about the target population, how the studies are conducted, and how information is analyzed and synthesized. They also get to evaluate arguments.
I attempt to engage students on several levels of (critical) thinking activities. Some are quite straight-forward (almost yes and no or a single word answer). A second level involves explaining why something works the way it does (still somewhat straight-forward, but demonstrating the reason why it works that way {includes some analytical thinking also}). And then there is the third level in which a project or an assignment can be done in different ways -- all of which may be correct and acceptable. Usually the students ask which way to do it -- A, B, or C, etc. I then tell them that they have to make that decision on their own as to which way to go. Once they make that decision, I'll assist as necessary to get them to the finish line, but not in making the decision. (However, I'll not let a student go down the incorrect path, but steer them to a proper method or path.) This is designed to prepare the students for the real world in which they must make decisions when their supervisor or manager is not available and a determination must be made. Over-all it gives the students a great deal of confidence upon course completion that they can perform adequately in the real world.
Students learn various types of bodywork, but in the final class they learn how and when to apply those forms of bodywork depending on their critical thinking and analytical skills of being able to evaluate the client's posture and muscle patterns.
Hi Richard,
Great exercise to promote critical thinking.
Patricia Scales
At the beginning of each of my classes I will have a critical thinking question that the students answer. They cannot use their books or notes. The question will be about something that they learned the day before. Once everyone has answered the question we will have a class discussion over the question.
My students enjoy "fly swatter vocabulary." I write several terms on the white board. I then get two volunteers, who come to the board, equipped with fly swatters. The other students then take turns saying a definition of one of the words, and the two contestants try to be the first one to swat the proper word. It is fun and challenging for all.
In the nutrition section of the class I teach, I ask my students to bring in several labels of food they have in their house and during class, I asked them to analyze them by breaking down the various component of the said foods and determine the amounts of each component for a single serving.
Hi Jacquie,
I concur! Let's give students what they are going to experience in the real world so that they are better prepared for the job.
Patricia Scales
I agree with the match what they were taught with the problem they have that is a great strategy. I have problems with students wanting to go beyond what they have learned and not practice the simple basic skill sets that they need to know. The hard part for me as an instructor is to balance the desire with the actual skill set that they have. I always tell them do you want the rookie brain surgeon or the one who has done it for years and has the experience and skills. Technicians ability to think critically is an asset in any skilled labor type job if we as instructors can nourish and allow it to flourish we need to come up with active learning ways to excite this generation of technicians.
A way to enhance critical thinking in health care is to give real-life critical patient scenarios to students in groups and have all discuss and debate what is the BEST choice.
I tend to utilize the news media coverage of the day as it relates to the topic of the courses I am currently teaching (i.e. Contemporary Social Problems, Intro to Sociology, Perspectives of Sociology, Cross Cultural Relations, Human Behavior), however many of the students have minimal responses. Reasoning for this is typically time management. What would you suggest as a way to inspire the learners to take the extra 10 minutes of their schedule to incorporate their outside worlds with the class discussions?
