Dennis - I like this idea! Do you allow students to raise their hands or do you call on them in these situations? I've also found that it helps to spread the questions around but I often allow students to voluntarily participate which can create a bottleneck of one student answering every question.
When I go over the next day's production menu with the students I always like to talk about what would happen if purchasing was unable to procure all the ingredients we needed. I tell them that they're still responsible for making the dishes, but if they didn't have all the ingredients what could they substitute that would be acceptable.
I like this because it forces them to think on their toes and it gives them real-world problems that actually happen often.
Hi Tracy,
This experimental learning is a great way to promote critical thinking. Students like to be involved in hands-on activities.
Patricia Scales
Students in my class work with food experimentation. We take everyday foods like broccoli and cook it four different ways.
First boiled in plain water for 6 minutes, second boiled in water with 1 teaspoon. of salt for 6 minutes. Third, boil the broccoli with 1 teaspoon baking soda and lastly steam the broccoli.
Students are then asked to analyze the outcomes. How do they differ in color, taste, mouth feel, and nutritional value? Critical thinking must be applied to differentiate the outcomes.
Hi Jason,
It is amazing what students can do when they brainstorm together.
Patricia Scales
Hi Rhodri,
Great ways to promote critical thinking. I use a variety of things to get students to think critically, such as role playing, case studies, scenarios, mock learning, and simulations. Students love the various activities.
Patricia Scales
I agree getting student to apply what they have learned in a real world senario can be benificial to the instructor and especially to the student. Those activities can show a student a gauge as to where they are at in their learning.
I like to give my students a real world experience whenever possible. I arrange them in groups for their production activities. Often I will introduce a required component to the days activities and allow the groups to brainstorm on the best way to incorperate the component into the production assignment
I teach in a physical therapist assistant program. I want to thank everyone for sharing your ideas and experience. This class has given me A LOT of great new ideas to try in the area of critical thinking! I'm a fairly new instructor, so I'm excited to try these ideas!
Some activities I have found useful for encouraging critical thinking are:
1. Put a short patient case study on the screen, and have small groups write a prioritized list of problem areas that need to be addressed, followed by a prioritized list of treatments that would address those problems.
2. Small group research analysis: I'll give each group an article on a relevant research topic, have them review it together and analyze the key components of the article, such as the level of research evidence it provides, the appropriateness of the methodology, etc. Then each group presents their findings and rationale.
Hi Eric,
It is every instructor's wish that their students succeed. We have to help them along the way to develop habits/skills that will help them get and keep a job.
Patricia Scales
Hi HUMA,
This activity gets students working by getting others invovled to help them with the critical thinking portion of their project.
Patricia Scales
Hi Dennis,
I like the idea of giving questions up front so that students are focused on the lecture to get answers to the questions. This is a good way to engage students in the lesson.
Patricia Scales
Hi George,
I like what you do to generate critical thinking. I like to do role playing as well to promote critical thinking.
Patricia Scales
Mrs. Patricia Scales
One of the greatest rewards in teaching strategies is to bring students to successes, teacher should create fun activities and to empower students to make they own decisions and critical thinking has a group or individually
Eric Andre
I teach consumer behavior and I have the students survey fellow students on their projects before the finalize them.This helps them get their in house market research.
I like to get my classes thinking about very specific scenarios. At the beginning of class, when I am beginning my lecture, I will pose a series of questions. As the lecture progresses, I will give some possible answers to the questions. Then I open the class to discussion and ask the students to discuss the possible answers given the information that I have provided.
In our classes we attempt to incorporate crtical thinkin in all phases. We normally start with a lecture in a small seminar group introducing a learning area. That is normally reinforced via a case study demonstrsting s real world solution. WE then introduce a PE that the students have to demostrate critical thinking within a small group setting.
Hi Jeffrey,
You do a fabulous job guiding your students. We have to let our students know we are there for them if they fall.
Patricia Scales
I like to give basic overview instructions before the activity, do my best to keep them on track during and review and reinforce the new skills or information they have discovered. It is never the same as they think it will be based on their textbooks.
Hi Lev,
What a great way to promote critical thinking and to make the assignment applicable to the real world.
Patricia Scales
