A critical thinker should be a person to be able to sort an outcome and decision through the information that is available in a shortest time is possible

The method of "Loci" is underused toady. The ancient Greeks taught narrators to imagine themselves in the room of a grand villa - fill that room with the items they will talk about - then during the presentation mentally walk through the room and describe the items. These narrators could talk at length without notes just by using those visual cues.

It does seem like going through all the steps in this process are time consuming. However, they seem worthwhile as doing the actual steps will help students to develop and indeed, recognize when they are are using problem solving skills.

This section of the course was very valuable to me. It reminded me of many concepts and ideas that I will actually use in my own Critical Thinking class.

For post-secondary students, critical thinking as it's own class seems very valuable and needed. I am currently teaching it for the first time. I am only a few weeks in so I am really just learning as I go. The textbook that I have to use is not very good and definitely not very engaging so I (and the students) are muddling through. But it is a skill that needs to be developed through modelling, etc. I hope this wil be a good learning experience for me as well as my students.

It does seem that time is important to critical thinking. And lack of time is why many of us do not engage in critical thinking. This is even more true when information is so readily available on the internet. Ironically, it shows why critical thinking is just that important. Sure there is info on the internet but we really need to know what info is useful, usable, valid and credible. Which of course requires critical thinking. So things come full circle. Socrates is smiling somewhere.

I began exploring how my students used - or did not use - music while studying. Interestingly some students could use music as a backdrop and study effectively - some students had distinct preferences. From what I gathered about home working conditions the students with preferences used music when creating / drawing (right brain) and avoided music when reading / writing (left brain).

I found this module difficult to apply to my students. They need to be more precise with their problem solving and often don't have the luxury of time to "work out" a problem. My students are in an Operating Room where quick thinking is essential. I need them to solve these problems sometimes in a split second.

I always try to incorporate the new concept with application in the real world. I sometimes find that my perception of application does not always hit the target with the student because they have no reference point from the real world application. I have been trying to break down these points and give an actual practical example. I find they see this as more relevant.

My fellow instructors and myself have found that our students are lacking the critical thinking skills to be able to answer questions on a certifying exam correctly. We are currently attempting to come up with a review class that incorporates critical thinking skills. We know that they know the information it's just a matter of getting them to be able to find the correct answer during a test. Any suggestions or input would be helpful.

I have use most of this strategies to study my self, now reading them again, helps me to improve ways to reach my studets, some times challanging.. Thank you

I agree 100% about the difference between teenagers a adults students. I do not about you, but at some places the very opposite happens, this students are subject to more rules and regulations than in a high school... Rules are important, too many of them is dangerous. Maybe I have missed something.. Any comments??

In my line of work, Information Technology, there are many acronyms that students need to remember and interpret. It can be overwhelming for the student when they see 7 or more pages of acronyms for their area of study. I decided that to help them remember the acronyms, I have the students play a game by picking a category and a point value in that particular category and they need to spell out the acronym to get the points. It has proven very effective and fun in the process.

We will have each student do a task multible times. This will increase the retention more than just having the student do it once and move on.

We have self study assignments that we review just to make sure the student reads the lesson plan for the following day. this helps the student get an understanding of what will be covered that day.

When you have a wide range of learning styles in a classroom. one teaching style doesn't work.

This process is different for each student. One may be "book" smart, One may need to "See It" while another may be "Hands On". a quality instructor has to adapt to each learning style. Try different methods and see which one works best for the type of student you are dealing with at that point in time.

As it has just been pointed out Humans retain more with hands on application, so while it is important to lecture and demonstrate we must not forget the positive benifit of getting students involved in hands on exercises. For example in a culinary program it is all very wel to lecture on classical knife cuts, but not until the students have a knife in their hand and are actually executing the cuts will the full benifit of tbe class be realised

Graphs are great when used to highlight how the different aspects of a subject relate to each other. However, over use of them defeats the purpose.

When I teach critical thinking as a part of my courses I have the biggest issues getting student to correctly define the issues. I appreciated the way this course broke it down into immediate issue and long term issues. So often when dealing with conflict there is a loss of focus on the actual issue rather than the supporting and resulting issues. I often try and have student break down a complex problem into smaller more manageable sections until they come to the root of the problem. This can be a lengthy process. Are there any suggestions to a more succinct way of accomplishing this same goal?