Hi Mike,
We do the same thing at my education institution. Our students have competencies that they must pass in their clinical and lab courses to better prepare them for the workplace. The competencies involve critical and analytical skills.
Patricia Scales
I work at a medical career college and we consistently create critical thinking problems for our students in their laboratory practical skill sets. We will give them problem scenarios that they have been trained to deal with and they must think and work through the problem some skill sets are pass or fail.
Hi Jaquana,
Our students will amaze you with their delivery skills. Peer teaching is very effective; students really can/do learn a lot from each other.
Patricia Scales
Hi Thomas,
Our students need guidance and facilitation.
Patricia Scales
I like to have group discussions of case scenarios. I've even allowed students to teach the topic for the day.
I like to lead my student to them finding out how to locate the answers they need to learn the objective they are involved in.
Hi Sherry,
Students really love it and really get to thinking when you give them real-world scenarios to solve. They will think very hard on an assignment as such.
Patricia Scales
Hi Hayvelises,
Variation is exciting. I love using role playing, mock learning, scenarios, case studies, field trips, guest speakers, simulation, and technology.
Patricia Scales
its good to applied different techniques of active learning to your classes..I used some group section to discuss a topic.
I teach Medical Assisting clinical classes. I identify real world scenarios and have the students solve the problem. For example, a 90 year old patient needs to provide a clean catch urine specimen but she has severe arthritis in her hand and knee joints...what do you do to carry out this order? The students then find a solution and I reinforce to them that this was a real world problem and to be prepared for situations like this to occur. It's interesting to see students take pride in themselves when their answers are accepted during these critical thinking lessons.
I ask students to look up Medications, often asking them to locate the "active ingredients" in the over the counter medications they research. Having them figure out the active ingredients and what category the medication fits in is a fantastic way to get them involved in knowing that medications have a generic and brand name. They love getting out of their chairs, going next door to the local grocery store, and handling the meds themselves.
Hi, William. I teach math to beginning nursing students. Your method of doing patient simulations definitely helps the student with their critical and analytical thinking skills. I try to point out how important the thinking process is to them as nurses in order to help their patients correctly.
I teach mathematics (both developmental and applied problems) at the community college level. I consider learning math to be a participatory sport, not simply an observational sport. Therefore, I minimize my lectures by covering the required material and then having the students complete worksheets filled with problems discussed in the lecture. Next class they will get another worksheet with no additional lecture in order to reinforce what they just learned. The quizzes and tests cover the same material. The student knows clearly what they are expected to learn and will be tested on.
Hi Israel,
Students will let you know if they are grasping or not based on their response when you have the question session. Students enjoy watching videos and tend to grasp the concepts most of the time.
Patricia Scales
Teaching in an allied health profession really allows you to apply critical thinking in many ways. I like to do patient simulations in which i will give the students data related to real life situations. Such as vital signs, patient history,and other pertinent information that the student will have to process and decide what the next appropriate step would be in the patients care.
In my course I have student write answers to how they would handling different types of people
I agree that applicable videos are a great variation to teaching methods. I look up higher order thinking questions and ask students to answer them with complete sentences after viewing long videos. Do you have any other ideas Patricia to keep students actively learning during applicable videos?
Since I teach advertising, I usually add commercials, videos, films, print ads, publications, and web sites that are relevant to the subject matter. These help strengthen and support my lecture for active learning group discussions.
Critical thinking in the way of technology may it be new or old is a good thing for stundets to become effective learners.
I use the same method and I think its very helpful and engages the students right from the beginning .
