I am an Instructor at a cosmetology school. Right now in theory we are on the chapter of trichology. This morning, we did a review on everything we covered in the chapter so far with a game of jeopardy. The students came up with the main topics, wrote out the definitions of important terms and then I put them into teams of two, so they had to work together, trust & rely on themselves and their teammate to come up with the answers. They were very engaged, and most said that they were surprised on how much they actually remembered from the past three weeks of info we've covered.
Hi Jeffery,
Planning is a great exercise to generate critical thinking. When students have to come up with a plan, they really put on their thinking caps and are much more methodical.
Patricia Scales
I instruct students to obtain commercial driver's licenses. Part of our curriculum is trip-planning. I give a realistic scenario including start and end points and the timeframe necessary to complete. The students must analyze travel paths, regulatory limitations to their driving hours, when they should begin their trip, etc. It is an exercise in compiling data and using critical thinking skills to come up with a plan that will result in their objective being reached.
Hi Bethany,
This is a good way to teach students so that they know how to make good decisions once they start their career! You are really preparing your students for the workforce.
Patricia Scales
Hi Sharyn,
Love it! Role playing is an excellent teaching tool to test a student's critical thinking skills. Students enjoy role playing and the learning sticks from role playing.
Patricia Scales
I am a critical care instructor at a hospital and my students have to use critical thinking everyday they are with me. I do not make the decision for them but help them problem solve and critically think through the situations to help them learn how to look at everything to know how to treat their pt’s.
I teach in the Massage Therapy Dept where "Ethics" is a very important critical thinking objective. I often give my students different "ethical" dilemmas that they may face daily in doing massage therapy and allow them to role play the situations and solutions in front of the class (both ethical and unethical solutions). It always guarantees 100% class engagement because it opens the floor for discussion after the skit is performed.
Hi Phuong,
Old school teaching is some of the most effective type of teaching. I use a lot of old teaching methods along with new to produce a better student.
Patricia Scales
It is an old skill in the book but it works. Always have missing answer, words, or scenario and have the students fill in the blank. This keep their mind open and out side of the box.
Hi Eric,
Great way to generate discussion! Students will normally give input when you talk about the negatives and positives of a topic.
Patricia Scales
I start the class with a discussion on pros and cons of a main topic of the class. This often leads to students forming an opinion on the topic and sparking a light debate, which ends up engaging the students in the day's lesson.
Hi Kimberly,
Great inspirational exercise! I love the mixture you have in this assignment as well. Students do not have time to get bored with this exercise. It keeps them on their toes.
Patricia Scales
Hi Robert,
Great activity to have your student think out of the box. This activity certainly test their critical as well as analytical skills.
Patricia Scales
In my classes, either on campus or online, I always focus on engaging students in order for them to provide their input on the topic discussed. Often, after discussing a specific topic, I present them with a scenario (often related to their industry or function they hold. The purpose of the exercise is to identify the issues or weaknesses, analyze them in terms of potential ramifications they might and come up with solutions that will offset them.
With critical thinking activities I try very hard to incorporate the VAK method into it. For example: Teaching about a cell; 1st I lecture (auditory) with power point and lots of visual aids (I like to have discussions with the students on the jobs of the cell and see if they have any real world comparatives to associate them with, 2nd I get out the jello and candies so that again we reinforce, repeat what we lectured, and we build a cell (kinesthetic). 3rd Once activities are complete students present their cells to each other. What is funny is sometimes students think that there mistake of putting too much of an cell part in their creation creating hesitation/anxiety of presenting but I am able to turn that around by then moving into the next part of the lecture about cell life and reproduction showing the different life stages of the cell with everyone's projects. 4th we eat! Students love this activity that some even go home and do it with there kids, this is how I know that I have inspired learning by inspiring them to teach others.
In an Information Literacy course, I schedule the course in a computer lab specifically to get students actively involved in the learning. A great deal of the course objectives involve critical-thinking skills as well as research methods, so I create(d) assignments that combine those skill sets. I ask students to discover and analyze texts of various forms (written and graphic) to determine their credibility, their intended audience, the rhetorical choices made by the writers/designers, etc. I circulate among them as they do so, using directed questioning to draw their attention to various aspects of the texts they have discovered ("Skim through that academic journal article you found about your topic and then compare the sentence length and paragraph length with the sentence and paragraph length from that mainstream magazine article you found. What do you think that indicates about their intended audience? Do you think they have the same audience? Why do you think the one article included the data and several graphs while the other article just summarized the main points?").
In one of my courses that I teach it is all about communication, I love doing what I call "Free communicatioon" I write a question on the board before class starts and as students come in they write down their responses. When class starts, we have a dicussion about what everyone wrote down. It normally opens up debates, new ideas and interesting feedback from peers.
Hi Jesse,
Yes, this is exactly what the students will do on the job. Great way to get students ready for the real world. Students need to know how to utilize their critical thinking abilities.
Patricia Scales
Hi Kristy,
Yes, each day is a challenge. You must know how to think out of the box in this industry!
Patricia Scales
In my clinical massage therapy classes,I will have a student therapist presented with a student "client" beset by certain pains and ailments. The therapist must utilize critical thinking skills to determine the muscular problem and arrive at an appropriate treatment plan to resolve the clients issues. This is an effective method to enhance the students reasoniing skills and reinforce their knowledge of effective massage modalities and techniques.
