Scientific American
_Re-thinking the way colleges teach critical thinking_
(http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/12/14/re-thinking-the-way-colleges-teach-cr
itical-thinking/)
By Scott K. Johnson | December 14, 2012
For the past couple years, I’ve been working as a science communicator on
two fronts, as a freelance science writer and a community college Earth
science instructor. I’ve seen, from many angles, the difficulty people have
understanding and assessing scientific issues. With topics that are publicly
contentious, those difficulties rarely arise from a simple lack of
understanding. Other things get in the way. A student once said to me, “Well,
I’m
a conservative, so I don’t believe in climate change.” The frankness of
that statement opens up a window into the obstacles science faces in the
public sphere. (If only those who post internet comments were as honest with
themselves…)
The combination of science writing and education has influenced my approach
to both, which share a common, overarching goal: to reach out to people
and present them with the power, wonder, and relevance of science. Like most
educators, one of my central aims is to impart critical thinking skills— to
help students make sound decisions in a confusing world of conflicting
information, sales pitches, and smooth-talking politicians.
Though critical thinking is universally regarded as a pillar of higher
education (including by employers seeking college graduates), results show
that students are not developing their critical thinking skills to the extent
we expect. For their 2009 book, _Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on
College Campuses_
(http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/12/14/re-thinking-the-way-colleges-teach-critical-thinking/”
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo10327226.html”) ,
Richard Arum and
Josipsa Rocksa followed a little over 2,300 college students through their
first
two years of school. They found “a barely noticeable impact on students’
skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing” and “no
statistically significant gains [in these skills] for at least 45 percent of
the
students.”
These students may be learning things, but they’re not becoming better
thinkers or writers. That’s a remarkable failure to realize the promise of a
college education—and that disappointing reality actually appears to have
gotten considerably worse over the last few decades. It’s irrelevant how much
blame should be placed on the school and how much on the students. We must
get better results.
As an educator, I’ve constantly struggled with how to stimulate growth in
these skills. In an introductory Earth science course, my first job is to
teach my students about plate tectonics, soil formation, oceanic and
atmospheric processes, the climate system—all the things that comprise a firm
foundation to build on in further classes. But the vast majority of my
students
will never take another Earth science course, and while this information is
still useful in their lives (a point on which they may not particularly
agree in the moment), there are more important things to be teaching them.
There are larger points, like the nature of science and scientific thinking,
and the perspective brought on by an appreciation of the complexity of
Earth systems and the mind-numbing scale of the universe.
In the face of this balancing act, the traditional approach is often to
simply focus on the details of a particular science (to build that foundation
for prospective majors) and assume that all the students will absorb the
other stuff in the process. Scientific literacy and critical thinking skills
are seen as natural side-effects of studying a science. Critical thinking
by osmosis.
I don’t think it reliably works that way, especially for students who
expect to struggle with and be bored by science classes from the outset. It’s
easy to sit through a class, memorizing some facts and working through
assignments with minimal effort, without ever actually engaging with the
scientific process that created this knowledge. I fear that too many of my
students
have done exactly that.
Increasingly, I’ve found myself addressing these big-picture, take-home
points explicitly. For example, before the first box of minerals and rocks
comes out of the closet, I now dedicate a couple weeks to critical thinking
and the scientific method.
This progression of teaching style reached its (perhaps) natural conclusion
when I realized that what I really want to do is give these students an
entire semester on critical thinking and the nature of science. And why not?
Why continue to pound the square peg through a round hole, herding
disinterested students through “Physics for Poets” or “Rocks for Jocks” (their
calculated paths of least resistance through science requirements), hoping
that they’ll pick up these key skills along the way? There are many great
reasons for students to experience various fields of science, but why not
address critical thinking directly, as well?
This is hardly a radical thought, and I’m far from the first to think it.
For decades, there have been pushes to teach these skills formally, which
have ebbed and flowed with the educational tides. The _Association for
Informal Logic & Critical Thinking_
(http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/12/14/re-thinking-the-way-colleges-teach-critical-thinking/”
http://ailact.mcmaster.ca/index.html”) and the _Foundation for Critical
Thinking_
(http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/12/14/re-thinking-the-wa
y-colleges-teach-critical-thinking/”http://www.criticalthinking.org/”) ,
for example, have long been advocating for better critical thinking
instruction. Where standalone critical thinking courses exist, however, they
are
mostly found within the humanities and social sciences. Those courses often
center on argumentation and literary criticism, or instead on the philosophy
of logic, but there are opportunities to expand this— particularly by
giving science a larger presence. I think there is an enormous amount of
untapped value in a broader model.
I envision a course that incorporates many facets of critical thinking.
Students should get an introduction to logic. They should learn a bit about
cognitive science to understand some of the biases and mental shortcuts we
all subconsciously employ. (How can you think at a high level without the
awareness that there are wayward tendencies in your thinking machine that
sometimes require troubleshooting and maintenance?) They should study some of
the tools of rhetoric so they can identify the art of persuasion at work,
particularly when they’re being targeted by it. And they should study the
scientific method in this context, as a reliable guide through a treacherous
terrain full of pitfalls and mirages.
These topics have one big thing going for them—they lend themselves very
easily to an active and engaging classroom that fosters the ideal conditions
for genuine learning and development. That’s a struggle in many subjects,
but here it just comes naturally. Most of these concepts are best taught
through application to familiar, real-world case studies. Fortunately,
American culture is absolutely saturated with object lessons (Jersey Shore,
anyone?) and sandboxes in which to hone skills. Student discussions absolutely
beg to be facilitated—another fantastic learning environment. All students
have opinions and perspectives that they bring to these issues, and the
sharing and sifting of ideas among classmates should elicit the very critical
thinking skills that we’re after. Few things encourage intellectual
maturation like recognizing and examining the assumptions behind one’s
opinions, and
the course would be flush with opportunities to do so.
Take the public conflict over vaccinations, for example. Combing through
the arguments of “anti-vaccine” advocates would reveal ways in which
complicated information is misinterpreted and would illustrate the persuasive
power of anecdotes. Digging deeper into the science strips the issue down to
what we do and do not know, and how new knowledge would be acquired. Turning
to the arena of public opinion, you can evaluate how others arrive at their
opinions through a range of rational and emotional avenues. From there, you
’re ready to put the spotlight on your own mind. How did you really form
your initial opinion? Does it need to change?
If you can genuinely lead students to ponder their way through those thorny
thickets, how can they not come out the other side with new eyes?
Like children who don’t notice the vegetables hidden in their favorite
cheesy casserole, I think students would actually really enjoy a class like
that, challenging and cognitively nutritious though it would be. It’s not hard
to make this a fun and enlightening experience that sticks with students.
Contrary to the criticism that classes like this would merely be weekly
exercises in debunking, critical thinking is as much about problem solving and
extracting meaning from complexity as it is about not falling for hokum.
(Of course, conspiracy theories and sasquatches would certainly make an
appearance.) And this is where science fits in so naturally. Practice with a
scientific way of thinking—developing conclusions that flow from the data,
rather than cherry-picking data to support your pre-existing conclusion—adds
such an important tool to the kit.
There is a need for a more inter-disciplinary alliance to bring many
elements of critical thinking into one coherent experience for students. While
each element is worthy of a semester-long deep-dive of its own, it’s not easy
to get even a single semester with students, and I’d argue that a broad
survey is the most efficient use of that time.
There are many, many factors contributing to disappointing outcomes in
higher education—from changing student attitudes toward academics, to the
rising tuition costs that drive students to work more while they’re in school,
to problems in the K-12 education system— and there is no silver bullet that
can take us were we need to go. But, as Albert Einstein recognized, “The
value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many
facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be
learned from textbooks.” Colleges are not like the Field of Dreams (if we
build
it, they will think?), and it’s high time we rolled up our sleeves and got
serious about making that training happen.
--
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