Ken Steele raises some interesting questions.
First, the objection he says faculty have raised about teaching critical
thinking in intro psych seems like a false objection. While I agree that people
require some content to think critically about, I question the claim that
critical thinking can't be taught when students are just beginning to develop a
knowledge base in the discipline. If we think of critical thinking as a skill
that becomes increasingly sophisticated as knowledge in a discipline grows, we
ought to be able to establish foundation skills in critical thinking along with
foundation knowledge in the discipline. More advanced thinking skills can be
developed in more advanced courses. The idea that we can single out a course
where critical thinking skills are taught and mastered is ambitious and a
little naïve.
I do have reservations about the proliferation of service courses for
non-majors. As a practical matter, what departments have the resources to
duplicate various courses as service courses and majors courses? This seems to
be especially difficult for a discipline like psychology in which so many
courses (learning, cognition, abnormal, physio or cog neuro, testing, etc.)
serve as required courses in other majors (social work, education, nursing,
pre-med, sometimes biology). A few of our I/O courses are required for the
major in business. I've taught at schools where even the psychology stats
course functioned as a service course and could be used by a variety of majors
to satisfy major requirements for knowledge of statistics. I'm interested in
learning about the criteria that drive the decision to create a special version
of a course for use in other majors.
Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D.
Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Associate Professor, Psychology
University of West Florida
Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751
Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435
e-mail: [email protected]
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