#i2a

Welcome back.  It is nice to be back at the i2a institute.  Day 1 is done.  Today’s presentation was by Dr. Gerald Nosich of Buff State (near my old stomping grounds at SUNY Buffalo).  Dr. Nosich is author of Learning to Think ThingsThrough: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum (4th Edition) (http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Think-Things-Through-Mystudentsuccesslab/dp/0137085141/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1306200689&sr=8-1).

He followed his same program from last year.  So you can see my earlier TUMBLR blog for details.  I knew this was the plan, but I came down again.  Last summer was my first exposure to the Paul-Elder Model and then after a bunch of summer training I tried to implement in my gen psych courses this past spring and fall.  Now, I’m hoping that listening to Nosich again after trying the techniques I can gain added and/or deeper insight.

Today’s program was split into the following parts: Introduction to the concept of critical thinking; introduction to the elements of reason; introduction to intellectual standards; and introduction to teaching techniques for infusing classes with critical thinking.

                The big take-away for me was Nosich’s discussion of helping students learn to define significant, relevant questions and similarly helping students learn to cope with ill-defined problems.  I’m not sure how to help students do this, but I think figuring out solutions will occupy a good bit of my thinking this summer.

                Another thing I learned was that i2a is now running a learning community for non-academic staff.  Getting non-academic staff to use the Paul-Elder model and in turn have student workers use the Paul-Elder model outside the classroom would seem to be a great way to help students not put critical thinking in the school-stuff bag.

                Nosich did a bit on the issue of the information that students bring to the first day of class.  In other words, no matter how esoteric the topic students will often bring ideas about the topic to class.  And, this background “knowledge” can serve to guide students taking in course knowledge such that the knew knowledge is distorted.  This is another way in which students can leave our courses without ever taking what they learned in our class outside the school-stuff bag.

                Another problem I have that I’m hoping to think about this week is how can the Paul-Elder model help me deal with the CAT subscale I’m interested in tackling this coming year—helping students interpret information, think about rival explanations, and figure out what information is needed to test these rivals.

                Last, I realized that I had forgotten about the idea of using the questions associated with the intellectual standards are good ones to have students practice in order to (1) develop a stock of questions to ask and (2) internalize the intellectual standards.