Volume XLI, No. 29 | August 8, 2019 This Essay About Analogies Is a Lot Like an Old Man at a Country Store: It’s Filled With Useful Information Occasionally, the content we teach fails to reach the majority of our students. In these instances, it’s as if the more we speak, the [...]
Volume XLI, No. 18 | May 16, 2019 Philosophy Beyond Critical Thinking A common question I get from students and nonstudents alike is, “What’s the point of taking a philosophy course, especially in a context geared towards workforce training and placement?” It’s a fair question. It doesn’t seem that an introductory course [...]
Volume XLI, No. 10 | March 21, 2019 Why Ask “Why?”: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines Introduction Critical thinking is valuable when preparing students for academic and economic advancement. Critical thinking is also valuable for intrinsic reasons as part of living a good life. Despite the fact that we are faculty members [...]
Volume XLI, No. 6 | February 21, 2019 Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I Woman” Speech and the Creation of Ethos The lesson I discuss below addresses character creation, stereotypes, and credibility. In it I examine four versions of Sojourner Truth’s famous speech, commonly titled “Ain’t I a Woman.” I invite students to identify [...]
Volume XXXIX, No. 2 | January 26, 2017 Don’t Reinvent the Critical Thinking Wheel: What Scholarly Literature Says About Critical Thinking Instruction As colleges face accreditation requirements, or as departments undergo program review, they generally seek to integrate formal statements about critical thinking into their documentation. Yet, it is not uncommon for these institutions to [...]
Volume XXXVIII, No. 25 | October 27, 2016 Using Dilemmas and Case Studies to Promote Critical Thinking and Interpersonal Skills “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” – Albert Einstein For many of us, our student populations are diverse—military, veterans, fathers, mothers, grandparents, siblings, caretakers, [...]
Volume XXXVIII, No. 3 | February 5, 2016 A Tale of Two Disciplines: Lessons in Critical Thinking Background In Daniel T. Willingham's article, "Critical thinking: Why is it so hard to teach?" (2007), he emphasized critical thinking practice and perspective by saying, "…if you remind a student to look at an issue from [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 16 | August 28, 2015 On Giving Students the Gift of Time Ask any group of students what they wish they had more of and 99.9 percent of them will respond, "Time." This is especially true at the community college level where students struggle to balance academics with work and [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 9 | March 27, 2015 Strategies to Increase Confidence in the Classroom: A Problem Solver The single best fulfillment that a teacher can witness in a learner is self-confidence. Although many students are capable of solving problems and thinking critically, they often don’t possess the confidence to display those [...]
Volume XXXVII, No. 11 | April 10, 2015 Teaching Critical Thinking Dispositions Mortimer Adler, the founder of the Great Books program at the University of Chicago, once famously wrote that critical thinking could not be taught. In his essay, “Critical Thinking Programs: Why They Won’t Work,” Adler wrote, “I would almost say that, [...]
