Effective Pedagogy for Developing Critical Thinking
Effective Pedagogy for Developing Critical Thinking
Date: 25 February 2010 (Thursday)
Speakers: Prof. Paul Hanstedt (Professor of English, Roanoke College)
Prof. Joseph Chaney (Associate Professor of English, Indiana University - South Bend)
Professors Hanstedt and Chaney will lead a seminar on “Effective Pedagogy for Developing Critical Thinking”. Teachers in all of the faculties value critical thinking skills; and most teachers find ways to promote critical thinking in their own courses. However, we do not always formulate explicit methods, and we do not always explain to our students how our assignments will help them to develop specific critical thinking skills. By means of workshop and discussion, this session will help teachers to understand more clearly what a good critical thinking course does. Following the thinking of John C. Bean, author of Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, our focus will be on the challenge of making a course assignment-centered. The proposition to consider is the following: “A good critical thinking course presents students with problems, questions, and issues that make a course assignment-centered, rather than text or lecture centered and holds students responsible for formulating and justifying their solutions orally or in writing.” In this way, students develop critical thinking as a conscious practice. We hope in this session to learn from one another and even, perhaps, to debate questions of definition and method.
About the Speaker
Prof. Paul Hanstedt is Professor of English at Roanoke College, where for five years he was Director of General Education. He is currently a visiting Fulbright Scholar at Hong Kong Institute of Education. He is a specialist in composition and rhetoric. His recent interest is in sustainable faculty development.
Prof. Joseph Chaney is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University South Bend, where he was Director of General Education from 2004-09. He is hosted by the Office of University General Education at the CUHK as a Fulbright Scholar. He is currently teaching the UGE course UGD2411 ‘Classics for Today: In Search of Good Life and Good Society’.
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