Coordinating Board Funds Project to Develop Critical Thinking Modules for Signature Course Faculty
DIIA, in collaboration with the Office of Undergraduate Studies (UGS), has won funding from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to create online professional development modules to showcase best practices for teaching critical thinking to first-year students. The DIIA/UGS proposal is to design 14 modules to prepare Signature Course faculty to address 10 specific critical thinking skills by means of 4 proven pedagogies. The modules—featuring diverse media including text, graphics, audio, video, and animation—will be integrated into workshops and individual consultations.
The Signature Course program is the centerpiece of curriculum reform envisioned by the Commission of 125, revised by the Educational Policy Committee, and approved by the Faculty Council in January, 2007. The goal of the program is to help first-year students master the skills required in higher education by focusing on problem-based learning from an interdisciplinary perspective. Distinguished faculty recommended by their department chairs may choose from three class formats: small seminars with 15-18 students, large lectures with 40-240 students, or Difficult Dialogues seminars with 20-25 students.
Project directors Judy Ashcroft, Dean of Continuing and Innovative Education, and Paul Woodruff, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, will lead a stellar design team of staff from DIIA and UGS as well as from Signature Course faculty. Ashcroft believes that the collaboration is an ideal arrangement for contributing to the work of bringing the vision of the core curriculum to reality: “I’m pleased that the Coordinating Board has recognized the assets that DIIA and UGS together bring to this initiative: the experience in faculty development, assessment, and instructional technology of DIIA and the experience in first-year learning communities, undergraduate research, and interdisciplinary studies of UGS.”
Indeed, DIIA brings to the project considerable expertise in integrating pedagogy, instructional technology, and assessment in promoting best practices and emerging approaches to instruction and evaluation in higher education. UGS brings to the project considerable resources for creating learning communities, establishing interdisciplinary programs, training faculty and graduate student instructors, and providing opportunities for undergraduate research.
The skills modules will present examples and resources for developing ten critical thinking skills, spanning the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, communications, and professional fields:
- inquiring
- analyzing
- challenging assumptions
- making inferences
- creating multiple solutions
- reflecting
- determining causality
- synthesizing
- providing feedback
- acting ethically
The methods modules will present strategies for introducing students to new disciplines, new ways of discovering knowledge, and new approaches to thinking:
- case studies
- discussion and dialogue
- writing
- portfolios
Addressing the Association of Professionals in Student Affairs in December, Woodruff chose a telling metaphor to characterize his vision of the core curriculum: a spine that will support a “strong vertebrate curriculum” energizing a four- to five-year undergraduate experience, by emphasizing the teaming of writing and speaking as enablers of active learning and critical thinking. With the teaming of DIIA, UGS, and Signature Course faculty, realization of that vision is now closer than ever.