Author: rinaley

Seeing both sites of an issue, being open to new evidence that disconfirms young ideas, demanding that claims be backed by evidence, deducing and inferring conclusions from available facts, solving problems, and so forth. (Daniel Willingham in Critical Thinking: Why is it so Hard to Teach)

I want to develop critical thinking in my students- the idea that one should always seek to see “both” sides of an issue and that one should always be prepared to disprove an idea. Though Willingham says “young idea,” I would substitute “all ideas, especially old ideas.” Because the institutionally-accepted facts comprise the tool set of what is referred to by Freire as the oppressor, Gramsci (and others) as the hegemony. Critical thinking from students should question these institutional ideas. “Authentic education is not carried on by “A” for “B” or by “A” about “B,” but rather by “A” with “B”” (Freire). bell hooks suggests that “professors [should] no longer assume the sole leadership role.” The implication being that I should cede some power in the classroom to my students.

These concepts make me (as an instructor) a bit nervous. Because by trying to empower my students to question the course content I am teaching, I am allowing the probability of showing my fallibility- the limitations of my own understanding and learning and the possibility of fumbling my words. I am showing myself to be “merely” a student, as well as a teacher and perhaps allowing students to become teachers.

But just because these ideas make me nervous doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t embrace them- or at least question why I shouldn’t allow them into my classroom with an open mind. The issue is not whether allowing/encouraging students to engage in these critical thinking is good for students, but rather what is stopping instructors from trying them. It seems the largest hurdles are our probably our own fears.

I will be questioned on concepts that I perceive as facts, and not be prepared to respond. & Topics about which I am unfamiliar will be brought up. These fears are based on our desire to not look stupid, some impostor syndrome feelings that I would suspect most new instructors have, and in the knowledge that we have also unquestionably ingested some “facts” rather than spend hours researching the topic. We should remove the shame in not knowing every answer- we cannot be experts in all topics, especially when teaching broad introductory courses.

Instead of fearing this situation, we should embrace this as an opportunity to delve deeper into our subject(s) and employ our own critical thinking. When caught off guard in a class, we should be prepared to show ourselves as fallible but still acknowledge that our job is to facilitate our students’ education.  E.g. “That is a great question. I don’t remember off the top of my head, but I’ll look into it and put together something for next class…”

By allowing students to take on leadership (teaching) roles and myself to take on student roles, I will undermine my own authority. I would suspect that this fear is correlated with the instructor’s leadership experience and inversely correlated with the age difference between student/instructor. But one does not only have authority by lording that authority constantly over ones students. As instructors, we are invested with authority by the school. Nothing we do in class will change the fact that the institution has put students in a subordinate role to us.

We’ve been fed on ideas that a good leader/boss/instructor maintains control by being flawless, speaking with authority on all topics, being directive, not allowing people to question us, etc. However, not only do these ideas of good instructors enforce the hierarchical “banking concept” teaching that discourages critical thinking, but it is also forcing instructors into inauthentic roles. These good/ideal/traditional teaching attributes are based on cultural norms, norms which are based on “western,” patriarchal criteria. By rejecting these norms, we are fostering critical thinking among our students, and we are modeling successful critical thinking by being authentic teachers ourselves.

For cultural invasion to succeed, it is essential that those invaded become convinced of their intrinsic inferiority… Cultural invasion is, on one hand an instrument of domination and on the other the result of domination… [it] always involves a static perception of the world. (Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

Some references

Joe L. Kinchloe, “Paulo Freire (1921-1997)” in The Critical Pedagogy Primer (2004).

Paulo Freire. “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” (2007).

Bell hooks, “Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom.” (2010)

Today, many colleges pride themselves on diversity and on having a student body that represents a variety of backgrounds and experiences. However, an important aspect of ensuring success for a diverse student body is to have both a diverse academic system (administration, faculty, etc.) and one that is trained in how to identify their biases and support students from a diverse background.

Several studies have shown that the presence of teachers similar to students can influence students academic trajectory. For instance, the presence of a black teacher can have positive influences in black students’ lives by improving graduation rates and the number of black students identified for “gifted” programs. For female students, the presence of female STEM instructors in high schools can increase their likelihood of entering into STEM fields themselves.

These studies are just examples of how both faculty and students internalize societal norms and expectations, and how the presence of people in students’ lives that break those biases is important for their success in breaking negative expectations. Though we may not all be able to provide faculty diversity through our presence, we can support a diverse student body by acknowledging diversity  by understanding our biases and trying to adjust our actions, and we can bring diverse content to courses.

It is important for all humans, but especially those in positions of power (educators, supervisors), to be aware of their implicate biases. We can do that by being introspective. I believe that it is helpful to discuss our potential biases with others- ideally a diverse group. We are often unaware of the levels of our bias or how our actions and words are perceived as negative by others.. We may know “x people are biased against y groups,” but we may not be aware that we ourselves are included in that x group.

It is unlikely, without aid, that we would be able to determine how our small biases affect students. Ideally, instructors (of all kinds) would be given information about unintentional biases in academia.

Take the time to ask yourself some questions before entering the classroom: What kind of diversity am I likely to encounter in my courses? What kinds of preconceptions could a person possibly have about those diverse groups, and am I particularly vulnerable to any of those preconceptions?

Also, we may be aware that we may be biased against/towards certain groups up students, but we may not be aware of how these biases are demonstrated. Do they impact who we call on in class? How we grade? Types of readings or assignments?

We should think about how we decide on our course content. What biases may the creators of the content have had? Should we select other content? Can we incorporate different perspectives into our course content? Can we try to represent the backgrounds of our students with course content, discussions, or simply by acknowledging biases?

Part of learning how to educate involves learning about teaching and course styles that we have never encountered before. I prefer to make decisions based on facts, yet I have a quick, knee-jerk reaction to the idea of getting rid of grades. I feel profoundly uncomfortable – both as a student and as an instructor- with the idea that more students excel where they are not graded.

A premise behind getting rid of grades is that students will always choose the easiest tasks and take the fewest risks when in a graded environment. When freed from the confines of the traditional course structure, students will actively engage in the learning process. Students can and will learn without the threat or treat of a grade.

We can discuss how course structure impacts students, but a large component of student engagement comes from the students themselves. 

My struggle to accept the premise stems from my own experiences. As an undergraduate, I went to a college which emphasized not discussing grades with other students to avoid a competitive, grade-focused environment. It almost seemed like we didn’t have grades, because we were given our grades without any context. But for me, being freed of the competition of grades did not make me embrace creativity in all of my classes. Instead, I did minimum effort in courses that I thought were boring, and I poured more-than required effort into courses that interested me.

As a graduate student, my habits became more refined. When I started taking courses that I knew would be useful my career, I made serious efforts at studying terms, taking thorough notes, and connecting information within and between courses. Content I did not believe would be relevant to me or I perceived as busy work received the minimal effort, and work that seemed relevant to my learning and my future career received more time and focus. When possible, I would choose paper and project topics that interested me or allowed me to pull in ideas from other courses. However, I simultaneously found myself motivated to earn good grades.

The two objectives did not exclude each other, though they were not always the same. When doing work just for grades, I did the minimum amount possible to earn the grade required. This could be taken as a comment about how grades distract from learning. But the issue was not grades, but that I did not desire to put any effort into work I considered a waste or my time or irrelevant to me. I would have felt the same even without grades. I would argue that the issue is instead that the required course work was not well-crafted to encourage learning or that the class was of no use to me, and I should have skipped it (the two concepts are not mutually exclusive/overlapping).

“The typical structure of lectures and exams may simply prolong the time during which a learner continues to think like a student rather than an apprentice practitioner.” Lombardi 2008

The above quote stuck with me as I read Lombardi’s paper. I whole-heartedly agree with the intent: in undergraduate education, we should be focused on creating and fostering apprentices not throwing information at and evaluating students. We should be developing the skills and knowledge base required for students to be successful in their future careers. Some of this development requires the hard work of being a student; even master practitioners should be always learning new techniques to gather and analyze data, getting feedback their work, and learning from other people. The second portion of this development is on the educators- we need to treat students’ undergraduate experience as preparation for their future and help students recognize it as such.

Course work itself can burden students with work that does not help students learn.
As a graduate student, where I have had a lot of freedom to choose courses, the conflict between me wanting to earn good grades and learn led me to take busy work-heavy courses pass/fail or audited. With professors’ permission, I sat in on classes that seemed relevant instead of taking them for any credit. Courses do not need get rid of grades in order for students to be engaged with the course work, though they must not be so focused on evaluating students through grading that they don’t give students the ability to learn.

As instructors, we should be thinking about our objectives and student time. Can we test in a way that fosters thinking and not just regurgitation? If we need some memorization, can we evaluate students’ learning in ways that don’t require hours of simply retyping definitions?

Key ideas behind mindfulness is that it is the antithesis of memorization and education focused on memorization stifles creativity. Learning mindfulness seems like learning a combination of critical thinking skills and how to question authority. And I agree- students should be taught these skills. Students should be taught about bias and perspective. At the college level, these ideas should be taught in first-semester courses. In middle and high school, these ideas should be introduced when discussing history, science, and literature.

However, not all courses can or should consist purely of questioning facts. Most careers require learning linguistic cornerstones (aka memorization of terms). You cannot begin to debate the nuances of a topic unless you are able to read and understand previous work on a topic and know the language of the debate.

Learning terms should not just include memorization of the words that describe the terms but understanding the concepts behind them. Part of this process of memorization is mindfulness- students should be engaged in thinking about how these terms fit together and how they fit into the broader topic. When we discuss learning techniques with students, we should be emphasizing that learning requires the hard work of memorization and simultaneously making mindful connections.

Lectures are boring… sometimes

Lectures (whether in-person or virtual) should present information and help students understand content by making connections between ideas, demonstrating or explaining difficult concepts, or simply presenting the information in a way that makes it easier for students to remember the information later. Lectures should highlight important concepts and synthesize information that would otherwise take students hours to find and read. However, lectures are often an ebb and flow of new information and boring redundancy.

Teachers are sometimes blamed for students distracting themselves with technology because they aren’t using teaching methods that “kids today” understand. And it may be true that some courses and instructors are unengaging and boring. However, in the regular flow of a lecture, the information receiver will likely be bored during some parts of the lecture because they already understand a concept, are confused and do not know what is happening in the lecture, or simply find the course subject boring. The presence of occasional boredom is a symptom of group learning, when an instructor is teaching to students of different backgrounds.

The problem with modern technology is that it allows the slightly-bored student to escape immediately. What may have been 60 seconds of boredom turns into 240 seconds of distraction. The threshold for distraction is lowered, because we are given instant positive feedback of being entertained by checking our electronic devices. We have now missed some portion of the lecture and are slightly lost, which is may mean that understanding the lecture is difficult. We receive the negative reinforcement that lecture is boring. We distract ourselves with technology again.

I have been a student in networked and non-networked classrooms. And over and over again, students are playing on a computer or phone. Sometimes there is no pretense- the student is watching YouTube the entire class. But often it’s not continuous- just having email or a website up, or looking up something online that is class related. But the ability to escape is a constant pull. Maybe we’re only looking at our phones for 15 minutes out of the 50 minute lecture, but we’re thinking of checking them for another 15.

It’s technology’s fault for [not] being there

Technology in the classroom can be distracting. And it seems to be a problem with two knee-jerk solutions: 1) Get rid of all technology or 2) Incorporate all possible technology into the classroom.

I lean towards the first response. I’m not saying that technology cannot be incorporated into a course. Various platforms allow us to instantly and easily submit assignments, provide feedback and grades, and exchange information. They allow us to engage in distance learning and online discussions. And technology can be used to engage students.

But technology in a class can facilitate distractions. Teachers shouldn’t give up on trying to keep students focused on the lecture instead of their phones and computer screens. It shouldn’t be included in a course just because it can be. Do we need to give students more-expensive electronic versions of equipment or integrate phone applications into a class?

Conversely, technology shouldn’t be used because it’s easier to facilitate and grade than in-person interactions. By replacing in-person with online discussion, words are stripped of their tone and corresponding body language. After spending time crafting the perfect blog post, might we not be a bit defensive about people questioning our ideas? Or reading someone’s post after a bad week of work may result in a negative interpretation of a neutral comment.

I enjoy writing and reading. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t write. Writing forces us look at our rambling thoughts and structure them into coherency. It allows us to pick out our best arguments and cut redundant and contradictory information. I simply question whether instead of encouraging more individual interfacing with the whole of the internet or on a virtual platform just shared with a class, we should be encouraging communication in the physical world.