Nov 8 - Discussion

• I like the idea of not answering every questions but showing students how to answer it or letting them try at least. When your doing this how can you keep from being percieved as someone who doesn't know the answer. When TA'ing I often encounter this - I refuse to just give answers away, so the students presume I don't know the answers.... Any suggestions?

• The author of this chapter gives a lot of great tips tips to improve the thinking quality in students. She says, "ask students to judge the quality of their own contributions" by encouraging self-assessment. How would the teacher/professor get students to do this effectively?

• The author states that instructors should design challengs for thinking that appeal to diverse learning styles. What are some suggestions for doing that? I would think that at CSUS in particular, we should have ways of addressing the different thinking styles of students of different ages.

• Thinking critically is an important concept that seems to stem from class participation, in an intro class do we have the time to ignore course content to allow for time to process the information critically?

• With regard to students' thinking skills, how do you handle the sudent that doesn't want to think? I've seen some who ask questions, wanting the "right" answer, without being willing to think about how to get there. When asked leading questions, they seem to shut down. How do you encourage thinking in this situation?

• How important is it to present Bloom's hierarchy with higher-order skills, and lower-order skills to your students? How much time do you dedicate to this? Should this decision be related to your goals as a professor?

• The list that McKeachie gives for "improving thinking quality" seems valuable, but too time consuming for an intro type class. Is it important to integrate all of these into a class, or can other things be done to still create a "learner-centered" class?

• What sorts of things are involved if we want to teach students to begin "thinking like a psychologist"?

• At the intro level, isn't it more important to fill thier minds with info than to get them to start thinking about psychology? Since most of the students are just filling a G.E, I think time should be spent more on giving them a taste of the field, instead of having them "think like a psychologist."

• Although I like the idea of encouraging student thinking, can too much framework actually inhibit student thinking?

• How can an instructor successfully integrate higher order thinking into an intro-type course, without significantly compromising time considerations?