Teaching for higher levels of thinking: developing quantitative and analytical skills in environmental science courses

Teaching Thinking Skills

Developing critical thinking skills.

As a student and teacher of adult education in nursing, the writer could not help but be interested in the way adults learn. Over the years this interest had extended to curriculum development. The curriculum models which were explored and even those designed by the writer over the years seemed to provide the structure needed for effective teaching and learning situations but what was not reali...

Higher Order Thinking in Online Courses

This research studies higher order thinking (HOT) processes in asynchronous discussions situated in a campus-based course that involved 11 pairs of graduate students. In these discussions, students examined assessment strategies used for teaching purposes, jointly in one week. Taking a grounded theory approach, messages derived from discussions were analyzed with qualitative and quantitative an...

Developing Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills in Physics and Engineering Physics Courses

Physics instruction at the university level is conducted through lectures, demonstrations, discussions, and problem solving recitation sessions. Students are tested and evaluated for their mastery of physical concepts through carefully designed problems in almost all physics courses. Unfortunately, several studies 1-3 show that traditional methods of problem solving may not be the best approach...

Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Homeland Security and Emergency Management Courses

Since 9/11, colleges and universities throughout the nation have developed and implemented new courses and degree programs in homeland security and emergency management. A valued learning outcome of these programs, like most university studies in general, is to develop critical thinking skills in students. However, this can be a challenge because the nature of critical thinking and approaches t...