Critical Learning in Higher Education
How Teaching Faculty Address Fake News in the Classroom and Beyond
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ahmed Alwan, Eric Garcia, Andrew Weiss
Fake news is an increasingly popular topic of conversation in the public sphere and academia, due to the increasingly far-reaching impact of social media and the shifting political climate. Promoting information and media literacy by providing opportunities for students to evaluate issues and analyze the underlying factors that influence public perception, is necessary for the development of an informed citizenry. However, limited data exist on how teaching faculty deal with the issue of fake news in the classroom, as well as for their own research needs. In light of this, the researches designed and distributed an online mixed methods survey aimed at investigating how faculty at California State University, Northridge, deal with the phenomenon of fake news. In the survey, faculty were asked to define fake news, comment on the impact of fake news on their discipline, how they addressed it in their classroom and the various tools and techniques used to do so. The resulting data analysis demonstrated that teaching faculty take a variety of different approaches to confront this issue while revealing that there is little consensus on the best or most effective means to do so.
Critical Thinking in Pre-Service Teachers’ Science Education Curriculum in a University of Technology
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Zanele Masuku
Science curricula in an initial teacher education aim to prepare pre-service science teachers on how to make sense of the world and how to teach Physical sciences effectively in their classrooms. Teaching students to become problem solvers and critical thinkers is one of the attributes that any university needs to instill to students. However, various research studies based on critical thinking reveal lack of critical thinking skills amongst teachers in schools. My belief is that if science pre-service teachers are equipped with critical thinking skills during initial teacher training, they can begin, as early as possible in their profession, to model and teach these skills in their classrooms. This paper describes a research project that examined the improvement of critical thinking skills in pre-service science teachers’ critical thinking skills during initial teacher training. The research question is: Do pre-service science teachers’ critical thinking skills improve during initial teacher training? This is a qualitative case study, using the sequential mixed method design. The CT test was conducted from 2013 to 2015. Documents were analysed using Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. Focus group interviews were conducted in 2016. CT test results and document analysis revealed minimal improvement at level 1 to 3 and a decline in level 4. Focus group interviews revealed that there was no mention of critical thinking during lectures. If universities claim to produce critical thinkers, they need to be more explicit about what CT is, how it can be recognised and how it can be taught.
The ABCs of Impacts, Lessons Learned and Unexpected Discoveries of Collaboration
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Brenda Mc Manus, Ned Drew
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin As professional designers, we intuitively rely upon our design skills to see and understand the visual world, yet as design educators we must also find ways to help students build those same skills. Our collaboration on a limited-edition letterpress book of ABCs began with the integrated goals: the challenge of using our diverse collection of letterpress type and images; and creating an educational opportunity in both the process and product. This paper focuses on the production of our letterpress book, a process in which we partnered with a cross section of novice and advance design students from two universities. Through this paper we will explore the educational value revealed in the project’s intersection of contemporary digital technologies with historic production methods of making. We will expose and dissect the various means of creative thinking (linear, lateral, spatial, compositional) as well as analytical and logistical problem-solving that became essential to resolve the complex design challenges. And finally, we will explore some of the unexpected benefits that arise from engaging a broader community of creatives to work towards a time and labor-intensive shared goal.
