Module 6: Critical Thinking in Distance Education

Here is my video!


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Below is my transcript for the video and my bibliography

Welcome to the 20^th Annual Educational Technology Conference in Seattle, WA. Today I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Stephen Brookfield an accomplished adult educator that has written more than 10 books and has been guiding best practices for colleges and universities across the globe.

Much of his work has focused on developing critically reflective learners. Today he will discuss how educators cultivate critical thinking in distance education courses. Throughout history, educators have strived to develop critical thinking skills in their students. The need to master this skill is more important than ever before. In a knowledge based society people are demanding access to learning like never before. This is why online learning is a leading modality in distance education programs. Moreover, technology is having a dramatic effect on our world. 21^st century colleges across the country are experiencing these changes. Educators working in tandem with businesses have long strived to prepare students for the world of work. However, the digital era now requires students to have a more comprehensive set of skills.  

In order to ensure students have these skills, we need to create curriculum that encourages critical thought and discourse in distance education? In order to answer this question, we must first define critical thinking.

For year educators have relied on the principles of Bloom’s taxonomy to outline teaching practices and curriculum development. Historically, curriculum sequencing was designed to go from lower to higher levels with the belief being the process for learning was linear in nature. Recently, in 2001, Anderson & Krathwall offered a new version of this taxonomy based on their findings the critical thinking process isn’t necessarily linear in nature, which aligns with Brookfield’s 5 aspects of critical thinking which are: productive and positive activity, it is a process, not an outcome, occurs in context, it is triggered by positive and negative events, and it is emotive and rational. 

Moreover, Brookfield suggests there are also 4 components that make up critical thinking. These suggest that students challenge assumptions, challenge context, use their imagination and explore the world around them, as well as reflect with skepticism.

In the past 10 years, distance education has become an increasingly prominent aspect of learning and instruction. Because of this educators are redefining educational practice in distance education programs. They are accomplishing this by developing best practices in an online course, by making curriculum changes as well as utilizing innovative technology. For example, Arend suggested threaded discussions foster and encourage the exchange of ideas, argument, and reflection. Threaded discussions also allow students the opportunity to refer to conversations throughout the course, which allows them to think more deeply about the content. 

Another effective strategy that promotes the development of critical thinking is incorporating innovative technologies into the curriculum Mandernach suggested that technologies such as blogs, wikis, and podcasting support the development of critical thinking skills because they support reflection, creativity, and collaboration activities with other students.

As technology continues to change, so must educators. We need to continue to offer students curriculum that ensures they will have the necessary life skills to be successful. This has been what Dr. Brookfield has spent his career accomplishing. Please welcome to the stage, Dr. Stephen Brookfield.  

Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Arend, B. (2009). Encouraging critical thinking in online threaded discussions.  The Journal of Educators Online, 6 (1), 2-20. Retrieved at www.thejeo.com/

This article highlights a study that used a mixed-method, two phase design that focused on how online asynchronous discussions cultivate critical thinking among students.  Additionally, this article looked at the second phase of this two part study to use a qualitative grounded theory approach to obtain more detail from findings in phase one. There were 9 courses that focused on using case sampling.  The findings for this research suggest that online discussions should be used to encourage the development of critical thinking in an online environment. On the other hand, recent studies suggest that there is a lack of high level of critical thinking in online courses and that more instructor effort is needed.

Bai, H. (2009). Facilitating students’ critical thinking in online discussions: an instructor’s experience.  The Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 8 (2), 156-162. Retrieved at www.nclr.org/jiol/

This study compared two groups of students in a graduate level technology course. One group was expected to use the practical inquiry model as a discourse guide to facilitate students’ critical thinking in the online discussions, while the second group was not given the model.  The findings suggest that by providing students with an inquiry model to act as a guide, they were more likely to intentionally engage in reflection and critical thinking, when responding to classmate’s postings.  Therefore, it is important that instructors clearly provide specific guidelines and rubrics to ensure that students understand what is expected of them in the course. 

Brookfield, S., D.  (1991). Developing Critical Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting.  San Francisco. CA.  Jossey- Bass Inc.

This book focuses on the characteristics that make up critical thinkers. These elements are defining critical thinking through reflecting on of those assumptions that underlie our actions, as well as how to consider new ways of looking at the world around us. Brookfield describes activities and examples on how to foster the development of these core skills in multi environmental settings. 

Buraphadeja, V.  &  Dawson, K. (2008). Content analysis in computer –mediated communication: Analyzing models for assessing critical thinking through the lens of social constructivism. The American Journal of Distance Education, 22:130-145. DOI: 10.1080/08923640802224568

This articles focus was to assess critical thinking in computer- mediated communication by looking at theories and content analysis models that will foster the development of critical thinking skills in asynchronous online learning environments.  By reviewing existing research, the authors found asynchronous discussion based learning shows, as an instructional strategy, to be effective for increasing and developing higher order thinking. 

Mandernach, J. (2006). Thinking critically about critical thinking: Integrating online tools to promote critical thinking. Insight: A collection of Faculty Scholarship: v1 p 41-50. Retrieved at http://www.insightjournal.net/about.htm/

This article reviews existing research that focuses on ways to utilize online technologies to supplement classroom activities and develop higher order thinking in the online classroom.  By incorporating the use of technological instructional strategies, such as, asynchronous dialogue which allows students time to process the content and redirect the focus from knowledge acquisition to application of the information, which promotes higher order thinking.  

Osborne, R. E, Kriese, P., Tobey, H. & Johnson, E. (2009). Putting it all together: Incorporating “SoTL practices” for teaching interpersonal and critical thinking skills in an online course. Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching. v4 p 45-52. Retrieved at http://www.insightjournal.net/about.htm/ 

This article focused on a team taught internet seminar course that included nineteen enrolled students. The research sought to assess a relationship between interpersonal skills or course etiquette and the progress on a critical thinking model. The results of this research mirrored the existing findings that interpersonal skills are an important element of critical thinking skills.  However, it is uncertain whether students with high level critical thinking skills have a higher level of interpersonal skills or vice versa.  

Schellens, T., Valcke, M., Van Keer, B., & Wever, D. (2009). Tagging thinking types in asynchronous discussion groups: effects on critical thinking. Interactive Learning Environments. 12, (1) 77-94

This study focused on the impact of scaffolding critical thinking processes in online discussions using Garrison’s model, which is steeped in the cognitive theoretical framework. More specifically, this study looked at a computer supported collaboration script that was organized by De Bono’s thinking hats. The participants of the study were median age 22 and enrolled in the instructional strategy course. They were divided into groups of six member teams and each groups was assigned a scripted verses a non-scripted condition. The results of this study showed positive results with respect to the content analysis instrument of Newman. More specifically, evidence suggests this analysis instrument is a powerful way to map critical thinking in successive stages of the critical thinking process.

Cynthia

Classmates Videos I watched:

http://juliekaplan.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/module-5-my-comments/#comment-36

http://langstonnotes.blogspot.com/2012/02/module-6-final-presentation.html?showComment=1329684348723#c4752261701270804465

http://ktino1.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/asynchronous-e-learning-project/#comments

http://rodrussell-roderickr.blogspot.com/2012/02/module-6-use-of-games-to-encourage-or.html#comment-form

http://slayeduc.blogspot.com/2012/02/moduel-6-week-11-video-presentation.html?showComment=1329686444894#c798885986991900512