Critical thinking and the economic price of colleges' failures.

An article in yesterday’s New York Times is hugely stimulating and should be read by all students. It summarizes a study which shows that students are not being taught critical thinking at College. If true, students should be outraged. Students who do poorly on critical thinking tests are less likely to get jobs, are less likely to keep them and – get this – are less likely to know they can’t think critically.

The article has some important lessons for Professors who want to rectify this (and who doesn’t?). Encourage self-learning (one of the reasons I make the students blog so much). Enforce high academic expectations (my standards are a source of great tension with my students). Enforce high expectations by not giving out A’s for anything that doesn’t surpass those expectations. It all fits so well with my intuition (musings: 1, 2, 3). But as I keep telling the students, intuition (theirs’ and mine) is frequently wrong.

snakeoil553Is this a teachable moment? Should we do a class session on the data? Job prospects are one of the great motivators; surely the students would be captivated? But is it too much to look critically at data on critical thought? What if the data dissolve into a confounded mess when we look at hard? The claims accord with my deeply held biases. I so, so want them to be true. What if they are not? Worse, the study raises the really thorny prospect of measuring my personal impact. I have come to realize that empowering the students to think critically is the most important reason for this course. What if I don’t make a difference?

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