Developing critical thinking skills in distance education

Introduction by: Linda Rosemond
Walden University
Principles of Distance Education
Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Distance Education

Higher order skill
Rationally
Evaluate actions/beliefs
Certain criteria
Teach how to think instead of what to think!!!
What is critical thinking?
How do I teach online students how to think?

Meta-Knowing
Metastrategic
Metacognitive
Epistemological
“Learning usually takes place when interaction is fostered among learners and between learners and instructor” (Dawson, 2008).
2. Learning of community
Cognitive presence
Teaching presence
Social presence
The process!!

Involves the Integrating of…
Critical Thinking

Flexible
Identify biases/assumptions
Skepticism
Separate facts/opinions
Don’t oversimplify
Logical inference processes
Examine before drawing conclusions
Characteristics of Critical Thinkers
I bet I can!!!

Best practices!

Students
Ask questions
Listen to each other
Help each other learn
Respect other’s ideas
Build on other’s ideas
Construct own understanding
Think in new ways
Instructors
Maintain a focus
Guide intellectual responses
Ask probing questions
Encourage full participation
Summarizing what needs to be done
Encourage to build categories of thinking
Best Practices!!!

Ideas and Support

Possible?
Does a cat meow?
What inferences have you
made throughout this
presentation and are they legitimate?
Find out now as you listen to Dr. Sam Brown from the Critical Thinking Institute.
Possible?

Alshraideh, M. (2008). The effect of Suchmans’ inquiry model
on developing critical thinking skills among university
students. IJAES, 4(1), 59-67.
Buraphadeja, V. (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.
Camarata, J. (2007). Using critical thinking in a web-based
public budgeting course. International Journal of Public
Administration, 30, 499-518.
Denial, A. (2010). Putting critical thinking into action.
Optometric Education, 33(3).
References

Maurino, P. (2007). Looking for critical thinking in online
threaded discussions. J. Educational Technology Systems,
35(3): 241-260.
Notar, C. (2002). Distant learning for the development of higher
-level cognitive skills. Education: Education Research
Complete, 122(4): 642-648.
Osborne, R. (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, 4: 45-52.
Sharma, P. (2004). Scaffolding critical thinking in an online course: An exploration study.
J. Educating Computing Research, 31(2): 181-208.
References Continued

Developing critical thinking skills in distance education

by rosemondl on Nov 21, 2010

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Developing critical thinking skills in distance education — Presentation Transcript