By Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.
You may be surprised to find that, after taking several courses via eLearning or mobile learning, that your critical thinking skills and creative problem-solving abilities have been boosted in many ways. You have become much more adept with managing information, software, and mobile devices. Further, you identify, classify, and work with data much more quickly. The learning activities that used to frustrate you are now easy for you to successfully complete.
How did this happen? A number of techniques that are utilized in traditional courses are highly effective in eLearning. For example, Burbach et al (2004) have noted that journal writing can be used to improve student critical thinking. However, not just any kind of journal writing will yield results. The assignments must be crafted carefully, and you must be willing to be open to writing about your thoughts and experiences as they relate to the course content and instructional material. Such “reflective journal writing” can lead to fairly amazing results in retention of content, ability to synthesize ideas, develop self-awareness, and become adept at problem-solving (Burnbach et al, 2004, 4). In fact, there are some indications that reflective journal writing is one of the best building blocks for developing solid academic writing skills.
Applying the issues discussed in the course readings to real-life situations is one way of developing reflective journal assignments. Texts do not have to consist only of written words. In fact, “text” is often expanded to mean anything that can be read or interpreted, and which includes a symbol system. Films are a great example of texts that most students have “read” and are comfortable with discussing with each other. Instructors such as Weertz (2005) have used films successfully to stimulate debates, discussions, and analysis in small groups.
Active learning is also vital in developing critical thinking skills. Critics of distance learning often point to the fact that it can be possible for a student to remain fairly passive and not engage in a discussion with a group or collaborative learning. However, in the typical e-learning course, discussion boards create an effective place to require students to engage in focused analysis of each others’ work and to suggest revisions.
Mobile learning engages students on yet another active level if it is possible to post to blogs or discussion boards, to participate in a massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORG), or simulation. Further, if mobile devices allow interaction on at least a text-message level, quick responses can be obtained, which could assuage some of the problems of time-lag.
An eLearning course that forces students into an intensive practice role, rather than a role that asks them to simply read lectures, has been demonstrated to be more effective in increasing critical thinking (Burnbach etal, 2004, 5).
Becoming self-aware by writing reflective journals, and testing your ideas by sharing them with others are excellent ways to develop critical thinking skills. It’s not quite enough, though. What if your underlying logic is flawed? How do you know if your thesis statement is a good one? How do you know if you are adequately supporting your argument?
According to D. Halpern (1998), you have to know how to shape a solid argument, which requires you to have a thorough understanding of the rules of evidence and logic. She writes:
“Learners need to argument analysis skills--An argument is a set of statements with at least one conclusion and one reason that supports the conclusion. In real-life settings, arguments are complex, with reasons that run counter to the conclusion, stated and unstated assumptions, irrelevant information, and intermediate steps” (Halpern, 1998, 452). In other words, it is important to support the argument with evidence that is credible and appropriate. Moreover, you have to be able to sift out irrelevant data, agendas, and bias.
Halpern writes partially because she is concerned by what she sees as a disturbing willingness of college students to believe in the paranormal, which she suggests runs counter to the critical thinking one should develop in college. For example, she points out that one campus survey found that more than 99% of individuals believed in the paranormal, including in the existence of at least one paranormal phenomenon, which could include healing crystals, ghosts and spirits, the efficacy of horoscopes, psychic healing, astral travel, and more (Halpern, 1998, 449).
While an online instructor would not want to throw a wet blanket on one’s students’ entertainment, it is definitely worth noting that there probably are limits to how far one will really go in terms of developing critical thinking skills, especially if developing objectivity means destroying or undermining one’s beliefs.
How are critical thinking skills measured?
A widely used and well-respected tool, the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, WGCTA (Watson & Glaser, 1980), measures individuals’ abilities to demonstrate they understand inference, recognition of assumptions, deductions, interpretation, and evaluation of arguments. In a typical e-learning course, you will have many chances to develop the skills, both by means of social learning, and by means of recognizing models and patterns. It has been used in a number of applications, and has been demonstrated to be effective at predicting performance in courses and in tasks requiring complex thinking (Gladzella, 2005).
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