Fostering Critical Thinking Through Engaging Course Challenges
Empowering students by offering Course Challenges as student-generated mini-projects can connect course goals to real-life experiences, promote diverse learning modalities, encourage creative and critical thinking, and provide a structured space for fun projects. Examples like ethnographic research on Hip-Hop culture and exploring off-campus communities through transportation experiences demonstrate how these challenges can enhance critical thinking skills and engagement in learning.
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Challenge Accepted: a Critical Approach to Course Participation 2015 Pedagogy in Practice and Philosophy Conference Mikayla Beaudrie Jamie Lee Marks
check in: How do you assess and foster critical thinking meaningful participation
What are Course Challenges? 10 week long, student generated, curated, and coordinated mini-projects that 1. connect course goals to students lived experiences 2. allow for multiple modalities of learning 3. allow students to decide how to participate and engage outside of the classroom 4. [at best] foster creative and critical thinking skills that are important to argumentative writing and projects across the disciplines 5. carve out official time/space for fun student projects thatcould serve as gateways to research and practical projects JLM
What are Course Challenges? students are 1. given a list of options that are open-ended to varying degrees 1. encouraged to modify and design their own course challenge in conversation with the course leader (and readings in pedagogy MB
ex. 1 EthnographicShort (ENC1101: Writing about Hip-Hop Culture) Research The Hip-Hop Collective, a UF organization centered on hip-hop. Then, attend one of their sponsored events or conduct an interview with a chair member. Your response will be a short ethnography about The Hip-Hop Collective. Like any other ethnography, your response should express the organization's roles regarding UF, Gainesville, Florida, the US, hip-hop, the world, etc. For a further understanding of this genre, read Brian A. Hoey's definition. MB
ex. 2 Joint Itineraries (ENC2305 and Anthropology of Sustainability) Locate yourself as a UF student in a community that exists outside of the university. Select an RTS route that runs at least partially off campus. Get online and determine where the route begins and ends. Hop on the bus at a stop of your choosing (this is free to you as a UF student) and take it to the end of its route and back. Plan for adequate time, as bus routes can often take one or more hours to complete. Take notes about who gets on and off and any interactions that that transpire. Take notes about parts of Gainesville you encounter. Have you been there before? What did you feel/experience? Then, compose a 2-3 double-spaced page report that 1) details what you saw, heard, felt, thought, imagined, and/or daydreamed about when you were there and 2) connects with course concepts about alterity and community or transport policy. Are there any challenges to transportation accessibility you noticed? Draw on the excerpt by Aug s for inspiration as needed. JLM
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year Classroom Instructors are tasked with "fostering critical thinking skills MB
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year Classroom Instructors are tasked with "fostering critical thinking skills Approaching student resistance in a class that tends to value experienced knowledge MB
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year Classroom Instructors are tasked with "fostering critical thinking skills Approaching student resistance in a class that tends to value experienced knowledge Experienced knowledge provides access to skills necessary to think critically MB
Addressing Difficulties in the First-Year Classroom Instructors are tasked with "fostering critical thinking skills Approaching student resistance in a class that tends to value experienced knowledge Experienced knowledge provides access to skills necessary to think critically Creating approachable course content for STEM students MB
Promoting Civic and Critical Engagement Carla Golden s Seven Point Plan I want my students 1. to experience learning and thinking as exciting and challenging and to know that reading and discussing issues and ideas can enrich their lives 2. to learn that to write will is both necessary and important 3. to feel comfortable when speaking 4. to learn that thinking for themselves is crucial 5. to learn that discipline is important 6. to examine their own lives 7. to be socially responsible and concerned [at least partially] as a result of taking my classes Golden, Carla. "The Radicalization of a Teacher." The Feminist Teacher Anthology. Ed. Gail E. Cohee, Elisabeth Da mer, Theresa D. Kemp, Paula M. Krebs, Sue A. Lafky, Sandra Runzo. New York: Teachers College Press, 1998. 13-23. JLM
design + implementation 1. designing Challenges (include an open ended option) 2. assigning a points value (over half a letter grade) 3. timelines (start date, check ins) 4. the final write up (2-3 double spaced pages)
fyc student examples 1. Enhancing digital literacy a. Websites https://sites.google.com/site/firstyearengineersuf/ https://enc3246firstyearengineering.wordpress.com b. Professional writing 2. Translating and remixing language 3. Creating musical productions 4. Performing literary analyses 5. Self-assessment of communication practices MB
[ENC2305, ENC1102, Anthropology] 1. Getting Involved in Local Movements/Issues 2. Pop culture analysis. Ads, Film (Lego, Hunger Games), novels (Queen of the South, , short stories) Analysis 3. Connecting Critical Theory to Popular Culture (Lego Movie, Grand Theft Auto, Queen of the South, The Hunger Games, The Purge) 4. mixtapes (Sustainability and Bad Guys examples) a. Honey and Sorrow Mixtape. https://soundcloud.com/cobbsnobb/sets/ant2402 b. http://open.spotify.com/user/1237832879/playlist/0T OurStHn8OlM7pC11Q5xD 5. Space/Place Challenges (journaling/Instagram) / habitus challenges 6. Design your own: play through and/or create video games (procedural rhetoric); art projects (mask) JLM
Honey and Sorrow Mixtape Intro My mixtape challenge, dubbed Honey and Sorrow , is a progressive collection of electronic, deep house, and trance music with infusions of tribal, soul, instrumentals and R&B. The collection is meant to take the listener on a journey, beginning with our first class discussion on What is Nature? which disturbed what I had assumed about man and nature as separate, to cascading through the challenges faced by third world activists, and ending on a positive note that together, change is possible. I hope that my audience enjoys the message as well as the unique acoustics that only instrumentally infused JL M electronic music can bring.
final comments Opportunities for student engagement multimodality civic engagement/social justice digital citizenship Cross-discipline pedagogical practice Community involvement and Self-discovery
acknowledgements Dr. Creed Greer Dr. Alison Reynolds and a special thank you to Dr. Jennifer Coenen Justin Grant cat + pictures students who agreed to share their work
questions/contact info Jamie Lee Marks Jamie.Marks@gmail.com Mikayla Beaudrie Mikayla528@ufl.edu
