“Freshmen have never arrived at college with impressive writing skills…when it comes to implementing the writing requirement, few institutions have managed to do what is necessary to achieve success.” Derek Bok, president emeritus, Harvard Our Underachieving Colleges, 2006

“ Repeatedly, students [report] that reading alone or listening to lectures did not engage them deeply enough for them to remember facts and ideas nor to analyze them. Only through writing, perhaps through the condensation and analysis of classroom notes or through the writing of drafts of papers that required them to integrate theory with evidence, did they achieve the insights that moved them to complex reasoning…”

“By and large, progress seemed to depend most of all on how much writing students did, how much specific feedback they received, whether they wrote about something that they knew a lot about,” and whether their instructors let them bring their own intellectual interests into their compositions. More than 80% of the students in the study “agreed that giving more feedback was the most effective way to help students become better writers.”

Without having to do more work ourselves!

students develop important intellectual skills and become increasingly more disciplined as thinkers.

How to Improve Student Learning Guide P. 6 Idea#2

How to Improve Student Learning Guide P. 8 Idea #4

How to Improve Student Learning Guide P. 9 Idea #5

PART ONE – Critical Reading: Working in pairs. Using the Concepts and Tools mini-guide Critically read the explanation of Intellectual Humility on p. 14.

1. State the meaning of the idea in a sentence or two. (Clearly and succinctly state the most basic meaning or use). 2. Elaborate on the concept in your own words. (In a paragraph or more, unpack the idea, giving it sufficient detail for the context.) 3. Exemplify the concept by giving concrete examples of it. (Use examples from everyday life.) 4. Illustrate the concept with a picture, diagram, metaphor, or analogy. (Enabling the reader to better understand the idea by connecting it to something she or he finds intuitive.) Intellectual Humility is… In other words… For example… To illustrate…

Working in groups of three Take turns reading your papers aloud slowly and giving one another feedback on your papers. Using intellectual standards in assessing the paper. Focus primarily on clarity and accuracy. (refer to p. 9 in the Analytic Thinking guide)

Choose the best paper in your group, again using the intellectual standards to determine which is best. When finished, join with another group, the two papers are read aloud and feedback given as before, and the best of those two papers is read aloud. Finally, the best 4-5 papers are read aloud to the entire “class” and feedback is given from the class and instructor.

1. State the meaning of the idea in a sentence or two. (Clearly and succinctly state the most basic meaning or use). 2. Elaborate on the concept in your own words. (In a paragraph or more, unpack the idea, giving it sufficient detail for the context.) 3. Exemplify the concept by giving concrete examples of it. (Use examples from everyday life.) 4. Illustrate the concept with a picture, diagram, metaphor, or analogy. (Enabling the reader to better understand the idea by connecting it to something she or he finds intuitive) Use the format on p. 46 of the Aspiring Thinker’s Guide. For #4, use this variation: Critical thinking is connected to the following ideas within my subject…

Working in groups of three Take turns reading your papers aloud slowly and giving one another feedback on your papers. Use intellectual standards in assessing papers. Focus primarily on clarity and accuracy. (refer to p. 9 in the Analytic Thinking guide)

p. 36 – How to Write a Paragraph guide. Using this format, writing out the essence of a key concept in your subject, discipline or profession. Read through one of the examples on pp before beginning. Then you will work together to give feedback on your papers.

P. 63, Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test. Using this template, write out the logic of The Art of Loving (text on p. 26). Then give feedback on your papers using intellectual standards.