Using Fundamental and Powerful Concepts to Help Students Think Critically about Your Course Bill Reynolds Associate Professor of Social Work Director, Institute for Faculty Development Stockton University

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Source: Nosich (2012). Learning to think things through. Questions we may ask – Given that our courses are typically embedded within disciplines, how can we help students think critically within our discipline? – How do we help students think critically while also amassing the large amount information required in our course? Assumption: Opposition—have to learn CT or learn content

Actually… Learning content is learning to think. Content is not repeating formulas or slogans, nor is it memorizing long lists of information. Students have ownership of a course's content when: – They understand the course concepts; – see their implications; – relate them to other concepts; – raise relevant questions about them; and – can apply them to new situations.

Fundamental and Powerful Concepts They are the most central and useful ideas in the course or discipline. Ideas that can be used to explain or think out a large body of questions, problems, information, and situations. When students understand the f & p concepts in a deep way, they are in a position to understand a great deal of the rest of the course.

Pause Consider a course you’re currently teaching or have recently taught. 5 minutes to think and make notes that help you identify 1 – 2 f & p concepts. Why are they f & p concepts? Discuss with neighbors.

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Intro to Social Work Example Purpose – Provide intro to discipline – Help students begin to think like social workers – Bain: Doing the discipline before they know the discipline F & P Concepts – Helping relationship – Person-in-environment – Social justice – Professional values

Elaboration Person-in-environment – Ecological perspective – Systems theory – Interdependence Helping relationship – Planned change process – Starting where the client is – Strengths perspective – Solution-focused – Boundaries – Therapeutic alliance

Implications of identifying F&Ps Forces you to evaluate choices you’ve made about the course (i.e., establish logic of the course) Are my readings, assignments, assessments, activities: – Significantly related and relevant to my F&PS? – Clearly (and explicitly) articulated for my students and logically related to the broader discipline? – Offering students opportunities for both breadth and depth of understanding?

Re-think or add to F & Ps 5 minutes to further develop or change F&Ps Think about extent to which a significant assignment in your course does or does not help students achieve a deeper understanding of one of F&Ps you’ve identified. Discuss

Final Thoughts Think incrementally and long-term Consider how your F&Ps fit into the logic of the discipline – Coherent way(s) of thinking about discipline – The discipline has a distinct set of purposes, which fit together with the assumptions, implications, alternative readings, interpretations, central concepts, key questions at issue, and distinctive points of view embodied in it. Full circle: all the elements of reasoning, working together.

QUESTIONS?