Designing Learning Environments for Critical Thinking: Examining Effective Instructional Approaches

Fostering the development of students’ critical thinking (CT) is regarded as an essential outcome of higher education. However, despite the large body of research on this topic, there has been little consensus on how educators best support the development of CT. In view of some of the controversies surrounding the teaching of CT skills in higher education, this study examined the effects of embedding CT instruction systematically in domain-specific courses (Immersion vs. Infusion) on the acquisition of domain-specific and domain-general CT skills and course achievement. First-year university students (N = 143) enrolled in an introductory physics course were assigned to one of three instructional conditions: Immersion, Infusion, and control. The Immersion and Infusion conditions followed lessons designed systematically based on the First Principles of Instruction model, whereas the control condition followed a regular instruction. Results showed that participants in the Immersion and Infusion conditions significantly outperformed those in the control condition on domain-specific CT proficiency and course achievement. However, neither the Immersion nor the Infusion condition was helpful in fostering the acquisition of domain-general CT skills. The findings generally demonstrated that embedding CT instruction systematically in domain-specific courses requires greater clarity about what set of CT skills could be targeted in domain-specific instruction, how specific subject-matter instruction could be designed considering CT as an integral part of domain-specific instruction, and how best CT outcomes be assessed. Some considerations for the design of CT-supportive learning environments are discussed.     

The role of guidance in computer-based problem solving for the development of concepts of logic

The effect of two instructional variables,manipulation of objects and guidance, inlearning to use the logical connective,conditional, was investigated. Instructions for72 first- and second year social sciencestudents were varied in the computer-basedlearning environment Tarski's World, designedfor teaching first-order logic (Barwise &Etchemendy, 1992). Guidance, which wasoperationalised by giving the learners problemsthat guided them to all different types ofbasic problem situations that could be derivedfrom the conditional by stimulating them tomanipulate or to imagine to manipulate thegeometrical objects, significantly influencedthe scores from pre- to post test.Manipulation, which was operationalised bygiving the learners a visual representation inwhich (concrete) geometrical objects could bemanipulated, yielded significant results frompost- to retention test. The results supportthe authors' view that guidance in combinationwith the possibility to manipulate objects in adomain, support the acquisition of knowledgeand skills in that domain. Guidance leads tothe students seeing all situations that arerelevant for the development of new knowledge,which has a positive effect directly afterinstruction. The possibility to manipulateleads to the students playing around in such away that they (systematically) experience theresults of their actions by the feedback given,having an effect after two weeks ofnon-instruction.     

An invasion in the classroom: influence of an ill-structured innovation on instructional and epistemological beliefs

In this article, the actual impact on students' instructional and epistemological beliefs of systematic attempts to implement a problembased, collaborative and technologicallyrich learning environment in regular, internationallyspread, secondary school classrooms is described. Although the literature suggests that learning environments do affect both categories of beliefs, empirical evidence is currently limited. To study the effects of learning environments, classroombased learning environments were redesigned in various respects. The change entailed the implementation of a problembased, collaborative and technologicallyrich environment to replace the more regular contentdriven, teachercentred and textbookbased environment. The implementation of the innovation was hypothesised to result in a change of both the instructional and epistemological beliefs of students. Moreover, these beliefs were expected to evolve in the direction of the assumptions underlying the innovative environment. A classical pretest and posttest study resulted in the confirmation of the first hypothesis. However, for the second hypothesis, the opposite was found: students' beliefs strengthened in a direction that contradicts the basic principles underlying the designed environment. The study highlights that a poor implementation of potentially powerful learning environments can result in unexpected and even undesirable side effects.     

Neuropsychological intervention in kindergarten children with subtyped risks of reading retardation

Kindergarten children at risk of developing language problems were administered the Florida Kindergarten Screening Battery. A principal components analysis revealed a verbal and a visual-spatial component and subsequent discriminant function analyses a high verbal/low visual-spatial group (LAL: Latent L) and a high visual-spatial/low verbal group (LAP: Latent P). LAL- and LAP-children were considered at risk for developing an L- or P-type of dyslexia, respectively. As is common practice with children suffering from manifest L- or P- dyslexia, the LAL- and LAP-kindergartners received right and left hemisphere stimulation, respectively. The outcomes were compared with those of bilateral hemispheric stimulation and no intervention. Reading tests were administered in primary school Grades 1 and 5/6; teachers’ evaluation of reading took place in Grade 5/6. Overall, the LAL- and LAP- groups showed significant backwardness in word and text reading, both at early and late primary school. Types of intervention made a difference though: not significantly backward in early word, late word, and late text reading were the LAL-children who had received right hemisphere stimulation. Nonintervened LAP-children did not show significant backwardness in early word reading and late text reading, nor did LAP-children who had received left hemisphere or bilateral stimulation. Early text reading was not affected by any treatment. Teacher’s evaluations were in support of these findings.     

The agencement of taskification: On new forms of reading and writing in BYOD schools

Abstract

The proliferation of digital devices in educational settings has contributed to the decentralization of knowledge from teachers and established textbooks to fluid online personalized resources, and from blackboards as spaces of materialization of this knowledge to personal screens. In this new constellation, school practices such as reading, writing and note-taking take new forms. How are these practices reconfigured when centered around mobile digital devices? In this paper, we investigate routine lesson practices of a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) school by means of an ethnographic observation. Adopting the term agencement as a heuristic device, we explore what practices are being constituted and how they are always in connection with one another. Moreover, we show that by practicing they produce different forms of action. We argue that in such a hybrid constellation, tasks find a different status beyond isolated and self-contained units for enhancing learning in different lessons. We introduce task-agencement, through which the task always entails a process of taskification that formats BYOD schools. With taskification, we mean that the task-agencement expands the domain in which tasks not only influence the organization and structure of lessons, but equally the very organization of the BYOD school by enacting a particular form of schooling. Finally, we propose a taskified form as a form of BYOD schooling that templates and formats how practices such as reading and writing, contextualization and introduction of the lesson are conducted.     

The fading of a teaching profession? reforms of early childhood teacher education in Sweden

In Sweden, working with young children in institutions outside the home dates back to the late nineteenth century when public child care provision developed in a context of industrialization, urbanization and democratization. Out of the charitable work of unmarried women in these early institutions, pre‐schools and teacher education programmes developed. Over the years, pre‐school teacher education has undergone major changes, the most recent reform being the move into a system within which the previous eight distinctive teacher education programmes, pre‐school teacher education being one of them, have been replaced by one integrated teaching degree. This article addresses some major features of the development of pre‐school teacher education and concludes with a discussion of the most recent reform and its consequences for the early childhood teaching profession.     

Emotional engagement,social interactions,and the development of an afterschool game design curriculum

This formative design study examines how a program curriculum and implementation was emergently (re)designed in dynamic relation to the expressed emotions of teachers and students. The context was a yearlong afterschool game design program for STEM learning at an urban and public all-girls middle school. Using Randall Collins’ (Interaction ritual chains, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2004) sociology of emotions framework, our analysis of field notes and video data reveal how the original intended curriculum hindered the generation of positive emotions, mutual foci of attention, and feelings of group solidarity—factors important in the generation of successful group interactions. In response to teacher and student expressed emotions, we took these factors as a guide for redesigning the program curriculum and implementation in order to foster a more positive emotional climate and redirect students’ positive emotions toward engagement in learning goals. This study’s implications point to the possibilities for designing curricula and program implementations to engender more emotionally responsive environments for STEM learning.