Engaging Lectures

Faculty sometimes express frustration with student performance. By midterm in the semester, they are expecting their students to use the course material in thoughtful ways -- for problem-solving, analysis, or decision-making. Yet, they find that their students continue to give them simple answers and unexamined opinions. While there are different expectations about what thinking skills are necessary (we can send you Harold Bloom's classic description of cognitive levels), there is nonetheless a general agreement that students should be doing more than recycling the teacher's notes. This Teaching Tip focuses on ways to encourage higher order thinking habits in your classroom.

Nudging Students

William Perry's explanation for why students are more comfortable with simpler responses is that they have not developed the intellectual maturity to trust disciplinary inquiry. The instructor's role is to nudge the students to higher levels. The CIRT will be glad to send you Robert Kloss's essay describing the four stages in this process. Here are some tips:

Direct Instruction. Teach the intellectual steps that you want students to use. Give them a model to follow. Offer a series of questions they should ask. Describe the stages of scientific method or literary analysis. Do NOT assume that students will know what you expect; there are a lot of misperceptions about how to do intellectual work. Explain how you think they should best proceed.

Discuss Intellectual Habits. Have students discuss what procedures they follow when engaged in your course activities. Share habits that help and those that don't. Let the group define the most effective intellectual strategies.

Model. Don't just give answers. Explain the thought processes you use to analyze your material. Label the steps you are taking and develop your examples as you go.

In all the above tips, it is important that you have some ideas about the typical intellectual strategies used in your field (such as Perry's four stages). It is not enough for you to point these out. Give students a chance to practice them. Here are some suggestions.

Focused Discussion. Tell students you want them to use the skills discussed. Choose a specific question or topic and have them apply those new skills. By carefully selecting the question and allocating the time, you can adapt this tip to many parts of the lesson.

Elaborate. When a student has presented an opinion or idea in class (or through a discussion list) invite them to share the reasoning processes that led them to their position. If you have taught some specific skills, ask them to reflect how they used them. Be generous with early mistakes but persist until students show they can use the steps you suggest.

Invite Questions. Ask students to ask you questions about how you reached your position. If you've taught them some steps to follow, encourage them to ask how you used these steps.

Reinforce Students. Support students' efforts to try higher level thinking, even when they fall short. For example, "You are doing a good job using evidence to support your position, now let's look at the generalization you made."

Nudging Teachers

Maryellen Weimer suggests that sometime students don't use critical thinking skills because they aren't given the chance. She points out that faculty ask questions only 3.65% of the time in the average classroom. Of this time, less than 5% of the questions teachers ask demand reflective responses. When teachers don't ask students to think, they should not be disappointed when they don't. Here are some tips for creating opportunities for students' thinking to grow.

Questions. Go beyond memory questions by building to higher order questions that require deeper reflection. The CIRT will share material on preparing effective question strategies.

Discussions. Teachers can craft discussions so that students engage in complex, meaningful responses to the material. The CIRT has several excellent articles on crafting the discussion time and getting the most out of your discussions. We'd gladly send you copies of those articles.

Silence. Thoughtful responses require thinking time. Normally teachers allow less than a couple seconds for a response. Adopt the 10-second rule. Wait 10 seconds after asking a thought-provoking question or raising a complex discussion topic. Let students know this is to be used for reflection rather than embarrassed waiting.

Final Comments

Educator David Perkins claims "Teaching is less about what the teacher does than what the teacher gets students to do." This is especially true when we consider how students learn to use higher order reasoning skills. If we hope to see these abilities displayed by our students, we will need to deliberately nurture them in our classrooms. Whether you envision these abilities as stages of development, critical thinking skills, or disciplinary habits of mind, find ways for your students to learn how to apply them while working on your material.

This Teaching Tip was first published by Indiana State University’s, Center for Teaching and Learning on April 7, 1997.