How Do You Encourage Critical Thinking and Dialogue?
In this episode I discuss an approach I’ve used for encouraging critical thinking and dialogue through individualized feedback and group discussion.
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How do you encourage critical thinking
with the classes that you work with now
I don't know about for you but when I
was a student I really enjoyed when
professors teachers Etc would ask
questions that would encourage me to
think deeper but not do it in a way that
was trying to get me to arrive at one
correct solution but instead to go
through the process of really thinking
deeply about what are submitting what I
was thinking or the kind of impact I
might have on the world because this
approach really resonated for me and I
wanted to be able to work with students
in a way that helped them to think
critically about the things that they
were creating or doing or thinking Etc
but to do it in a way that didn't like
colonize their way of being their way of
thinking or what they valued so their
ontologies their epistemologies and
axiologies one of the solutions that I
arrived to was to provide individualized
feedback on assignments Reflections Etc
and then providing the option for
students at the next class to open it up
for discussion to talk about some of the
questions that the students had or some
of the questions that I posed on their
different assignments so for example if
you're working with a high school class
and they're turning in projects that are
going to be used by a variety of users
in your computer science class you could
ask questions about what kind of users
would benefit from this tool and what
kind of users would not be able to use
this tool because of like a lack of
accessibility Etc or even asking
questions like what kind of bias is in
the data set that you're using in this
app that you were developing and how
might that impact X Y and Z populations
or demographics the feedback that I
provided on these kinds of assignments
and Reflections were in the form of
questions to get students to think
critically about what they were creating
in their projects and like how it might
impact other people so it feels like a
game or something you might be able to
ask questions like how might you modify
this project for somebody who only had
one hand or if you're creating like a
story how might you modify this for
somebody who is blind when it came to
some of the music education classes that
I taught to pre-service and in-service
Educators and my graduate programs I'd
ask questions like how might you
encourage students to incorporate
diverse perspectives when iterating on
their project so this wasn't me telling
them to think a specific way it was
asking them an open-ended question to
encourage them to think critically about
what they were creating or how they were
going to teach if this was like an
education course for Education Majors
now the reason why I would open it up to
discussion in at the start of the class
is because sometimes students who are
unsure what to think about this and they
wanted to talk to their peers about it
so by putting it into a safe space where
they could talk with each other and
engage with dialogue and ask me
follow-up questions and I would respond
in a non-judgmental way this made it so
that there was dialogue going on between
the students and between the students
and myself as the instructor or
Professor or teacher or whatever this
was a full group conversation and it was
completely optional so because of this
some days it took longer than others so
we might start a class and it might be a
class that talks specifically about some
of the questions they had on the
reflections and assignments Etc other
days it might only be a few minutes when
we then broke out into like project time
Etc I would circle around the room while
they were working and kind of ask
individuals if they had any questions or
anything they wanted to discuss one on
one this is an approach that I use in
the K8 classes that I work with and this
was an approach that I used with
University classes that I taught like
the undergrad and graduate courses
because sometimes students weren't able
to meet with me during office hours or I
wasn't able to meet with them now when I
asked these questions I was not trying
to get them to think my way I like to
think of the questions more like a
pebble in their shoes something they
might notice or think about every now
and then and kind of revisit throughout
the day or throughout the week which is
an analogy that I learned from the
street epistemology handbook which I'll
include a link to in the show notes now
this is just is one way that I would
encourage critical thinking in the
classes without trying to colonize
thought I'm curious how do you encourage
critical thinking and dialogue in the
classes that you work with if you got an
idea for how to encourage critical
thinking and dialogue in your class
please consider sharing a comment on the
YouTube video or by reaching out to me
on social media which Speaking of I did
get a question on episode 195 which is
titled how to set up your computer lab
which was also another professional
development session where I kind of
showed some different ways that you
might be able to set up your computer
lab so the question is what is your
suggestion on modifying the racetrack if
I don't have any Outlets or ethernets in
the center of my room I have one screen
and usually do a 10 to 15 minute quick
introduction before we start
collaborative work I had my tables in
groups of six all facing each other but
that meant that a third of the students
had their back to my display thank you
so much for asking this question that's
an excellent question so let's talk
about it real quick so the racetrack
scenario is what I had in my classroom
where I had some rows on the sides of
the wall and then some tables in the
center that were facing towards each
other and so you're able to kind of walk
around like a race track like an oval
race track kind of circle throughout the
room if you want to see a diagram of
what this looks like check out episode
has some diagrams in it if you don't
have the ability to put computers in the
center of the room my favorite option is
actually the donut setup which to talk
about at the end of that particular
episode so it's when all of the
computers are facing the outside walls
and that way you can see all the
computers at any given moment but you
can check out that video if you want to
see what that looks like now that being
said this person hit on a very important
thing if you are trying to demonstrate
something the racetrack and donut setup
is not necessarily the most ideal way to
have one-way communication with the
students so if everybody's required to
look at a screen some people might have
to turn 180 degrees to be able to look
at it or have to turn their head left
and right to be able to look at your
screen and then be able to look and
potentially follow along on their screen
this is not ideal so one of the things
that you could do is you could set up a
screen on two different sides of the
room so that way it's a little bit
easier for them to look around you can
even set it up so that you have videos
that do a little instruction on the
computer itself so that way it doesn't
matter what kind of setup they're going
to use they're able to follow along that
way but the thing that I did with the
Kinder and first graders was to actually
have them sit down down in the front of
the room at the start of the class for
the first couple of minutes and we'd go
through on the screen like what we're
gonna do for the day and kind of talk
through it and then they were able to
disperse and go anywhere they wanted in
the room and work with their iPads or on
their computers so those are a couple of
different things that you could
potentially do for your room setup to
make it so that everybody can see the
screens so you can have multiple screens
you can have a video that is on their
screen itself and then you could share
that on YouTube and teach more people
than you would that you would actually
physically be able to see in your class
or you could have everybody sit in front
of the display and kind of like walk
them through it as a full group another
approach that I kind of say with caution
that I've seen some teachers use is they
took an extension cable they ran it up
the wall through the ceiling and then
dropped it down through the center of
the room and then they plugged in
different extensions and whatnot into
that so that way they could plug in
multiple devices to that extension cable
check with your fire laws and like your
codes for your your building and like
check with your principal Etc to make
sure that this works for you because you
don't want to do anything legal with
your setup you don't want to upset the
fire marshal another approach that I've
seen some people do is actually run an
extension cable along the floor and then
you either tape it down with like duct
tape electrical tape or whatever or you
can buy one of those things on like
Amazon or whatever that allows you to
put a cable through it so it's like a
runner that goes across your carpet or
tile or whatever again talk to your
admin to kind of figure out what works
best for your setup and your local laws
Etc but there are ways that you can
potentially do like the racetrack design
and have tables in the middle that
actually have some devices on them or
you could be like hey there's tables in
the center of the room kind of like the
donut setup and that's specifically for
mobile devices like tablets and like
Chromebooks Etc or laptops so those are
some different options but if you got
some questions on any of the podcast
episodes feel free to let me know in the
comments on YouTube or in the shout outs
at jaredelary.com happy to talk about
these in future upcoming episodes as I
might be able to answer your question in
a way that also helps other Educators
out there if you enjoyed this episode or
any of the free computer science
education drumming or gaming resources
on my website please consider sharing
with somebody else as it just helps more
people find the free content that I
create stay tuned for another episode
next week until then I hope you're all
staying safe and are having a wonderful
week
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