How Do You Encourage Critical Thinking and Dialogue?

How Do You Encourage Critical Thinking and Dialogue?
Jared O'Leary
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In this episode I discuss an approach I’ve used for encouraging critical thinking and dialogue through individualized feedback and group discussion.

  • 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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