Dr. Alfred Benney
Fairfield University, North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT U.S.A. 06430-7524
KEYWORDS: critical-thinking, computer puzzles, teaching strategies
E-MAIL: Benney@FAIR1.Fairfield.edu FAX NUMBER: 203-254-4105 PHONE NUMBER: 203-254-4000 x2398
The Problem
Students come to American Universities with critical
skills that are inadequate for college-level scholarship. It is essential not
only for their studies, but for their lives and careers that they learn to do
analysis - to get a clear understanding of the data before they begin to form
their opinions about it. In the preface to their book, Asking the Right
Questions, Neil Browne and Stuart Keeley make the following observation:
. . . we were dismayed at the degree to which students and acquaintances showed an increasing dependence on "experts" - textbook writers, teachers, lawyers, politicians, journalists, and TV commentators. As the complexity of the world seems to grow at an accelerating rate, there is a greater tendency to become passive absorbers of information, uncritically accepting what is seen and heard.1
Humanities courses have a distinct advantage in providing an educational environment for teaching analysis or some form of critical thinking. The subject is fuzzy and represents the way most humans interact with their world and with one another. Because of this, analytic skills learned in this environment have applications in a variety of people-oriented careers such as teaching, politics, business, mediation/negotiation, criminal law, etc., as well as the obvious uses for personal relationships and communication.
Moreover, in today's world, there is increased pressure to evaluate education with a "bottom line" mentality. Pressure is on teachers and students alike to treat education as if it were only training to function in society. The common comment to students "Oh, what are you going to do with your degree?" illustrates normative thinking in American society. Unfortunately this has led to two sorts of fallacies:
In the second case, the fallacy is of course, that the questions are apparent; that there is no skill involved in exploring the problem; and that there is no need to understand nor evaluate the problem before we apply solutions (that are expected to bring instantaneous results).
In the first case, the fallacy is that we have lost sight of what humanities education really is. Without making this the focus of this exercise, let me suggest that one way of thinking about this is that humanities courses explore the messy business of learning how to analyze and evaluate the questions that concern human beings.
The Approach
Gerald Bracey, reporting on the 1991 meeting of the
American Psychological Association, points out that technology has not paid
attention to the most recent findings of cognitive psychology.
. . . cognitive psychologists . . . have come to believe that `metacognition' plays an enormous role in learning. In general, metacognition refers to thinking about your own thinking, regulating it, and directing it according to the changing conditions of your environment.2
At Fairfield University, I introduce my students to the question of analysis and problem solving by using in class a puzzle exercise which I designed using ToolBook. By displaying a series of puzzles, I am able to elicit immediate and direct response from nearly every student in the class and by interrupting the process at strategic points can call attention to what it is that they are doing as they attempt to solve these problems (metacognition). It is easy to demonstrate, for example, how such things as assumptions, artificial boundaries, distractions, patterns, lack of information and failure to see the problem prevent us from accurately analyzing a problem.3
In this exercise, the puzzles are presented on a large screen projection system and both the type of puzzle as well as the timing of the presentation is in my control; my objective is:
The "Technique"
It is important to understand that this
is not a tutorial which simply presents Puzzles (ideas/concepts) to the
students. Rather it is the use of technology to create a public event that
involves the class in a common enterprise. The teacher is most assuredly a guide
in this enterprise. Because of the nature of hypertext, it is possible to
organize the structure of the program based on the interaction of the students.
The teacher must learn how to use this strategy to effect the desired outcomes.
Milton Glick and others points out "that it is not what the teacher does
but what he or she gets the students to do that results in learning."4
The use of the CRT to create an interactive information environment provides what I would call "appropriate use," because it ". . . gives the . . . [teacher] the ability to access and manipulate not just information products (such as text, graphics, video), but information processes as well."5
The Payoff
Presenting this project at a poster session makes it
possible to discuss this educational strategy with participants from a variety
of disciplines as well as to demonstrate the actual use of the puzzles to
simulate a classroom situation. In this setting it is also easier to respond to
specific questions about the authoring system (ToolBook 3.0a) as well as the
design of the "books" used. It also becomes possible to tailor the
presentation to the various needs of the participants.
Endnotes