Course Development Guidelines
Guidelines for Developing a Course in Critical ThinkingHow to Adapt a Thematic and Content-Oriented Course to Meet the Critical Thinking Requirement
Guidelines for Developing a Visual Literacy Course
Guidelines for Developing a Course in Critical Thinking
General Characteristics
Reasoning, like writing, is a fundamental skill. The ability to analyze an argument and recognize its strengths and weaknesses is a hallmark of an educated person. This ability develops fully through repeated practice in a wide variety of courses throughout a student's academic career. It is more effectively developed, however, when students receive explicit, systematic instruction in critical thinking early in their college experience. For this reason, Critical Thinking courses should be designed primarily, if not exclusively, as 100- and 200-level courses requiring no prerequisites.
Although courses that fulfill the general education requirement for Critical Thinking may be taught in a variety of disciplines under various course numbers, each course must provide general—not narrow or specialized—training in widely applicable reasoning skills. As much as possible, course assignments should demonstrate the cross-disciplinary and ordinary applicability of critical thinking skills. In particular, such a course must:
-
provide instruction in identifying and differentiating questions, problems, and arguments
teach students how to evaluate the appropriateness of various methods of reasoning and verification
teach students how to identify and assess stated and unstated assumptions, and critically compare different points of view
introduce techniques for evaluating the quality of evidence and reasoning
require students to formulate questions and problems, construct and develop cogent arguments, and articulate reasoned judgments
Required Skills-Level in Mathematics
Only those students who have basic skills in determining simple proportions, ratios, and fractions should be allowed to take the Critical Thinking course. Students who need remedial (non-credit) mathematics courses to acquire such skills should not take the course until they have successfully completed those remedial courses.
Core Skills to Be Covered
Specifically, the core content of the Critical Thinking course would include the following skills:
-
How to express ideas clearly and precisely, and to identify and clarify vagueness and ambiguity that impedes effective reasoning
How to identify an argument, i.e., a set of statements in which evidence or reasons are given to support a claim, and to distinguish between arguing for a claim and merely expressing or articulating it
How to determine if an argument is complete, and to articulate any hidden assumptions made by those arguments that are incomplete
How to analyze an argument in terms of its structure, and to recognize similar structures and patterns in arguments about completely different subjects
How to recognize the most common mistaken reasoning patterns (typically referred to as “informal fallacies” in Critical Thinking textbooks), such as ad hominem attacks, and the fallacies of the straw man, red herring, slippery slope, etc.
How to assess both (a) when reasons, if true, would support a claim, and (b) when evidence or reasons are cogent or credible (that is, how to tell when information is reliable or trustworthy, when to believe or to be skeptical about sources of information, etc.)
How to distinguish between different basic categories of reasoning (inductive and deductive), and to apply the general rules that determine good reasoning for the various types of arguments within these categories, in a manner useful to a wide range of disciplines and contexts.
How to Adapt Thematic and Content-Oriented Courses to Meet the Critical Thinking Requirement
All general education Critical Thinking courses shall:
(1) explicitly teach general rules and principles of critical thinking as such
(2) explicitly and consciously apply these rules and principles to specific cases and examples with the aim of helping students understand fully what they involve .
Although the pedagogy of some Critical Thinking courses will involve only these two tasks, and thus will require the employment of a broad range of Critical Thinking rules and principles; other, equally valuable Critical Thinking courses may concentrate on a specific “theme” or subject matter, to which a narrower (but still substantial) range of general Critical Thinking principles would be applied in more depth.
In Critical Thinking courses with a specific “theme” or subject matter, at least 1/3 of the course should be spent specifically on tasks (1) and (2) (not necessarily all at once, at the beginning of the semester). Thus, up to 2/3 of the instructional time in a Critical Thinking course (i.e., those with a specific “theme” or subject matter) can be spent on:
(3) teaching the specific subject matter itself;
(4) giving guidance and feedback on projects involving the specific subject matter (e.g., argumentative essays or presentations) .
However, in Critical Thinking courses with a “theme” or subject matter, task (4) ought to be substantially affected by tasks (1) and (2) (i.e., by involving the conscious application of general Critical Thinking principles). Moreover, task (3) should make use of meaningful references to general Critical Thinking principles (e.g., in assessing specific controversies that exist in an area, or the credibility of sources, what is regarded as “established fact” and why, etc.).
Thus, the requirement that at least 1/3 of the course involve tasks (1) and (2) should not be understood to mean that the general Critical Thinking principles learned at those stages of instruction are not to be applied when relevant to the subject-matter specific tasks (3) and (4). In sum, for any Critical Thinking course with a specific “theme” or subject matter, Critical Thinking itself should be an overarching theme, pervading all aspects of the course.
Guidelines for Developing a Visual Literacy Course
Visual Literacy has been recognized within a growing number of academic disciplines as a necessary component of a comprehensive education. Of the seven literacies included in the IUSB General Education plan, “Visual Literacy” connotes the greatest variety of interpretations. A review of relevant terms is therefore useful here.
-
Visual Culture is the field of study devoted to visual images and messages. It is “a community of cultural and social practices that communicates meaning via mediums like television, advertising, fashion, dance, architecture, scientific imagery, news, photography, painting, language, and so forth.”
Visual Literacy is the ability to understand meaning in a visual message/image. It becomes the student's “ability to read, perceive, understand, create/produce, use, and appreciate visual images in a variety of settings.”
Visual Communication refers to the techniques used to create these messages. More specifically, it is “the deliberate arrangement of visual images, with or without text, using the principles and elements of graphic design in order to communicate an intended, or unintended, message.”
Visual Media focuses on the media that transmit visual messages, including (but is not limited to) television, film, books, newspapers, advertising, dance, architecture, songs, computer programs (e.g., PowerPoint, Photoshop, etc.), and so forth.
General Characteristics
Visual representations that transmit data, communicate information, construct knowledge, and/or express emotion are subjects of study in many disciplines. Although courses that fulfill the requirement for Visual Literacy may be taught in a variety of disciplines under various course numbers, any such course must promote general skills acquisition through study of the role of images in a variety of disciplines or with reference to knowledge, forms, and practices familiar to a variety of disciplines. The course should promote an understanding of visual media as a means of understanding the world and should prepare students to apply methodologies derived from the study of visual literacy in future research, classroom activities, and everyday life. Courses that meet the Visual Literacy requirement shall:
-
provide a foundation for an historical understanding of visual conventions, including (whenever possible) both western and non-western cultures.
introduce the grammar and expressive potential of visual forms.
apply methods developed by social sciences, sciences, and/or the humanities for the study of perception and interpretation of the visual world.
require students to be makers as well as interpreters through the fabrication of visual statements (including, for example, visual essays) and expressions using new or traditional media.
prepare students to view and understand information presented in modes used in a variety of disciplines and areas.
