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Integrating Critical Thinking
critical thinking exercises for Stanovich’s How to Think Straight about Psychology (2007),
and on the other hand, they implemented critical thinking in activities for quantitative
reasoning and the analysis of ideas. Peden and Keniston (1992) showed that scores on the
assignments improved continuously during a school term.
Ignorance Questions
Instructors teach what we know about a discipline; however, experts understand what we
do not know as well as what we do know. To encourage students to be curious (a critical
thinking disposition according to Wade and Tavris, 1987), Peden and Keniston (1991)
devised ignorance question exercises. Ignorance questions are stimulated but not answered
by either textbook or class lecture. For example, a student who read a chapter on cross-
cultural similarities in basic emotions might offer an appropriate ignorance question such
as “If all humans express emotions with the same facial expressions, then why does so
much distrust and misunderstanding exist between cultures?”
There are different ways to implement this activity (Carroll, 2001; Peden & Keniston,
1991). Instructors can require students to write ignorance questions about lectures, read-
ings, or both. We have used different options for grading ignorance questions. Sometimes
we graded ignorance question assignments and other times we graded ignorance questions
only on exams. We have even simply given students extra credit for ignorance questions.
The following five-point grading scale may be used for ignorance questions:
5 good ignorance question
4 potentially a good ignorance question, but not entirely clear
3 question answered in the text
2 question irrelevant to course content under study
1 joke
Questions scored as 2 or 3 may be appropriate questions, but not good ignorance
questions.
In general, ignorance question exercises lead to a classroom ambience that promotes
active learning, curiosity, and critical thinking by students. Peden and Keniston (1991)
also demonstrated that students’ ignorance question scores improved from the beginning
to the end of a term. Qualitatively, some students regularly submitted good ignorance
questions and most students produced at least one good question in a semester. Furthermore,
students consistently rated the activity favorably.
Debates
Instructors have required student debates in a variety of classes (e.g., Bauer & Wachowiak,
1977; Elliot, 1993; Moeller, 1985). Students regard debates as interesting, involving, and
“live” in ways that other class presentations are not. Although students often are anxious
about debating in class, typically they rate the activity favorably.