Eligibility: Full-time and part-time faculty

Amount: Each participant will receive $500 in professional development funds

Submission: Online Application

Due Date: October 9, 2020

Purpose and Description

The purpose of this community is to examine what is commonly known as “critical thinking” across Miami University campuses while increasing the effectiveness of faculty developing students’ critical thinking through explicit teaching and/or general exposure. The main goals of the community are to assist members with creating the definition and identifying the constituents of critical thinking in class, including stating clearer objectives on their syllabi; developing and practicing pedagogies and interventions that would positively impact student learning; and to effectively assess students' improvements of critical thinking. The results will also be shared with the Miami University community 

Activities

• Members will attend FLC meetings once every 3 weeks.
• Members will read and discuss the literature that provides the background of critical thinking and how critical thinking is pedagogically implemented and assessed in various disciplines. 
• Members will define and apply critical thinking as "domain-general skills" and "domain-specific skills." 
• Members will develop and/or create task-based assignments or activities that focus on critical thinking.
• Members will identify if there are any discipline-focused terms or concepts that need to be acquired by students in order for critical thinking to take place. 
• Members will analyze the construct of Critical Thinking Value Rubric (AAC&U), Critical Thinking Assessment Rubric (GMP, Miami), and other institutions' critical thinking rubrics. 
• To provide more explicit description of critical thinking objectives on the syllabus, members will create or develop their own construct for critical thinking in discipline-focused courses. 
• Guest speakers will be invited to discuss their perspectives of critical thinking and its implementation in their courses at Miami.
• Members will conduct a critical thinking survey to the Miami community in Spring 2021 to explore how faculty across campuses define, implement, and assess critical thinking. The data will be analyzed in May, 2021.  

Members

2020-2021

• Michele Frank, Accountancy
• Chelsea Green, Finance
• Caitlin Jeanmougin, Nursing
• Karen Meyers, Finance
• Cynthia Oakenfull, Management
• Arnold Olszewski, Speech Pathology and Audiology
• Haifei Shi, Biology
• Russell Simonsen, Spanish and Portuguese
• Harshini Siriwardane, Accountancy
• Eun Chong Yang, American Culture and English Program; Facilitator
• Amy Yousefi, Chemical, Paper, and Biomedical Engineering; Facilitator