Critical thinking (CT) is widely viewed as an essential skill for college students. Nevertheless, the use of CT skills in the classroom often varies across disciplines. This article summarizes perceptions of CT, including various definitions and constructs as well as barriers to its implementation in higher education. Faculty members from various…

This study examines a student-created "pop-up museum" about the opioid epidemic that was part of a project-based service-learning (PBSL) experience in a college course. A survey of student perceptions of the learning experience, a course evaluation, and a survey of museum visitors' perceptions of their experiences with the museum…

The author explains how using creative assignments reinforces invention, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills in undergraduate health administration students. While several studies look at the use of creative assignments to help students develop these skills, few studies exist on their use in health administration. In addition, the use of…

This study investigates the effectiveness of implementing clicker-based activities to promote critical thinking in a small-enrollment undergraduate psychology course. Students' performance on knowledge-based tests and critical-thinking assignments were analyzed. Whereas no significant difference was observed in their knowledge-based exam…

Using a state-wide college student dataset, this study examined how the type of student-faculty interaction uniquely conditions the predictors of student-faculty interaction (student characteristics affecting the level of student-faculty interaction, in this case) as well as the effects of such interaction on select college outcomes. The results…

Winston-Salem State University incorporates critical thinking and oral communication into general education learning outcomes and assessment. To teach these critical skills, the authors used active learning techniques in a first-year seminar on animal behavior. Students performed simulation experiments and orally presented their findings. Their…

This quantitative and qualitative study explored students' perceptions of a flipped German course and its measurable impact on their critical-thinking skills. The instructional design of the course shifted grammar and vocabulary instruction outside of class so that students in the newly created collaborative in-class space could engage in more…

Although many professors realize that note taking while listening to a lecture results in shallow learning and a lack of student engagement (Hartley & Davies, 1978), lecturing remains the primary mode of instruction. A recent challenger to the dominant notetaking/PowerPoint paradigm is Reacting to the Past (RTTP). To capitalize on the…

Introductory college courses are designed to comprehensively introduce divergent disciplines (Zipp, 2012) and can prepare students to understand the risks for multiple minoritized identities in their fields of study (Shriberg, 2016). This approach is effective, however, only if faculty are appropriately equipped to use intersectional pedagogy.…

Team-based learning (TBL) is a non-traditional method of instruction that utilizes permanent teams working together to solve problems and make decisions. The authors extend the prior TBL criminal justice literature through a detailed explanation of the use of application-focused activities in the classroom. Specifically, application-focused…

The literature supports the concept of a flipped classroom as a pedagogical approach that can improve critical thinking, enhance clinical judgment, and promote student engagement. This project implemented the flipped classroom concept in two nursing specialty courses, one didactic and one clinical. Data were gathered from both courses using a…

Is it worth the time and effort to overcome the challenges to flipping the classroom? To answer this question, we recruited university students from five government-funded universities in Hong Kong. They were asked to complete two surveys with the same measurements before and after the flipped lessons. The results from round 1 of students' pre-…

Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) is an active-learning pedagogy that emphasizes content mastery as well as the development of process skills like critical thinking and problem solving. Although published POGIL materials are available in several STEM disciplines, there are still a number of courses within a variety of disciplines…

An adaptation of Halpern's (1998) model of critical thinking (CT) was implemented for seven semesters of data collection involving 904 students in 44 classes. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was utilized for evaluating student growth in CT. The model comprised the development of higher education students' CT skills and dispositions by…

Instructors' ability to foster students' disposition to engage in critical thinking (CT) is instrumental for CT growth. University students' (N = 1,352) semester-long gains across specific dispositions were compared when taught by professors who had received zero, one, two, or three semesters of training in CT pedagogy. All groups experienced…