http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/upshot/fake-academe-looking-much-like-the-real-thing.html?_r=0

Ask questions you don’t know the answer to so you can find out what they know.

Quizzes and tests are time-honored methods of finding out about student learning beyond what you think they know. But there is a quicker, informal, non-graded way to do that by asking them. Although it could be done every class session, I do it after I teach a certain skill and always at midterm so I can refine my teaching.  I give them half sheets of paper and ask to tell me:

1.      Something you have learned today/this week/so far this term.

2.      Something you need help with or don’t understand.

3.      Something you would like to learn (more) about.

Here are some student responses from an academic speaking class for international students:

1.      Something you have learned today/this week/so far this term.

— How to make small talk, especially with older people.

2.      Something you need help with or don’t understand.

–How to write my report summary better. (They interviewed a professor in their field.)

3.      Something you would like to learn (more) about.

–Gestures, casual talk.

In my academic reading and writing class (also for international students), I asked them to write two items for each question:

1.      Two things you have learned today/this week/this term.

–Writing a controlling idea.

–How to read a book and understand it by using the questions that the teacher gave us before reading the book. (Reading log)

2.      Two things you need help with or don’t understand.

–How often can I use a gerund and does it work on all verbs?

–I need help with writing supporting details. Sometimes it is difficult to write a lot of supporting details.

It is easy to think that a lack of questions from students means they understand what you are teaching. It also assumes that they will voice their lack of understanding. I often ask for responses anonymously, which encourages them to say what is on their minds, and helps me repair that before the end of the quarter.

These questions have the added benefit of having students reflect and analyze their knowledge base. What teacher doesn’t want their pupils to do that?

I said to a colleague the other day that teachers should know more about active learning since that approach is integral to teaching critical thinking. He just looked at me,  incredulous that this information would be news to any teacher. Well, just click on

Stanford Physicist Embarks On Mission To Improve Undergraduate Teaching

(All Things Considered 4/13/16) to hear/read Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman’s interview about how active learning “can dramatically boost learning” and why so many teachers still cling to lecturing. Why do you think they do?

My long absence from this blog can be blamed 100% on the book I am writing about critical thinking titled Critical Thinking Now: Practical Teaching Methods for Classrooms around the World. It will be published by Rowan & Littlefield later this year.

I don’t want to talk about what’s in it so much (I will later on) as the process of writing it. I’ve thought about critical thinking for over 25 years, and, because of that immersion in the field, I didn’t think it would take too much heavy lifting. Boy, was I wrong. I ran into two problems: Organizing my thoughts and massive self-doubt.

I don’t care how practiced you are at writing, organizing your thoughts is a tough slog, . But a book especially unwieldy. It demands layer upon layer of organization that sews all the paragraphs, sections, chapters, theme, and title together. It’s a hearty exercise in critical thinking if you are going to be precise, logical, and clear throughout. It took constant vigilance and frequent reconsideration of what I was trying to say at every step. This challenge, I expected.

The other problem came out of left field: imaginary people who came in, uninvited and unannounced, and taunted me with comments such as, “Who do you think you are to write a book about critical thinking?” “Stop this! You’re embarrassing yourself.” “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” I almost bought their siren’s song and dumped the project. Self-doubt is a powerful deterrent to us writers.

I decided to handle those voices with a two-pronged approach. First, I wrote down everything they “said” so I could get some distance from them and not feel as if I were going crazy. And second, I kept saying to myself, Who else is going to write this book if I don’t? After all, the main reason I wrote it was to provide a new perspective on the issues that I hadn’t read anywhere else.

In the end, I succeeded in slaying those two evil dragons and finished the manuscript. The voices are gone, but what lingers is a lot greater appreciation of the amount of critical thinking and fortitude it takes to write a book about critical thinking.