Developing Critical Thinkers Via On-Line Instruction: Introducing a Reflective Learning Method that Fills in the Teaching and Assessment Gaps

Abstract

The world is increasingly looking to post-secondary educational institutions to produce critical thinkers, yet the educational experience of US-based students arriving at universities today are generally juxtaposed to that outcome. Outcome-oriented standardized tests, and typical on-line learning assessments re-enforce these learners’ paradigm that “education = memorization.” Shifting this mindset from memorization-centric to thinking-centric learning will require a comprehensive assault; a shift in both how we teach, and particularly how we assess, this generation of learners. This paper introduces the 1Z Method, one way of operationalizing the entire spectrum of the Critical Thinkers’ Reflective Action Pathway (CTRAP). How “critical thinking” is typically defined represents only half of this complete pathway. The 1Z Method, which can be applied to any instruction modality, is a means of both teaching and testing the entire CTRAP. Preliminary results utilizing the 1Z Methodology to assess CTRAP’s initial reflective action steps in an introductory-level on-line course are provided. The preliminary findings indicate that typical on-line testing methods do not adequately assess these initial CTRAP actions. However, by leveraging the 1Z Method, targeted exam questions—even multiple-choice questions—can indeed be crafted that do successfully assess the students’ ability to navigate these early CTRAP steps. The study further revealed that even the best students struggle thinking through these intermediate reflective action steps; further highlighting the dominance of memorization as these students’ primary approach to learning.