scholarly journals Peer Review as an Active Learning Strategy in a Large First Year Course

Author(s):  
M. Orjuela-Laverde ◽  
L. R. Chen

Peer-review of writing is an instructional strategy used to develop students’ critical thinking skills, writing competence and as a way of engaging students as active agents in their learning process [1,3,4]. In the Fall 2013 semester, two peer-review assignments were introduced in a compulsory first year engineering course, Introduction to the Engineering Profession, taken by nearly 500 students (in two sections). The objectives of the peer-review assignments were two-fold: (1) to help improve students’ writing by providing them with constructive criticism and feedback and (2) to develop students’ critical thinking and editing skills. Using a rubric provided by the instructor, students were asked to evaluate their peers’ written assignments in three categories: overall presentation, clarity and coherence (organization), and justification/explanation of the topic being discussed/analyzed. One assignment addressed the inter-disciplinary nature of the engineering profession while the second focused on making ethical decisions. Evaluators were required to justify the score given in each category, as well as to provide a short written comment on the paper as a whole. At the end of term, a class survey was conducted where students reflected on the peer review assignment from a learning perspective. This study presents the results of an analysis of those reflections. Overall, students and the instructor valued this instructional approach. Implications of this type of instructional strategy for undergraduate engineering education are also discussed.

Author(s):  
Suhardin Suhardin

 AbstractResearch aimed to study the influence of Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL) and Integrated Instructional strategy on the student’s critical thinking skills concerning zakat. Research conducted in SMP Islam Terpadu (Integrated Islamic Junior High School) Assalam, Jakarta, sampled 60 (sixty) students through random purposive sampling. Research method was an experiment to develop two models of learning strategy, i.e. CTL and IL, as a treatment in improving the student’s critical thinking skills concerning zakat. The experiment of two models of learning strategy was conducted in two classes, in three sessions. The third session was used to take the results of the critical thinking skills concerning zakat. Interpreted data analysis suggests the significant influence of the CTL learning strategy and the Integrated Instructional strategy on the student’s critical thinking skills concerning zakat. Research concluded that the improvement of the student’s critical thinking skills is more affected by the CTL learning strategy than the Integrated Instructional strategy. Therefore, the development of the CTL learning strategy is supposed to be applied to improve the student’s critical thinking skills.AbstrakTujuan penelitian ini untuk mengetahui pengaruh strategi pembelajaran Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL) dan Integreted Instructional terhadap kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa tentang zakat. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan di SMP Islam Terpadu Assalam Jakarta dengan mengambil 60 (enam puluh) siswa dengan teknik purposive random sampling. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah experiment, mengembangkan dua model strategi pembelajaran, CTL dan IL, sebagai treatment, untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa tentang zakat. Experiment dua strategi pembelajaran dilakukan dalam dua kelas dengan tiga kali pertemuan, pertemuan ketiga, sekaligus pengambilan nilai kemampuan berpikir kritis tentang zakat. Dari interperetasi analisis data yang dilakukan diperloleh bahwa terdapat pengaruh yang signifikan dari strategi pembelajaran contextual teaching learning (CTL) dan Integreted Instructional terhadap kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa tentang zakat. Dengan demikian dapat disimpulkan bahwa strategi pembelajaran Contextual Teaching Learning (CTL) lebih berpengaruh terhadap peningkatan kemampuan berpikir kritis siswa daripada Integreted Instructional. Dengan demikian untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berpikir siswa, perlu menerapkan dan mengembangkan strategi pembelajaran CTL dalam pembelajaran. 


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Wender ◽  
Valerie J. D’Erman

ABSTRACT Teaching and learning in higher education is occurring, unavoidably, within the broader civic context of today’s extraordinarily polarizing political times. We seek to help students situate themselves with respect to and, above all, thoughtfully assess others’ as well as their own perspectives on issues of profound contention, without contributing to exacerbated polarization ourselves. Specifically, we offer students in our first-year exploratory political science course a vital tool—critical rigor—for navigating but not being inundated by the storm. This article discusses our experiences in teaching the course titled, “The Worlds of Politics,” as we attempt to help students deeply engage in cognitive processes of critical thinking and analysis, without undue infringement from their own—and least of all our own—personal political biases. Our focal learning objective is the cultivation of critical-thinking skills that promote students’ drawing of distinctions between advocacy and analysis, as well as their discerning civic engagement.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A Peters ◽  
Janice Maatman

The economic, financial, and political trends such as stagnating standards of living, fiscal pressure, and an escalating mistrust of government were set in motion during the 1960s and 1970s. Due to the duration of the trends, the magnitude, but not the nature, of the challenges confronting the health care, nonprofit and public sectors has changed. Consequently, with the exception of adding topics relating to strategies for securing voluntary compliance and effectively interacting with constituents who are increasingly angry and opposed to government intervention, the Great Recession and subsequent Age of Austerity do not appreciably affect the Master in Public Administration (MPA) curriculum’s content. However, the intractable nature of the challenges accompanying the trends places a premium on cultivating the students’ critical thinking and creative skills. Meeting this challenge necessitates the adoption of learning strategies that shift to students a greater share of the responsibility for learning. One of the options for achieving the outcome is to provide students with the foundational materials and an ill-defined problem that, in conjunction with design thinking, maximizes the students’ freedom to independently define the problem, identify the requisite information for analysis, and develop solutions. The article provides examples of the learning strategy that has been applied in several courses.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-128
Author(s):  
Julian Kölbel ◽  
Erik Jentges

The six-sentence argument (6SA) is an exercise to train critical thinking skills. Faced with a decision situation, students argue for their preferred course of action using a logical structure of exactly six sentences. Through a guided peer review, students engage critically with other students’ arguments and receive detailed feedback on their own arguments. This exercise helps students craft convincing arguments and reflect on their reasoning in a format that can be applied in real-world situations. A key strength of the six-sentence argument exercise is that it can be administered online and is scalable for large courses with little additional workload for the instructor.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Genevieve Pinto Zipp Zipp ◽  
Cathy Maher

One learning strategy that, at present, has not been widely used in graduate Physical Therapy education is “video based cases”. The use of visually unfolding case-based experience provides students a unique opportunity to experience real patient scenarios in their classroom environment. The purpose of this paper is to provide data on student perceptions of usefulness of the video based case experience in promoting their ability to organize, prioritize, and integrate content knowledge for the development of effective critical thinking skills.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Salih Al-Shehri

The objective of this study was to explore the effect of using a differentiated instruction method on the achievement and development of critical thinking skills among sixth-grade students in Abha, Saudi Arabia. The study used the experimental method through the application of the instructional program on a sample of 50 students, who were chosen purposefully from one school in Abha city. The sample was divided into an experimental group (n = 25), which received instructions using differentiated instruction, and a control group (n = 25), which received instructions using conventional methods. Two tests were developed, an academic achievement test and a critical thinking test, to measure the performance of students before and after using the instructional program. Findings showed an improvement in the academic performance of the experimental group, which were taught using the instructional program based on differentiated instruction. Participants were able to increase their level of critical thinking skills in science. The study recommends using this instructional strategy in different school subjects other than science. The study also recommends training teachers on its implementation in classrooms.


Author(s):  
Ahlam Merji Al- Muhammadi Ahlam Merji Al- Muhammadi

This study investigates the effect of the 5E Instructional strategy on the development of critical thinking skills of intermediate third graders through Jurisprudence course compared to the normal way of teaching. In order to achieve this goal the researcher adopted a pre- post two- group (experimental and control) quasi- experimental research methodology. The tool of the study was a critical thinking skills test based on Mary McFarland's strategy. After the validation and calculation of the tool's reliability, the researcher piloted the tool at a random sample consisting of (63) female intermediate third graders in thirtieth Medina School. The study used a number of appropriate statistical analyses which included: means of scores, standard deviation, alpha Cronbach coefficient reliability test of critical thinking skills, and T- test for independent samples to ensure group homogeneity of study groups, and to see the effect of using the 5E Instructional strategy on developing the critical thinking skills of the students. The obtained results indicated that there are statistically significant differences at the level of significance (a = 0.05) between the mean scores of experimental group and control group students in the critical thinking skills test in favor of the experimental group. In the light of these results, a number of recommendations have been made, namely: religious science teachers should be supervised towards more attention to the development of critical thinking skills; paying attention to the involvement of the student in the learning process; encouraging students to express their opinions and being able to defend their point of view in order to increase the level of critical thinking skills and finally to employ the 5E Instructional strategy in teaching jurisprudence course. Based on the findings of the study, a group of suggestions for future studies have been made that can be considered as extension to the current study.


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