Critical Thinking with Introduction to Physics

Submitted by Owen Dix on
Duration
-
Abstract

I give an extended introduction to some concepts in critical thinking before starting the physics concepts in my PHY 101 classes. The activities, as they are now, guide students through: what makes sources of information reliable, the structure of a logical argument which I relate to the models we use in class, a little basic logic, logical fallacies, how to design a simple test to see if an idea is true, the importance of blinding, and intuitive versus analytical reasoning. The students seem to enjoy the material though they often find it challenging. It allows me to relate how we came to our understanding of different physics concepts to core ideas in critical thinking. I started my first course at Estrella Mountain Community College including a few of these concepts and the material has changed dramatically over the semesters. After a more solid baseline of Lawson Scientific Reasoning data has been collected with the updated versions of these activities this semester, I will attempt a class with a more truncated activity containing some of these topics and see how the scores compare.

Division/Department
Completed Full Cycle
No
Course Number
PHY 101
Files
Attachment Size
critthinkws1sources.pdf 107.86 KB
critthinkws2argue.pdf 154.45 KB
critthinkws3testit.pdf 90.01 KB
Rating
No votes yet

Comments

Amy Weibel Wed, 01/25/2017 - 10:24am

Hi Owen -

I, too, introduce my students to information literacy concepts and logical fallacy in argument. Because of time limits, I take a little time to discuss the difference between correlation and causation and use ridiculous correlations to demonstrate these concepts. I look forward to hearing more about the activities you do (or will be doing) in these areas to spur on critical thinking.  

Becky Baranowski Thu, 03/23/2017 - 9:05am

Hi Owen, 

I wanted to follow up on this and see how it is going?  Are you seeing any positive results?  Are you finding it a struggle to get students to think critically?  I am really glad you are trying this with your class.  I look forward to reading about your results.