Week 11 – Theories and more theories

For those who enjoy psychology and theories, this week’s readings and video were probably very enjoyable.  However, I’m a more analytical type and the only material that really sparked my interest was Larry Sanger’s article.  I appreciated his skepticism about the current emphasis on social learning as well as his defense of the fact that individuals will always need to be able to “think creatively and critically” for themselves, independent of their social network.

My field, accounting, is very practical and accountants, and students, need to be able solve problems on their own.  Accounting has numerous formulas and rules but I don’t require “rote memorization,” even in my f2f classes.  I recognize that in the real world we can usually look up answers to specific questions.  So instead of memorization, I have students each compile an index card with the essential information they think they will need on quizzes and exams and then allow them to use the index card on exams.  I’ve found that just the act of identifying the important data and compiling it on one note card helps the students learn the material, more so than those who make up a stack of cards for studying purposes.  Sanger pointed out that getting information from the internet is much different from having a real understanding about a topic, and information on a note card won’t help the students solve problems on an exam if they haven’t acquired the knowledge and ability to apply that information in practice.

In line with Sanger’s belief that students need to be able to think critically for themselves, I always incorporate several questions in my assignments and exams that really require students to analyze a situation and think critically about how to answer it, instead of simply applying an obvious formula.  My students sometimes call those questions my “curve balls” but when I show them how to approach the problems they bang their heads over how simple the solutions are if they just think about them.  Although I miss the ease of Scantron-graded exams that are mostly True/False and Multiple Choice, I think my students got lazy about learning the material if they had a “multiple-guess” assessment so I no longer use M/C.  Stanger-Hall published a study on the importance of constructed-response questions for critical thinking and ever since reading it I’ve felt a bit guilty about the many M/C questions I used to use. 🙁