Nominations Sought for 'Critical Thinking' Showcase

Every year, the Center for Instructional Innovation & Assessment creates the INNOVATIVE TEACHING SHOWCASE, an online publication featuring best practices of Western's most dynamic instructors. This year's new Showcase, themed “Critical Thinking,” seeks to honor faculty whose instructional practices demonstrate deep engagement with critical thinking, their own and their students. Western faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to nominate an faculty member whose course work reflects this year's Showcase theme.

Is critical thinking a skill which can be taught and employed across contexts, or is it a practice that depends on deep domain knowledge and self-reflective thought? How do instructors foster critical thinking in students to prepare them for their role in society? Showcase nominations might address:

  • Modeling respectful disagreement or debate from varying disciplinary viewpoints
  • Providing a framework for students to reflect on multiple perspectives and to weigh decisions
  • Equipping students to evaluate information sources, such as news, social media, data, research, texts, or scholarly articles
  • Making space for students to take the academic risks necessary for developing critical thinking in assessment-oriented courses
  • Employing methods to effectively assess critical thinking
  • Fostering grit” and perseverance in students to do the difficult work of thinking critically
  • Promoting activities that take critical thinking beyond typical boundaries into abstract, creative, ethical, and independent thinking

For more on the meaning of critical thinking, see: www.criticalthinking.org.

Please use the Showcase Nomination Form by Friday, Dec. 9 to let us know who should be featured in this year's publication:
http://cii.wwu.edu/showcase/NominationForm.aspx 

The CIIA will announce selected instructors in February for the 2016-17 Innovative Teaching Showcase, published in June 2017.