Postgraduate Course: Critical Thinking, Teaching, and Learning (EDUA11417)
Course Outline
| School | Moray House School of Education and Sport |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course examines fundamental connections between critical thinking and education. In particular, the course will encourage students to read and discuss classical and contemporary thinkers on teaching, learning, and ethical teacher-learner relationships that are connected to supporting learners to become critical thinkers. |
| Course description |
This course examines fundamental connections between critical thinking and education. In particular, the course will discuss ideas of teaching, learning, and ethical teacher-learner relationships that are connected to supporting learners to become critical thinkers. The course will focus on the traditions of educational philosophy that have influenced understandings of the kinds of teacher-learner interactions considered to be important for developing critical thinking in children, young people, and adult learners. Students will be encouraged to analyse and discuss the writings of classical and contemporary thinkers, with the aim of understanding how humans learn to think critically, how educators can support, rather than hinder, human beings to think critically, and more broadly, how such education relates to developing inclusive, democratic societies. The course is open to students across the School with consideration of priority to students on MSc Education.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2020/21, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 23 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 16,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
180 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The assessment tasks for this course are:
(i) (30%) Structured, reflective writing task (500 words) on the topic of their presentation. Based on the topic of the small group interactive presentation, each student will write a short structured, reflective write-up discussing an aspect of the presentation topic.
(ii) (70%) Final Essay: 2500 word essay on a topic connecting to course themes.
Students will be given guidance on how to design each of these assignments and will be given a ¿feed forward¿ task to prepare for the final essay.
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| Feedback |
Students will be given guidance on how to design each of these assignments and will be given a ¿feed forward¿ task to prepare for the final essay.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Critically consider how human learning processes relate to the development of critical thinking
- Critically and reflectively Discuss how diverse education theoretical traditions have considered the nature of teaching in relation to developing critical thinkers
- Formulate their own reflective views of educational theory and practice on the basis of theoretical understandings of learning and teaching processes associated with critical thinking
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Reading List
Indicative Readings
¿ Readings from classical theorists, e.g.:
-Plato. ¿Republic¿, in Plato Complete Works. Edited by John Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson, 97-1223. (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company)
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1772/1979) Emile or On Education. Edited and Translated by Allan Bloom. (New York: Basic Books).
-John Dewey (1933) How we Think (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP).
¿ Readings from contemporary theorists, e.g.:
-Ira Shor and Paulo Freire (1987). ¿What is the ¿dialogic method¿ of teaching?¿ Journal of Education, Vol. 169:3, pp. 11-31.
-Nel Noddings (2014) Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley, University of California Press).
-John Passmore (1967/1996). ¿On teaching to be critical.¿ `Inquiry: critical thinking across the disciplines', v.15 n.3 Spring, p.1-16.
-Andrea R. English (2013) Discontinuity in Learning: Dewey, Herbart, and Education as Transformation (New York: Cambridge UP).
- Lisa Delpit (2006). Other People¿s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. (New York: The New Press)
- Cohen, A. & Bai, H. (2012). Minding what really matters: Relationship as teacher. In Chambers, C. Hasebe-Ludt, E. Sinner, A. & Leggo, C. (Eds.), A heart of wisdom: Life writing as empathic inquiry (pp. 257¿266). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
¿ Curiosity for learning
¿ Critical and reflective thinkers
¿ Effective and influential contributors
¿ Skilled communicators
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| Keywords | Critical thinking,teaching,learning,teacher-learner relationships |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Andrea English
Tel: (0131 6)51 6172
Email: Andrea.English@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Claire Chalmers
Tel: (0131 6)51 6573
Email: Claire.Chalmers@ed.ac.uk |
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