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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Moray House School of Education and Sport : Education

Postgraduate Course: Critical Thinking, Teaching, and Learning (EDUA11417)

Course Outline
SchoolMoray House School of Education and Sport CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis 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.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Critically consider how human learning processes relate to the development of critical thinking
  2. Critically and reflectively Discuss how diverse education theoretical traditions have considered the nature of teaching in relation to developing critical thinkers
  3. 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
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.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills - Curiosity for learning
- Critical and reflective thinkers
- Effective and influential contributors
- Skilled communicators

KeywordsCritical thinking,teaching,learning,teacher-learner relationships
Contacts
Course organiserDr Andrea English
Tel: (0131 6)51 6172
Email: Andrea.English@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMr Craig Russell
Tel:
Email: craig.russell@ed.ac.uk
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