Teaching Students to Think: Insights from Cognitive Psychology Friday, June 19, 2:00 – 3:30 pm
There is wide consensus that a college education should equip students with thinking skills such as critical reasoning, problem solving and logical analysis. Yet these abilities can be surprisingly difficult to build, sometimes eluding even the most expert instructors. And without explicit focus on higher thought processes, the learning experience can easily devolve into memorization and regurgitation. Fortunately, the research literature in cognitive psychology offers insights that teachers can use to deliberately strengthen thinking skills. This interactive talk surveys theoretical concepts including formal and analogical reasoning, insight and non-insight problem solving, structural elements of problems, expertise, and transfer, all contextualized within teaching and learning.
