In order to do this you must work out your response before you come to class and then come to class without the benefit of your notes and perform your magic. For I have noticed that passive learning does not work as well as active learning. I will be very interested in your thoughtful evaluation of this pedagogical approach at the end of the course. It is an approach that I started using approximately five years ago. It accomplishes exactly what I believe should be accomplished in an undergraduate classroom at the 300 level, namely, learning and comprehending specific content and then, and only then, learning how to evaluate it.
Many faculty say that they attempt to teach students to think.
One must know, before one can think critically about a subject matter, that is, think critically in a productive way. There is a literature associated with every discipline, and students need to become acquainted with that literature. And, of course, an indelible part of any subject matter is a critique of it, but we cannot critique that which we do not know. Back to Al Black's Home Page.