SUBMITTED BY:Marcia Castro, Associate Professor of DemographyWHAT YOU TRIED:In my spatial analysis course I always combine lecture and discussion. For the discussion part, I assign readings and I strongly encourage students to focus on critical thinking as they read the articles. I always include in the readings a couple of really bad articles. The chance to be able to discuss bad research opens their minds to critical thinking, and improves dramatically the quality of discussions at each class. It also helps the students to learn important lessons of communicating research to different audiences, contributing to improve the quality of their own work for the course.WHAT YOU WISH YOU’D KNOWN PRIOR:I learned that assigning high quality readings is absolutely crucial, but exposing students to low quality work allows them to develop their critical skills, which is needed for their future roles as academics, researchers and article/proposal reviewers.BENEFITS:The whole discussion environment in the class became much more relaxed.