Critical Thinking for Effective Learning
This subject is designed to help Teacher Education Students to learn how to become more effective learners, and then translate these insights to practices that make their own teaching more effective by applying critical thinking methodology to a variety of classroom situations.
Quick Info
- Currently offered by Alphacrucis: Yes
- Course code: EDU121
- Credit points: 10
- Subject coordinator: Stephen Codrington
Prerequisites
Nil
Awards offering Critical Thinking for Effective Learning
This unit is offered as a part of the following awards:
- Associate Degree in Education Studies
- Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education (Secondary)
- Bachelor of Arts (Education Studies)
- Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary)
- Bachelor of Education (Primary)
- Bachelor of Education (Secondary)
- Diploma of Arts
- Diploma of Education Studies
- Undergraduate Certificate in Teacher Preparation
Unit Content
Curriculum Objective
This subject is designed to help Teacher Education Students to learn how to become more effective learners, and then translate these insights to practices that make their own teaching more effective by applying critical thinking methodology to a variety of classroom situations. The subject serves as the exploratory introduction to an epistemological framework that integrates and transforms the entire collection of individual subjects in a teacher education student’s degree into a coherent body of understanding. It provides opportunities for teacher education students to reflect upon their own assumptions, to understand the nature of truth and the ways knowledge can be received and formed, to appreciate the breadth and extent of knowledge, and to make connections between the subject matter of any courses they study with particular application to students with diverse learning needs and students from Indigenous backgrounds.
Outcomes
- Identify and describe various ‘ways of knowing’ and ‘fields of knowledge’ and their implications for effective teaching of students from diverse backgrounds and different needs.
- Understand the impact of different interpretations of truth on teaching practice, including the implications for the education of students from different backgrounds and with different needs.
- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the relationship between a teacher’s subject specialty (KLA) and the wider educational environment as expressed through NESA documents and the writings of educational experts and others that reflect a variety of worldviews.
- Distinguish and describe the knowledge base of two Indigenous groups, including distinctive ‘ways of knowing’ and ‘fields of knowledge’, including Religious Knowledge, and consider the similarities and differences between the knowledge base of Indigenous groups and your own philosophy of education.
- Discuss the implications of differing ‘ways of knowing’ and ‘fields of knowledge’ on teaching and learning strategies that are appropriate to meet the needs of students from Indigenous backgrounds.
Subject Content
- Introduction to Thinking Skills
- Truth
- Ways of Knowing
- Sense Perception
- Reasoning
- Language
- Emotion, Intuition and Faith
- Politics and Propoganda
- The Relationship of Faith to Other 'Ways of Knowing'
- Fields of Knowledge
- Religious Knowledge
- Ethics
- Mathematics
- The Physical Sciences
- Aesthetics and the Creative Arts
- The Humanities
- History
- Indigenous Knowledge
This course may be offered in the following formats
- Face to Face (onsite)
- E-learning (online)
- Intensive
- Extensive
Assessment Methods
- Forum Posts (20%)
- Minor Essay (30%)
- Major Project (50%)
