Mary Kramer

Critical thinking is lacking in the primary school education style.  In college beginning students have difficulty with any activity that employes critical thinking skill.  Most of my student cannot solve problems, they want you to hold their hand and to just be able to fill in the blanks.  I have had good results with some by not directly answering their question with the needed information, but asking questions that make them think and look for the answers themselves.

I will try to employ more of wht I learned here to lead students to develop their critical thinking skills.

Yes I agree.  Because I am in the design field it is easy to find speakers.  I also like field trips to design firms or showrooms, they are very relative to what the students might find themselves doing after graduation.

Look at your project and access how long you think it should take.  Is it challenging enough, make sure it isn't just busywork, what is the planned outcome, how does it relate to the skill set  the student should should take with them when the course ends.

Each course I evaluate all the homework assignments and projects to be sure they are still relevant, challenging and are specific to the course outcome.

I see a growing lack of reading comprehension skills and problem solving abilities.

If  students can't answer a homework question correctly, how will they be able to pass an exam. 

I generally find that if they have e-books they search key words in the question and cut and paste an answer without reading it to see if they are answering the question.  Or they scan the chapter for the key works and the first time they see the words, they copy that information without really comprehending the question