promoting critical thinking online
TRANSCRIPT
Promoting Critical
Thinking Online
Jeanne Holland, English Dept.
Stephanie Espinoza, Library
WHY ONLINE SERVICES?
“I work full time, I have a wife and 3 kids.
Online classes are the only way I can get
a chance to finish my degree.”
•Access for students who
can’t do traditional F2F
•Distance Education is
growing
ENROLLMENT AT CSN
•Online classes grow,
campus estimated to
be larger than West
Charleston
How can we promote critical thinking online?
STEP 1: THE PARTNERSHIP
ENG 100, ENG 101: Fall 2015
ENG 100, ENG 101 : Spring 2016
ENG 102: Fall 2016
Students are asked to:
• Develop a topic
• Evaluate sources
• Draft a research paper
DEVELOP A TOPIC
How do we encourage the free
brainstorming of research topics?
EVALUATE SOURCES
How do we create avenues for students to
critically evaluate academic sources?
DRAFT A PAPERHow do we foster students’ abilities to
make connections between the stages of
the research process?
•Librarian intro video (Human face)
•Custom page/tutorials for assignments
•Work with librarian is REQUIRED for a grade
•Contact via multiple avenues
ASSESSMENT
“I had a very positive experience.
I am very grateful.”
“I learned that CSN is awesome at helping
and wanting the student to succeed.”
•Attitudes improved
•Grades improved because
work improved--more
critical thinking
Confidence After
Librarian Help
More
Confident
Less
Same
FINAL PAPER GRADES
Of 28 online
students who
turned in
final papers,
26 earned B
or better on
the paper.
“One of the biggest strengths is the
communication between the instructors
(whether it is the class library-Stephanie) or
with Dr. Holland.”
“The teacher…requires you to use an online
librarian which is really cool because I didn’t
know we had an online librarian and it
definitely helped with resources and research.”
If interested in collaborating
with a librarian for your
course, contact Stephanie
or visit
www.csn.edu/library
