critical thinking
The Liberal & Civic Studies Program defines a critical thinker as a person who can read a variety of texts thoughtfully, identifying the main points, understanding the assumptions underlying the arguments, recognizing the overall tone of the work, understanding its intended audience and its historical and cultural context. A critical thinker is 1 who can make reasoned judgments about the validity and value of an idea — whether drawn from a text, a piece of art, or personal experience — and, using logical argumentation, extend, critique, or support it in meaningful dialectic. And a critical thinker is 1 who can synthesize information in order to see issues holistically and can analyze and solve problems effectively. The Liberal & Civic Studies Program seeks to develop critical thinkers by emphasizing: (1) careful reading, analysis, and discussion of significant ideas found in Collegiate Seminar and Liberal & Civic Studies texts ("the great conversation"); (2) deliberate exploration and evaluation of opposing points of view; (3) close analysis of themes and propositions found in works of art and texts, as well as in direct experiences; (4) involvement in service learning; (5) participation in a student-centered pedagogy; (5) performance of thinking tasks at continually higher levels of complexity; and (6) involvement in self-assessment. Let us examine each of these emphases.
First, at the heart of Saint Mary's liberal arts tradition are the 4 Collegiate Seminar courses that engage students in the "great conversation." The Liberal & Civic Studies Program builds on the these 4 seminar courses by exploring the global and contemporary nature of this conversation. Reading texts from a variety of Western and non-Western writers, women as well as men, Liberal & Civic Studies students examine how people have attempted to address questions raised by the "great conversation." Appropriately, Forum 1, the first Liberal & Civic Studies course, starts off with an in-depth analysis of what is the just society and whether it is possible to create it in light of human nature. The class goes on to examine the appropriate balance between freedom and equality, as well as to explore issues involving race and class. Forum 2, the second Liberal & Civic Studies course, focuses on nature and the sacred. In this course, students read and discuss issues regarding systems thinking ("the new science") and war in the nuclear age; and they reexamine Western values in light of Buddhist and Taoist perspectives. Critical thinking is required of students when they are asked, both in class discussion and in their papers, to apply the knowledge they have gained from the "great conversation" to the current issues of the day. Senior Forum, the final L&CS course, focuses on the meanings of democracy and active citizenship, and explores these ideas through texts and group projects.
Second, the Liberal & Civic Studies Program develops critical thinking skills by teaching students how to analyze an argument — whether it emanates from a text, from discussion, from other experiences — or a piece of literature, music, or other form of artistic expression. With texts, course instructors ask students to identify main points, trace assumptions, determine audience and tone, synthesize information, see the issue holistically, and place the piece in its historical and cultural context. Similarly, with artistic works students are expected to grasp the central motif or theme and understand how disparate parts come together to produce an artistic whole. Students are expected to apply this same analytic rigor to ideas that emerge in discussion, and they are asked to demonstrate their analytical skills in their formal papers.
Third, the Liberal & Civic Studies Program encourages critical thinking through the process of service-learning, recognizing that wisdom and important knowledge can be gained in the interactive process of action and reflection. Liberal & Civic Studies students perform 2.5-3 hours of community service each week and meet in a lab every other week, where they integrate their service experience with their readings. The service-learning journal is another place where students are called on to explore ideas from their service-learning project and make connections. It is not sufficient for students to simply perform community service; they must also reflect on their work, evaluate it, and make connections: i.e., they must engage their critical thinking skills.
Fourth, critical thinking is developed through a pedagogical strategy that is student-centered. While Liberal & Civic Studies instructors occasionally lecture, they are not seen as the source of knowledge, nor as responsible for imparting knowledge. Instructor-dominated pedagogy tends to produce uncritical thinkers — students who do not question and who are alienated from the knowledge that has been deposited in their knowledge bank, since they have not been part of the process that created it. Liberal & Civic Studies instructors act as facilitators, guiding the learning process through discussion, small-group work, and other non-didactic activities, including student-led classes. By its nature, student-centered pedagogy, one of the hallmarks not only of Liberal & Civic Studies but of the Collegiate Seminar Program as well, demands and ultimately rewards critical thinking.
Fifth, the Liberal & Civic Studies Program encourages critical thinking by engaging students in tasks that are continually at higher levels of complexity. For example, students in Forum 2 become involved in service-learning projects that work at the systemic level and complete a research project on their service organization. Thus, students analyze the root cause of the problem that they are working on, instead of doing direct service as in Forum 1.
Sixth, the Liberal & Civic Studies Program develops critical thinking by having students go through a rigorous self-assessment process (see Section V). The self-assessment process is inspired by Plato, who asserted that an unexamined life is a life not worth living. Students are introduced to the process and carry out their first self-assessment in Forum 1. They repeat the process, at a deeper level, in Forum 2. In the semester before Senior Forum, they take Assessment & Portfolio (A&P) and meet approximately 6 times to develop their portfolio and prepare for their senior assessment interview with 3 L&CS advisors. A central feature of A&P is that students reflect on their intellectual, moral, and social development since they have started college and to write a thoughtful, 5- to 7-page paper analyzing this odyssey. This paper depends on students' abilities to engage their critical-thinking skills. The actual self-assessment interview, too, draws heavily on these skills, as students are expected to discuss and evaluate, in a thoughtful and reasoned way, their development, their strengths and weaknesses, their future plans.
