Critical Thinking, Student Prep and Retention

I found several of the sessions at the Teaching and Learning Conference in San Juan very informative and useful. Critical thinking was connected to Bloom's taxonomy in a session that also provided tools for its assessment. The formative evaluation techniques that were presented could be easily implemented in any course that proposes to improve critical thinking. Another session that I found particularly valuable was entitled "Preparing students to be global citizens". This was directly in line with the NC Tomorrow Initiative that we have been working with for the past several months. I discovered that the term "global citizen" really has no operational definition, but rather consists of elements that are subscales on the Global Citizenship Scale, an instrument developed by the presenters to assist in their research. The elements consist of environmentalism, social justice, and civic participation. I plan to incorporate this into an environmental issues course next year.

The sessions were not limited to the teaching-learning process; they also included sessions related to other aspects of the academy, including hiring and retention of diverse faculty. Since I have been active on search committees, I was particularly interested in that topic. Some of what I learned reinforced my own experiences, such as the importance of new faculty having a sense of belonging, feeling valued and supported, and being treated fairly. I also learned much about campus climate issues that affect retention of diverse faculty. These included the institution's goals for diversification, the provision of balance across the campus community, and the contributions new hires were expected to make to the department and campus.

All in all, this was a very worthwhile experience, and I look forward to implementing what I have learned in my academic endeavours at WSSU.