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TopThe Core Of Teaching And Learning In Higher Education
In the face of a changing landscape of higher education in the 21st century, effective teaching and learning has been progressing from traditional 3Rs to the super 4Cs (Critical thinking and problem solving, Collaboration, Creativity and innovation, and Communication) skills (Kivunja, 2015). Students’ participation in critical thinking and academic writing are the core of the higher education teaching and learning practice for deep learning (Fry, Ketteridge & Marshall, 2009). It is also important for retention and success as many students struggle to develop skills for academic writing due to the “specialised nature of academic discourse” (Schmitt, 2005:65) and due to “the complexity of the craft of writing itself” (HEA, 2014:3). However, involving students in critical thinking and academic writing can be a challenging task (Fernsten & Reda, 2009; Watson & Arp, 2015).
“Critical thinkers think beyond proposed arguments or ideas, looking for interconnections and exploring different options, in order to reach a conclusion or point of understanding” (Dorian & Loughlin, 2019:155). The critical thinking process includes evaluation of the reliability and relevance of sources, the “compare and contrast” of concepts, ideas and theories and the making of connections between them by recognising the bias of an individual perspective (Appleby & Hanson, 2017; Brick et al., 2019; Moon, 2008). Therefore, listening to lectures, watching videos, reading texts and participating in oral discussions are not enough on their own to develop critical thinking and critical writing for academic purposes (Katz, 2018).
Critical thinking is seen as a product of liberal education in the undergraduate study (Greenlaw & DeLoach, 2003), and it falls within the realm of constructive alignment theory (Biggs, 1996). As a complex and dynamic process, it encourages different thinking skills for deep and complex learning (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 2003; Elander et al., 2006; Leopold & Vickerman, 2010) as well as being embodied, affective and contextual (Danvers, 2017; Fenwick & Edwards, 2013; Thayer-Bacon, 2000). It is vital to acknowledge that “there is the need to encourage critical thinking among students and recognise it as a complex way to examine students’ process of thinking” (Leopold & Vickerman, 2010:5).