EMPLOYING SOCRATIC PEDAGOGY TO IMPROVE ENGINEERING STUDENTS' CRITICAL REASONING SKILLS: TEACHING BY ASKING INSTEAD OF BY TELLING

摘要

Engineering faculty agree almost universally that the development of students' higher-order intellectual or cognitive abilities is one of the most important educational tasks of engineering programs. These abilities underpin our students' perceptions of the world and the consequent decisions they make. Specifically, critical thinking (critical intelligence) - the capacity to probe and evaluate skillfully, analytically and fairly the quality of evidence, formulas, precepts and pieces of received wisdom that too often go unexamined and unchallenged and detect inaccuracies, error, hypocrisy, manipulation, dissembling, and bias - is central to both personal success and national needs. This paper assumes that the capacity of undergraduate engineering students to learn to apply good reasoning to problem solutions can be nurtured and developed by an educational process aimed directly at developing students' critical thinking skills.