Challenging Endocrinology Students with a Critical Thinking Workbook

Abstract

A central goal of science education is to help students develop higher order thinking skills to enable them to face the challenges of life. Accordingly, science instructors are now urged to craft their classrooms such that they serve not only as spaces for disseminating information, but also an arena through which students are encouraged to think scientifically and develop critical thinking skills. This project aimed to develop a workbook that helps postsecondary students learn endocrinology and engages them in critical thinking. Each of the five chapters focus on a different topic rooted within core biological concepts relevant to endocrinology. Such topics were identified upon cross referencing seminal reports on science education. Tenants of Numrich’s Sequence of Critical Thinking Tasks were used to guide the development of chapter sections with the intent of engaging students in critical thinking over time by way of practice and scaffolded guidance. Chapter sections include modeling, event sequencing, clinical application, research and communication, and simulation, each of which target a different repertoire of skills presented in Numrich’s framework. Students’ learning, experiences, and behaviors were used to evaluate the workbook and inform the revision of the workbook into the publicly-available second edition.