2025-10-10
This paper discusses how we integrated critical thinking and academic literacy with disciplinary content in a communication skills module for Computing students. The module aims to develop students’ academic literacy, and at the same time, their ability to critically question issues related to their discipline or profession. Previously, for the writing task, each student had to write an argumentative essay on a topic and question that they wish to explore within a given theme. However, feedback from students and some faculty members suggested that such a task may have limited relevance to Computing students. When redesigning the course, we approached it from the perspective of critical digital literacy (CDL). This approach emphasizes the need to re-balance between a competency-based digital literacy approach built around hard IT skills such as coding, and a capacity-based digital literacy approach focused on “distinctively human capacities” (Bass, 2018, p. 37) such as creativity and critical thinking. We adopted the five-resources CDL pedagogical model proposed by Hinrichsen and Coombs (2013) and framed the different communication tasks within this model. Instead of academic essays, students were to apply all five CDL resources to write an online commentary in response to a digital text within the given theme. To determine whether students found value in this task and in this novel CDL approach, pre- and post-course surveys were conducted. The rationale and implementation of this redesigned writing task are described in this paper, followed by the survey findings and our reflections on the course redesign process.
Critical reflective thinking has been conceptualised as a means to apply “reflective judgment” in the application of knowledge and information (Dwyer et al., 2014) to understand complex situations (Korucu Kis & Kartal, 2019). While regarded to be an essential skill (Tsui, 2002), it has been posited as a difficult skill to teach in first-year higher education courses (Procter, 2020). This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of strategies employed in both lectures and tutorials to facilitate critical reflective thinking in a first-year general education course in Singapore. Students’ views on teaching methods and assessments were gathered through two anonymous feedback administered mid-(n=59) and at the end of the course (n=40). Two independent researchers thematically coded these responses according to the integrated critical thinking framework by Dwyer and colleagues (Dwyer et al., 2014), and reflected on the methods of teaching and assessing critical reflective thinking in the present paper. Through this discussion, we suggest that student feedback could play an important role in informing both the instruction and assessment of critical reflective thinking in a higher education setting. We leveraged on existing literature to provide recommendations to circumvent the barriers to critical reflective thinking raised by the students. This paper seeks to contribute towards bridging the divide between the expectations of students and those of teaching faculty (Schilling & Schilling, 1999) in the teaching and assessment of critical reflective thinking.
University students often write a literature review as a standalone assignment, or part of research papers to fulfill the course requirements. To write a good literature review, students must be able to apply critical thinking in every step of the way. The most challenging part in literature review for many students, from my observation, is the evaluation of the articles for their strengths and weaknesses. This is a critical step in literature review, as students should be able to identify gaps in the past studies and find the direction and contribution of their own papers, based on the evaluation. The objective of this study is to test if the critical thinking skills of students in higher education improved throughout a course by examining the literature review assignments submitted to fulfil the course requirement. I discuss how I introduce the concept of critical thinking in the process of writing literature review for undergraduate students at a private university in Singapore. The students attended the Introduction to Research Methods course, where they write a proposal for quantitative research, which includes a literature review section. I evaluate the effectiveness of the classroom activities designed to enhance critical thinking skills, by comparing the draft literature review with the final version. 144 students attended the course over approximately two years and worked in groups of two to seven. In total, 31 student groups submitted 62 literature reviews. To decide the level of critical thinking demonstrated in the literature review, I use Bloom’s Taxonomy. The results from t test, Wilcoxan-signed-rank test and ANOVA show that critical thinking skills in the final version improved by approximately two Taxonomy levels, compared with the draft.
Research on translanguaging in applied linguistics and language education is on the rise, and translanguaging application in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing programs has aroused great interest. Research on translanguaging practices testifies to the benefits of deploying multilingual, multimodal, multisemiotic and multisensory resources in multilingual classrooms, of which little presents the specific implementation and outcomes of translanguaging pedagogies applied in EFL writing education. In response, this ethnographic classroom-based research, one taking place in a comprehensive university in southwestern China, aims to explore the educational influence of translanguaging pedagogies particularly on learners’ critical thinking, content comprehension and effective communication. To triangulate data types and sources, data-collection methods include e-questionnaires, classroom observations, audio-recorded interviews and student writing samples. Data analysis reveals that translanguaging practices, as part of the classroom writing ecology, promote EFL students’ critical awareness. Additionally, translanguaging pedagogies facilitate students’ content comprehension and effective communication. This study demonstrates the affordances of a translanguaging lens for EFL writing education provided that it is reframed to serve students’ strategies to negotiate language differences.
Students' engagement has been considered an essential element in classrooms and students' academic performance. However, the pandemic caused schools to be closed temporarily for in-person learning and made interactions almost impossible for teachers and students in physical classrooms. Maintaining students’ meaningful engagement in an online learning environment remains a concern for many educators in Cambodia. This may present a problem in teaching critical thinking as student engagement is important for developing higher-order thinking (Shcheglova et al., 2019; Strauss & Terenzini, 2007). Since both educational technology and critical thinking education in the country are still in their infancy, explorations into these practices are typically done by trial and error. Therefore, it is imperative that more empirical studies are conducted to elucidate a deeper understanding in this area. This paper aims to examine junior university students' experiences and perceptions towards their classroom engagement through the implementation of a web-based tool called Nearpod in teaching critical thinking (CT) in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class. The course is designed to help students develop their ability to use higher-order thinking to enhance effectiveness in communication. The study was conducted in five critical thinking classes at the university. As part of the implementation, the three lecturers utilized interactive videos, discussions, formative assessments, and others. Through classroom observation logs and interviews with students, it was found that most students were engaged in class activities when the digital tool was used. This experience opens the opportunity for modifications and appropriation for future use in teaching critical thinking and provides a deeper understanding of using technology in Cambodia's critical thinking classroom.
OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 brought a groundbreaking development to academic writing, as this chatbot has demonstrated its ability to draft “high-quality” papers for submission to academic journals. Despite ongoing efforts to discourage or prohibit the publication of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated papers, ChatGPT’s influences on the scientific writing, reviewing, and editing processes for open-access journals cannot be ignored. This innovation presents a challenge to academic publishing: AI-produced papers can be difficult to differentiate from human-authored work, and tools for detection remain limited. This paper outlines obstacles in academic publishing following ChatGPT’s emergence. The academic community should ponder the implications of AIgenerated papers and explore ways to manage such material in scientific writing and publishing.
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