Where did the lectures go ?
Outcomes
An engaged critical model , such as that encouraged by Stella Cottrell in Critical Thinking Skills , enables students to take on board and to evaluate someone else ’ s thinking . Students will develop skills that enable them to locate the main arguments in complex texts and to judge whether those arguments are supported by good evidence . They will learn to distinguish a valid argument that is evidence-based from an unsupported claim or assumption . And they will learn to engage with and evaluate the evidence from alternative points of view and weigh up evidence for opposing arguments fairly .
They will also learn to criticise and evaluate their own thinking , to examine their own ideas and assumptions , retaining only those that are evidence-based , and to mount an argument to support those ideas in a structured , well-argued way .
Without the skills required to engage critically and analytically with new material . . . Irish students will continue to experience difficulty with the demands of third-level learning .
Without the skills required to engage critically and analytically with new material , to draw conclusions as to the validity and / or value of that material , and to present those conclusions clearly and convincingly , Irish students will continue to experience difficulty with the demands of third-level learning .
Where did the lectures go ?
Lectures — the core material that the student will need to participate in the course — can be made available online in an audio-visual format and remain online from the week they are assigned until the end of the course . In this way , the student can watch at a time that suits them and as often as they like thereafter . If at a later date , students are struggling with a part of the material , they can go back to the lecture and go over it themselves . There is consequently no need to memorise or take notes ; revision is no longer an attempt to decipher scribbled notes , but a return to the full lecture . Freed from the pressure of memorising or memorialising , the student can engage with the material contained in the lecture and bring that engagement into the classroom , ready for discussion .
Outcomes
The practice of dialogic exchange , critical analysis , and evaluation constructs not a checklist of factoids to be digested and regurgitated at a later date , but a deep understanding and a simultaneous radical critique of the subject being studied .
They will learn to read between the lines , see behind surfaces , and identify false or unfair assumptions . They will consequently produce better critical analyses of new material — or exam questions .