Fostering Critical Thinking in the Geosciences: Combining Geoethics, the Affective Domain, Metacognition, and Systems Thinking

Abstract:

There is a compelling need to develop the geoscience workforce of the future to address the “grand challenges” that face humanity. This workforce must have a strong understanding of Earth history, processes and materials and be able to communicate effectively and responsibly to inform public policy and personal and societal actions, particularly with regard to geohazards and natural resources. Curricula to train future geoscientists must be designed to help students develop critical thinking skills across the curriculum, from introductory to senior capstone courses. Students will be challenged in their pre-professional training as geoscientists as they encounter an incomplete geologic record, ambiguity and uncertainty in observed and experimental results, temporal reasoning (“deep time”, frequency, recurrence intervals), spatial reasoning (from microns to mountains), and complex system behavior. Four instructional approaches can be combined to address these challenges and help students develop critical thinking skills: 1) Geoethics and ethical decision making includes review and integration of the context/facts of the situation, stakeholders, decision-makers, and possible alternative actions and expected outcomes; 2) The affective domain which encompasses factors such as student motivation to learn, curiosity, fear, attitudes, perceptions, social barriers and values; 3) Metacognition which encourages students to be aware about their own thinking processes, and to develop self-monitoring and self-regulating behaviors; and 4) Systems thinking which requires integrative thinking about the interactions between physical, chemical, biological and human processes, feedback mechanisms and emergent phenomena. Guided inquiry and scaffolded exercises can be used to present increasingly complex situations that require a thorough understanding of geologic principles and processes as applied to issues of societal concern. These approaches are not “owned” by any single course or instructor, and we encourage all teaching faculty to commit a part of their coursework to develop these critical-thinking skills. A collection of geologic case studies is available at the Teaching Geoethics Across the Geoscience Curriculum website http://serc.carleton.edu/74990.