May 1, 2014

Teaching with open-ended inquiry

Rebecca Price: Helping students to think critically in the classroom and beyond

The ability to think critically enables UW graduates to be capable problem-solvers and thoughtful world citizens. It also helps them get jobs, a fact often lost in the ongoing debate about the relevance of a college education.^1,2 In a recent national study of university faculty, ninety-nine percent of instructors agreed that the main purpose of college is learning to think critically.³ However, surveys of parents, prospective students, and the general public indicate that most people see a degree as a means either to get a job, or to get a better job.^4,5 These data may seem at odds, but surveys also show that employers prioritize critical thinking and problem-solving skills in hiring and promotion decisions.^1,6,7 All students practice these skills in their majors when they define problems; evaluate multiple perspectives; and offer solutions, arguments, or claims based on evidence. Yet undergraduates are often unaware of how their class assignments help them develop these abilities. Faculty can help students make these connections by discussing the skills they model and that students are practicing, or by explicitly teaching skills, whether general concepts about effective ways to approach new information⁸ or discipline-specific skills, such as how to approach a problem like a biologist, philosopher, or art historian.⁹ UW faculty such as Rebecca Price are challenging students to do just that—to ask questions, be creative, and cultivate reasoning skills that will become life-long assets.

Rebecca Price’s students learn how to develop research questions through open-ended projects, from measuring skulls to analyzing sculpture. Price received an award from Science magazine for a week-long exercise in which students measure reproductions of ancient and modern human and primate skulls to test ideas about human evolution. Changes in these activities reflect Price’s own evolution away from what she calls “recipe-based” activities. Initially, she told students what areas of the skulls to measure. Now she requires students to decide what to measure on their own.

“The long-term benefits are extraordinarily wonderful. I see students who can collect data and use those data to change their interpretation of a scientific hypothesis. That’s success,” says Price. Here are her principles for open-ended assignments:

Practice inquiry by tossing the answer sheet: Now Price has decided that even the skull-measuring activity is a bit too scripted because she knows the correct answer to the exercise. She has developed open-ended exercises for her classes “Science Methods and Practice” (BES 301) and “The Visual Art of Biology” (BIS 382) where students use databases to test hypotheses. In the methods course, Price says, “I mix up the databases every time I teach this course so the students keep asking new questions. It keeps it interesting for me.” In the arts class, students develop their own database of artwork to construct their own definition of what is—and what isn’t—bioart.

Don’t worry about running out of questions: Students, who work in groups in the methods class and individually in the arts class, are required to study the relevant literature and develop novel questions. There has never been a problem with duplicates. “That’s what’s so exciting about scholarship. We never run out of questions,” says Price. She groups students with similar queries “so they can share the literature, review each other’s work, and really support each other.”

Give students room to be creative, but provide explicit expectations: Price helps students construct their own requirements for an assignment, for example, analyzing scientific literature to identify the rules for writing scientifically.

Help students think about ways they might refine the inquiry they began in class: Students in a previous class produced such good case studies on using data to understand climate change that Price suggested they publish their work. One student took up Price on her offer, persevering through years of research and revision until the case study was published by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (accompanying teaching notes provide detailed how-tos for K-12 instructors).

Resources: Rebecca Price, “How We Got Here: An Inquiry-Based Activity About Human Evolution,” Science, 12 December 2012; winner of the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.

¹National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Job Outlook 2013. Bethlehem, PA: NACE, November 2012. https://www.engr.colostate.edu/ece/pdfs/industry/job_outlook_2014.pdf.

²Humphreys, Debra, and Patrick Kelly. How Liberal Arts and Sciences Majors Fare in Employment: A Report on Earnings and Long-Term Career Paths. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U); Boulder, CO: National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS), January 2014. https://www.aacu.org/leap/nchems/index.cfm. Free summary available at: http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/nchems.pdf.

³Hurtado, Sylvia, Kevin Eagan, John Pryor, Hannah Whang, and Serge Tran. Undergraduate Teaching Faculty: The 2010–2011 HERI Faculty Survey. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2012. http://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/HERI-FAC2011-Monograph.pdf.

⁴Jaschik, Scott. “Jobs, Value and Affirmative Action: A Survey of Parents About College.” Inside Higher Ed, 20 March 2013. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/jobs-value-and-affirmative-action-survey-parents-about-college#sthash.CXW5Ygwe.dpbs.

⁵Eagan, Kevin, Jennifer B. Lozano, Sylvia Hurtado, and Matthew H. Case. The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2013. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2013. http://www.heri.ucla.edu/monographs/TheAmericanFreshman2013.pdf.

⁶Hart Research Associates. It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College Learning and Student Success, An Online Survey Among Employers Conducted on Behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), 10 April 2013. http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/2013_EmployerSurvey.pdf.

⁷Bridgstock, Ruth. “The Graduate Attributes We’ve Overlooked: Enhancing Graduate Employability Through Career Management Skills.” Higher Education Research & Development 28, no. 1 (March 2009): 31–44. doi:10.1080/07294360802444347.

⁸Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP). “Essential Learning Outcomes” [resource portal]. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), accessed 29 April 2014. http://www.aacu.org/leap/vision.cfm.

⁹Beyer, Catherine Hoffman, Gerald Gillmore, and Andrew Fisher. Inside the Undergraduate Experience: The University of Washington’s Study of Undergraduate Learning. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 2007.

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