Selected Student Comments About Winners

SELECTED STUDENT COMMENTS ABOUT WINNERS

2014 Critical Thinking Teachers of the Year

Heather Adams-Blair (Department of Exercise & Sport Science

Her tests are not about reciting lessons from a book but rather about taking actual examples and applying the law in an unbiased manner. She is the most challenging professor I have had, and I love that. I am never bored because I have to think outside of the box to succeed in her class.

April Ballard Warren (Office of First Year Courses)

She always makes us look deeper into our ideas and experiences, and encourages us to apply critical thinking skills to answer our own questions. She taught us to not be a selfish critical thinker, but a fair-minded critical thinker because everyone’s opinions matter.

Teena Blackburn(Department ofPhilosophy & Religion)

I have nominated this instructor because she challenges her students to actually think. You may come into class with one view and leave thinking another way, wondering why you thought the first way in the first place. This instructor expects you to explain why you think and feel certain ways.

Amy Braccia (Department of Biological Sciences)

She does class exercises that really make you think critically about what you actually know versus what you just thought you knew. She challenges us to understand the material, not just memorize facts. Her activities promote deep, creative thinking about the course material.

Martin Brock (Department of Chemistry)

This is a chemistry class and you may be thinking how in the world can chemistry make one think this way? He takes a very complex and “boring” subject and applies it to real life situations, often using humorous examples from his own life. Without his creativity and diligence in teaching I would have been completely lost in this class.

Jon Endonino (Department of Anthropology, Sociology, & Social Work)

We are taught to think creatively by envisioning what sort of tool it might be possible to make from a random chunk if stone, or the leg bone of a deer, or a lump of clay. We are “forced” to take information about methods and materials to design objects that test our preconceptions about what these objects meant to, and say about, the peoples who first created them. If that isn’t both creative and critical thinking, I’m at a loss to say what is.

Stephen Haggerty (NOVA Program)

He has helped me to think critically about the choices I make in college and beyond. He challenges us every day to think of a new idea and to make that idea a reality. He gives assignments that require us to think about things that you won’t find in textbooks. He encourages us to dig deep within ourselves and within the depths of our minds.

Bob Houston (Department of Economics)

He’s an incredible teacher. Economics is a hard subject but he helps us to understand by using real-world examples. Now I can’t help but look at everything from an economical perspective and I actually understand how the market works.

Sandy Hunter (School of Safety, Security & Emergency Management)

He never spoon feeds us information; His exam questions challenge you to think critically be identifying information in the question that leads you to the correct answer. He stresses that the only way to make medical care better is to be educated beyond what is expected for our field. My time is never wasted in his class.

Fred May (School of Safety, Security & Emergency Management)

He encouraged me to evaluate every task, every scenario, and every assignment by using the 8 elements of critical thinking. I truly did not like Emergency Management at first, but after he encouraged me to apply the 8 elements to problems in the field I really KNEW the information and was not just regurgitating it for a test.

Chris Neumann(Department of English & Theater)

He tells us to look further than what the words say in a book; to delve into what they mean, how they relate to outside ideas, and what they say about the psychology of the characters. The critical reading, thinking, and writing skills I have learned in this class will help me throughout my college career and my life.

Marsha Roberts (Department of Associate Degree Nursing)

She challenges us every day to think of why we want to be nurses, the importance of this profession, and how important we are to patients and their families. She reminds us to remember the humane side of what we are doing. She is always teaching, whether we are in class, in clinicals, or just talking in the hallway.

Jennifer Wies (Department of Anthropology, Sociology, & Social Work)

In her syllabus she outlines the critical thinking techniques for us to use in all our papers. This has helped not only in her class, but in all my classes. Her tips have helped me become self-reflective about my writing and to critique my own work before expecting others to do it for me.

Matthew Winslow (Department of Psychology)

In his class we had to read research articles about a topic and then propose a new research project to expand on the existing knowledge. We had to create a hypothesis and synthesize existing information to explain why we thought our hypothesis would be confirmed. It was a very challenging assignment that promoted creative and critical thinking.

Qian Xiao (Department of Management, Marketing & International Business)

One assignment was to read a case study about a current corporation and create a presentation that explained their management methods; we then critiqued any problems we found with the methods and proposed solutions. She created an environment that required students to think critically and creatively about real-life situations.

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