Introduction to Critical Thinking

The aim in developing this course under the Title VI rubric was to use the Internet

1. to internationalize the student body of the course and,
2. to introduce international news and infromation sources as available via the World Wide Web.

The course capitalizes on Webster's being an international university, by enrolling students from the four U.S. undergraduate locations--Kansas City, Orlando, St. Louis, and San Diego--as well as the European campuses--Geneva, Leiden, London, and Vienna. We meet once per week in a text-based networked virtual environment (a MOO, actually), rather than face to face. Using specially prepared objects, I am able to "lecture" to the students, and we can discuss the material in synchronous fashion, much as we would if we met in a conventional, physical classroom. Much of the students' work in my Introduction to Critical Thinking classes, as in a number of other classes, involves independent reading and writing by the students, coupled with evaluation of their written work. That portion of the course is conducted using an asynchronous communication channel--electronic mail, or inshallah, a Web-based conferencing system. Students will prepare written work independently during the week, e-mail or post it for others to review, and, finally, e-mail it to me for comment and evaluation.

This internationalizing of the student body and course content is, it seems to me, only possible by way of computer-mediated communication technologies. For example, it would be difficult to expect students in remote locations in the United States to have ready access at a newstand or library to news publications from other countries, or to expect students in Europe to be able to read the newspaper from a modest-sized U.S. city. The Web makes a host of these available.

I am making available from this page some of the course materials and other information that might help others to understand how the course worked. The course will be taught this way for the first time in the second half of the fall semester, 1997--from the end of October to late December. I will continue to update these materials as the course proceeds, so interested parties should continue to check back.

• the course syllabus (draft, as of April, 1997)
• information about the MOO, and about how to experience the environment used for the course
• an example exercise for the course, on point of view

Bruce Umbaugh's Home Page.

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