ave you ever asked yourself: What are the most important subjects that you have to learn from the grade one to grade twelve?And each of this subject how did you learn?
After looking back the time in the secondary or high school and answering the questions, many university students are surprised with the simple way that they had learned. For many for them, learning used to be defined in only four steps: First: Go to the class, second: listen to teacher’s lecture, third: come back home, and fourth: do home work. This way of passive learning is also very popular with many learners in any grade of education in Viet Nam.
So now it is the time to answer the question:What should we do to learn better?It is also the time for all students to find their own way of effective studying. It is the reason why Mr. Peter Nguyen, a faculty of School of Humanities and Languages in Tan Tao University (TTU), chosen to talk about “critical thinking ” to all students in a seminar organized by TTU library on November 5th, 2014.
Peter Nguyen is a graduate of George Mason University, in the United States, where he attained a B.A in English, M.A in Linguistics, and the TESL certificate. He has spent most of his teaching years at the English Language Institute, of George Mason University.
Being a Vietnamese man living and studying in American for a long time, so Mr. Peter understands both Vietnamese and American learning style. He knows what Vietnamese think and what American think!
In Vietnamese culture, always is “we”. But in critical thinking it is must be “me”, focusing on individual. Because when you think critically, you are different. It is what you think, what you see, your own experience, your own imagination, your own creativity and your logical reasoning.
Mr. Peter introduced the six levels of knowledge and skill by Bloom (Figure 1) to all student. To remember the information received through lectures in classroom is level one. The highest level of knowledge is attained by creating new ideas, new concepts, or new theories.
Figure 1. The six levels of knowledge and skill to be conquered by students and faculty.• Bloom, B. S.; Engelhart, M. D.; Furst, E. J.; Hill, W. H.;Krathwohl, D. R.(1956).Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Company.
Being TTU students, it is time for them to give up one – way process learning in which person who give knowledge is teacher and person who receive knowledge is student. TTU students must think and must do critically. However interaction between students and faculty are always challenging for both. How to make the learning experience enjoyable is a must. “Try your best to be the front runners” is what Mr. Peter imprints in his lecture.
