Resumen de Critical thinking in engineering education: : it tools to cultivate higher-order skills
This paper focuses on work in progress to provide opportunities for engineering studentsto exercise critical thinking in analysis and evaluation processes. This approach is implemented using three IT-supported learner activities: peer-voting, self and peer assessment and word-clouds. In line withBloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives, peer-voting and self and peer assessment activities can be considered to promote higher order thinking skills such asdifferentiating and critiquing. The use of word-clouds contributes to the development of checking and critiquing thinking skills in situations of some cognitive complexity.These activities have been employed in a pilot study carried out by the authors at Setubal Polytechnic Institute. In the paper the data collected on the use of the peer-voting procedure using an online Learning Management System is presented. The self and peer assessment and word clouds approachesare still at the data collection stage. However, the preliminary resultswith these techniques are shared in this work since the authors’ experience suggests that they can be valuable tools.The peer-voting is implemented using the widely adopted Learning Management System, Moodle, while the SPARKPLUS software is used for the self and peer evaluation. Word-clouds are generated for Muddiest Point Formative Feedback using the free tag cloud generator Tagul which is employed to imbed the students’ muddiest point wordcloud reflections in the institution’s Moodle.
