Supervision for Critical Thinking: Challenges and Strategies

Developing students ’ critical thinking abilities is a goal of most Universities and degree programmes. These may be demonstrated through the standard technical or written expressions that evidence insights derived through study. But, apart from the usual general platitudes or more deliberate formal statements expressed in terms such as graduate outcome statements, course goals and graduate profiles, are we really engaging in a form of wishful thinking here? Do we actually know how to teach critical thinking in its various forms? Is the usual ‘problem solving ’ approach adopted in CS education equivalent or not? Does it really produce actively critical thinkers and reflective professionals [7]? This column originates from a few recent supervision experiences that have caused me to reflect upon strategies that might help students develop a critical mindset. Broadly stated, a challenge for supervisors in the computing disciplines is devising a strategy that might help students navigate from mere description of a phenomenon, project, design or artefact, to a deeper and more critical analysis and interpretation. So what are the challenges facing supervisors and what approaches might help? There is of course a large body of literature related to the teaching of critical thinking, and problem solving as generic skills [8,12], and arguments about the extent to which they can be taught independently or in the context of a particular course. Paul advocates “a ‘both-and ’ rather than an ‘either –or ’ approach to these issues ” [12]. Gran