Developing and assessing critical thinking skills

Guest speaker reviews

Gaye Lewis
University of South Australia

Discipline Area

Information Systems

Key assessment issue addressed

Industry links - exposure to current body of knowledge in the field of managing networks and telecommunications.
Lifelong learning and problem solving - application of logical, critical and creative thinking skills.
Appropriate for large class sizes.

The initiative

A series of guest lecturers from industry (government, telecommunications companies, ISPs, telecommunications/network vendors, & consultancies) each did a 30 minute presentation to the class with 30 minutes for questions from students following each presentation. The guest lecturers presented on a range of currently topical issues in managing networks and telecommunications.

Following the presentations, discussion groups with approximately 20 students were run with 30 minutes allocated to discuss each guest lecturer. The discussion groups were used to clarify and extend the issues discussed by the guest speaker with an emphasis on highlighting key points that should be included in the student reviews.

The students then wrote a 2,000 word review of the guest speakers. The reviews were done in pairs to promote discussion and development of ideas. Students were given a choice of guest speakers to review so that they could select speakers with the best correlation to their backgrounds and interests.

The reviews were designed to exercise critical thinking skills. The students were expected to:

  1. provide background information about the speaker and/or topic - this information provided context for the talk and assisted in subsequent evaluation of the speaker's presentation.
  2. summarise the speaker's main points - highlight the guest speaker's perspective in relation to the topic (management concerns related to networking & telecommunications technology) - including justifications of the guest speaker's perspective.
  3. examine alternative perspectives on the issues (with justification & references) i.e. critique the guest speaker's perspective.
  4. extend the topic with specific examples of its application (research required).
  5. provide general recommendations resulting from an evaluation of the different perspectives

Key features distinguishing this assessment initiative are the current relevance to industry practices, the use of discussion groups to draw out and clarify pertinent issues and the emphasis on encouraging students to question 'knowledge' as presented and to explore different viewpoints.

The effectiveness of the assessment technique was evident in the improvement of the critical thinking skills used to write up the reviews. Further evidence of success was the unwavering interest and attendance of students at the guest speaker talks and the discussion groups.

The reason for the initiative's effectiveness

The initiative's success resulted from the interesting challenges it presented to students - applying critical thinking skills to current management practices. The type of assessment used (guest speaker reviews) helped prevent plagiarism, as each guest speaker is unique. There were comments from several International students that the discussion groups were of great benefit in helping them to prepare the guest speaker reviews.

Further details

Ms Gaye Lewis
Lecturer - School of Accounting and Information Systems
University of South Australia
gaye.lewis@unisa.edu.au


 
 

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