Sustaining the culture of the book: the role of enrichment reading and critical thinking in the undergraduate curriculum - The Library and Undergraduate Education

Active Participants Rather than Passive Recipients

Educators invariably conclude that thinking strategies cannot be taught by a teacher standing at the front of the room but must be learned by individual students, working cooperatively or alone, to make sense of course material (Clarke & Biddle, 1993, p. 1).

Didactic lectures, extensive coverage of content, and mindless drill

combine with student passivity to perpetuate the lower-order thinking

and learning that students have come to associate with school.

When students do not actively think their way to conclusions ...

they do not achieve higher-order learning. They end their schooling

with a jumble of fragmentary opinions, rigidly understood procedures,

and undisciplined beliefs. Their ability to mature intellectually

and morally, and their capacity and motivation to learn are

stunted. (Paul, 1992, p. 4)

Self Direction and Individual Motivation

Lipman (1991) warns that "educators must be wary on many scores, but two are outstanding. One is that it is very difficult to educate uninterested students. The other is that without the presence of certain favorable conditions it is very difficult to educate students well even if they are interested" (p. 212). Other analysts stress the importance of self direction, learning control, and the active self-management of the intellectual process (Clarke & Biddle, 1993, p. 13).

To perfect one's thinking, to develop intellectual discipline, one must

develop intellectual values. In other words, genuine education transforms

the whole person by transforming one's basic modes of thinking.

Indeed, properly understood, education implies a self-motivated

action upon one's own thinking and a participation in the

forming of one's own character. Through it we cultivate self-directedness

of thought and transform our values. (Paul, 1992, p. 8)

Teaching students to search and interpret information must allow

for considerable individuality. The teachers ... have all developed

ways to show students how to set a purpose for their intellectual

work, design a structure for holding information in place, and

apply interpretive strategies to the material they have collected.

(Clarke & Biddle, 1993, p. 22)

Conceptual Frameworks in Organizing Knowledge and the Role of Prior Knowledge

Ausubel (1968) speaks for many prior and subsequent learning theorists when he concludes that meaningful learning occurs when we connect new information to what we already know. The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Hirsch (1985; Hirsch et al., 1987) argues for cultural literacy" on this basis. Researchers have further found that:

* Students who already know a lot find it easy to learn more.

* Students who know little have little basis for learning more.

* Students who have included errors in their learning may only

confirm those errors in trying to learn new information.... Students

who know little are more easily misled by the little they

know. (Clarke & Biddle, 1993, p. 18)

Abstract Thinking to Extrapolate from Experience to Ideas or Conclusions