Are we teaching students how to think? Or, ...

How does this sound to you?

Today's college students are experts at pantomiming their classmates and professors. They can cram for tests and summarize books with gusto. But they are not learning to think critically. That involves questioning assumptions or finding patterns in what they see or read outside of the classroom. 

I hope this doesn't happen in my classes.  In fact, I am confident that in my classes, students cannot escape the thinking process.  There is no cramming for tests in my classes.  I don't care, I tell them, whether they have all the books with them or whether they rely on their memories.  Because, even if it is in the book and they don't know how to make use of it, well, the open-book doesn't help, does it?

Perhaps that is yet another reason why students shy away from my classes?

The feedback that I get from students, whenever they do offer them on their own, is encouraging.  My classes are providing them with content and the abilities to think through.  And, of course, they quickly learn to write well if they want to be successful in my classes.  After all, there is no scantron-test where they can bubble in their guesses.  And in the essays they write, well, they know there is no point awarded for bullshit :)

The problem, as I see it, lies less with students than with lazy faculty practices.  Conducting classes devoid of serious questioning--the Socratic method that most faculty love to pretend to like, and having tests that are nothing but multiple-choice questions that come from test-banks supplied by the textbook publisher can certainly ease faculty workloads.  But, then don't blame students who are merely being rational in their pursuit of the path of minimum resistance!  And even when the question calls for essay responses, well, merely telling students to "write a paper on any topic of your choice" doesn't really help develop critical thinking skills either.  For one, most students are yet to learn how to pose questions that they can then answer through the essays.  And, worse, there is no meaningful feedback to students on their papers--I have seen one too many papers that students have shown me where their bullshit papers have easily earned them "A" grades!