4.10 Chapter Activities

Thinking

• Your ability to think critically and creatively is a key to your success in college and in life.
• Bloom’s taxonomy provides a framework to describe the many kinds of thinking we need to do.
• Creative thinking is the process of generating new ideas, concepts, or solutions. This often involves adapting existing ideas or combining them in new ways to create a new solution.
• Problem solving is effectively achieved by applying both critical thinking and creative thinking to generate viable solutions and decisions.

Reading

• Reading, like learning, involves a cycle of preparing, absorbing, recording, and reviewing.
• In college, you will be expected to do much reading; it is not unusual to do two or more hours of reading for every hour you spend in class. In college, you are also expected to think critically about what you read.
• Active reading involves four steps:

1.      Prepare for reading by scanning the assignment and developing questions for which you want to discover answers through your reading.

2.      Read the material and discover the answers to your questions.

3.      Capture the information by highlighting and annotating the text as well as by taking effective notes.

4.      Review the reading by studying your notes, by integrating them with your class notes, and by discussing the reading with classmates.

• Think critically about what you are reading. Do you agree with what the author is saying? How does it relate to the rest of the material in the course? What does this new material mean to you in “real life”?

Special Texts and Situations

• Do all the exercises in math textbooks; apply the formulas to real-world situations.
• Look for statements of hypotheses and experimental design when reading science texts.
• History, economics, and political science texts are heavily influenced by interpretation. Think critically about what you are reading.
• Working with foreign language texts requires more time and more frequent breaks. Don’t rely on word-for-word translations.
• When reading on the Internet, be extra diligent to evaluate the source of the material to decide how reliable that source may be.

Vocabulary

• Reading and vocabulary development are closely linked. A stronger vocabulary makes reading easier and more fun; the best way to build a vocabulary is to read.
• Look for new words everywhere, not just in class.

Writing

• Successful writers in all contexts think of writing as
  • a process,
  • a means to learn,
  • a social act.
• Paying close attention to the terms of the assignment is essential for understanding the writing approach the instructor expects and for shaping the essay.
• Using the writing process maximizes the mental processes involved in thinking and writing. Take the time to explore prewriting strategies before drafting an essay in order to discover your ideas and how best to shape and communicate them.
• Avoid the temptation, after writing a draft, to consider the essay “done.” Revision is almost always needed, involving more significant changes than just quick corrections and editing.
• Virtually all college writing builds on the ideas of others; this is a significant part of the educational experience. In your writing, be sure you always make it clear in your phrasing and use of citations which ideas are your own or common knowledge and which come from other sources.