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A CRITICAL THINKING APPROACH TO TEACHING ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
... In response to the call for greater development of critical thinking in business law courses (Reitzel, 1991;Kubasek, 1998;Prentice, 2001;Asfour, 2009), a variety of teaching methodologies have been adopted to accomplish this goal. For example, the frequently used mock trial exercise has been connected to diverse pedagogical benefits, such as improving critical thinking and analytical skills, facilitating the recognition of cause-and-effect relationships, promoting the long-term retention of course concepts, and providing key knowledge necessary for interactions with in-house and outside legal counsel (Miller, 1987;Karraker, 1993;Lawton & Oswald, 1993). ...
Critical thinking and analytical skills are gaining increased recognition as essential contributors to theeducational and professional success of today’s business students. Paradoxically, researchers have paid selectiveattention to the development of critical thinking skills within courses on business law, a subject popularlyassociated with critical thinking. Although limited scholarship has focused on the use of case briefs and mocktrial exercises to enhance student critical thinking skills in business law courses, these pedagogical exercises areinsufficient for the needs of today’s modern business students. Specifically, case briefs and mock trial exercisesmay fail to address legal issues germane to the business profession. In instances where such exercises do focusdirectly on business issues, these methods still fall short by placing undue emphasis on the procedural aspects oflitigation, leaving students without a proper examination of the issue’s larger role within business practice. Toensure today’s business graduates are able to effectively tackle diverse and complex legal issues, business lawcourses must persistently employ new pedagogical approaches to develop comprehensive critical thinking skills.This article will describe one such approach, the Business Law 360° Memorandum, which builds upon andreinforces the need for business students to practically apply analytical and critical thinking skills tolegal-business issues that currently beset the business community.
Environmental law, in the current context of society's evolution, is a highly topical discipline. The study of this discipline is not easy, being made difficult by the great diversity of environmental protection fields and implicitly the legislation. Also, the teaching of this discipline is challenging, requiring the adaptation of classic teaching methods but also the finding of new tools. The present paper, starting from the presentation of some technical aspects of the discipline that produce barriers in the teaching-learning process, presents the author's experience in using (i) the project, as a personalized teaching method and (ii) complementary online information resources.
Examines criteria of great college teachers and suggests quantitative criteria as opposed to 'Monet' impressionistic criteria for judging faculty classroom performance; who is the 'customer'?
Approaches to developing the college curriculum and teaching techniques to cultivate or enhance the student's capacity for abstract logical reasoning are discussed, and their implications for testing and faculty development are explored briefly. (MSE)
There is much interest in the impact of college on critical thinking ability. Freshmen and seniors at a mideastern university were given either a general instruction or multiple specific instructions for critically evaluating one of two articles. All critiques were in essay form. Seniors provided more appropriate criticisms to both kinds of instructions for both articles. However, the absolute level of performance of seniors reflected major deficiencies in applying critical evaluation skills. It was concluded that while college seems to be having an impact, greater emphasis is needed on more directly teaching critical thinking skills in the classroom.
Other critical thinking texts that could be used, although they are somewhat lengthier, include T. EdwardDamer, ATTACKING FAULTY REASONING: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO FALLACY-FREE ARGUMENT (1995); [fill in info
- Keekey
A Comparison of Freshman and Seniors on General and Specific Essay Tests of Critical Thinking
- Stuart Keeley
- Neil Browne
- Jeff Kruetzer
468 (1991 ) for a collection of articles advocating the teaching of critical thinking skills to legal environment and business law students. See also Mary Anne F. Nixon & Edward M. Brayton, 12