Critical Thinking and Ethics

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID: HCOM 200
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract:  This affordable learning resource is being utilized in a HCOM 200 course for undergraduate students by Professor Patrick Belanger at California State University Monterey Bay. The affordable resources chosen for this course provides students access to a Libretext article, an online assignment database (created by CSUMB faculty), a set of New York Times articles, and a book on course reserve. These titles emphasize critical thinking exercises and real-world ethical case studies. The main motivation to adopt affordable resources is to make student learning more accessible. Students can access these OER resources online and through the CSUMB library.

Critical Thinking and Ethics - HCOM 200
Brief Description of course highl ights:  This course equips students to interpret and critically assess the arguments, messages, and narratives that surround us. Students learn to comprehend and analyze a variety of public and cultural texts (e.g., political speeches, social movement campaigns, films and television shows, advertisements, architectural designs, fashion choices), evaluate arguments supporting evidence, and reflect on the role of values, ideologies, and ethics in shaping our worlds. The course also offers an introduction to theories of communication ethics.

Students identify and interpret communication dilemmas in interpersonal, small group, intercultural, organizational or mass media contexts; they analyze ethical controversies in these contexts and evaluate the communicative options suggested by different ethical frameworks.
https://catalog.csumb.edu/search_advanced.php?cur_cat_oid=12&search_database=Search&search_db=Sear ch&cpage=1&ecpage=1&ppage=1&spage=1&tpage=1&location=3&filter%5Bkeyword%5D=HCOM+200

Student population: This course is primarily for first and second year students. Students from multiple majors take the course, as it is a General Education course.

Assigned Textbook:  Rhetoric in civic life / Catherine Helen Palczewski, Richard Ice, John Fritch, 2022 (3rd edition), Strata

Learning or student outcomes: 
1. Analyze verbal and/or nonverbal messages in terms of audience, purpose, and context
2. Accurately summarize multiple perspectives
3. Assess the relevance, adequacy, and credibility of evidence used to reach conclusions
4. Explain modes of reasoning (including but not limited to fallacies, warrants, and inductive and deductive logic)

Challenges and Solutions:  The key challenge was identifying relevant assignments that ask students to demonstrate specific elements of the General Education Learning Outcome for the area of critical thinking. As such, I helped to create an online database that contains relevant assignments (details below).

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: Fallacies and biases (In, A mini guide to critical thinking)

Brief Description:  This is a concise summary and explanation of several core logical fallacies. Libretexts resource on critical thinking and fallacies.

Please provide a link to the resource https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Philosophy/Logic_and_Reasoning/A_Miniguide_to_Critical_Thinking_(Lau)/01%3A_Chapters/1.11%3A_Fallacies_and_biases

Authors: Joe Y.F. Lau

Student access:  Students will access most of the above resources online via Libretexts, CSUMB’s Digital Commons, and the NYT website.

Supplemental resources:  This resource will be supplemented with a faculty-created online database of critical thinking exercises: https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/teaching_ge_criticalthinking. And the following set of ethics case studies will be used as a way to apply course theories (CSUMB students have free access to the New York Times): https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-ethicist..  Finally, a course textbook (Rhetoric in civic life / Catherine Helen Palczewski, Richard Ice, John Fritch, 2022 (3rd edition), Strata), will be placed on course reserve in the library.

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  $76 per student

License*:Shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. My primary motivations are to save students money and also supplement the textbook with relevant case studies to illustrate course concepts.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I searched Libretexts for relevant materials, and worked with colleagues at CSUMB to create a set of assignments directly related to the teaching of critical thinking skills. The NYT Ethicist database was recommended by a colleague as a supplementary resource.

Sharing Best Practices: Libretexts is a great resource, and I suggest that other faculty ask about the possibility of finding textbook licenses so that students can access books for free via the library website.

Describe any key challenges you experienced, how they were resolved  and lessons learned.  The process of creating a database of directly relevant assignments was time-consuming, but I anticipate that the results will be valuable for student learning.

Instructor Name - Patrick Belanger
I am a Professor at California State University Monterey Bay. 
Please provide a link to your university page.
https://researchprofiles.csumb.edu/en/persons/patrick-belanger

Please describe the courses/course numbers that you teach.  
I teach a set of classes that include: critical thinking & ethics, free speech & responsibility, environmental philosophy & communication, communication in everyday life, interracial communication, restorative justice, and multicultural conflict resolution. My research addresses the interface of media, culture, and ethics.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  
To create a welcoming learning environment for all, at the start of each course I introduce five core principles and practices: 1) kindness and respect (I engage students as motivated adults), 2) transparency (we collectively agree on objectives and methods), 3) a discussion-focused classroom environment (we commit to shared readings and norms of interaction), 4) research and writing (our central focus is the creation of theoretically-informed written work), and 5) collaborative group work, including multi-step peer review.  My ultimate aim is to enhance students’ abilities to interpret and write with fluidity and nuance. I have found that two specific strategies tend to inspire motivation. First, I employ real-world examples to illustrate abstract theories. Second, I encourage students to research topics that align with their personal interests and/or experiences.