A Study On The Design Of The University's Critical Thinking Curriculum From The Perspective Of General Education Courses

Critical thinking can be traced back to Socrates' Art of Midwifery more than2,500 years ago.In order to cultivate innovative talents,the US became the first nation to set up general education courses in universities since the 1980 s.In the era of globalization in the 21 st century,“4C Literacy”(Critical Thinking and Problem Solving,Communication,Collaboration,Creativity and Innovation)has been considered to be the key to talent cultivation and an essential skill of the world's citizens.Among the four skills,critical thinking ability has become the consensus of all nations in the world and one of the core skills to adapt to the future development of society.In 2005,Qian Xuesen's Question of the Century triggered deep reflections on the domestic philosophy and training mode of talent cultivation,and led to related research on general education courses such as critical thinking at the tertiary level.The cultivation of critical thinking ability,being a key training objective of tertiary general education courses in the US,UK,Germany and France,has achieved fruitful results in both course development and talent training.In comparison,Chinese universities that already have critical thinking or related courses show rather significant differences in terms of the provision,content,structure and evaluation of the curriculum,in that the lack of curriculum,awkward content,unreasonable structure,implementation and evaluation system all need to be improved and standardized.From the perspective general education curriculum and based on the American experience of critical thinking course development and design,this study probes into the problems of the curriculum setting and implementation process in Chinese universities,and tries to construct the conceptual goal,module structure and implementation strategy for the critical thinking course,so as to provide a feasible solution and strategic framework for the development and design of the critical thinking curriculum in China.In the context of Chinese universities' “quality improvement and innovative talent cultivation” strategic plan,and on the basis of our aim to build an innovative nation and our demand for innovative talents,this study will focus on how to design critical thinking course in the tertiary general education curriculum,in the hope of strengthening students' critical thinking development.In view of the above objectives,this research is conducted with such methods as literature reference,theoretical speculation,comparative analysis and measurement.The main content is summarized as the following four parts:Part One,the cause of the research.First,critical thinking is an indispensable ability for people to adapt to the present and future social development.Related international organizations and curriculum reforms all aim critical thinking as one of their curriculum objectives.In addition,social informatization,globalization and sustainable development all urgently call for the development of college students' critical thinking ability.Second,research shows that Chinese students' critical thinking ability is not compatible with the requirements of our national development.Insufficient critical thinking courses,imperfect curriculum system,and inappropriate teaching methods,etc have put forward practical needs for the development and design of critical thinking courses.Third,western countries,esp.the US,have long begun the development and implementation of critical thinking as a general education course,and have already gained relatively mature experience in the systematization,standardization and diversification of critical thinking course.Therefore,it has become a top priority to absorb the curriculum development model and experience of the US,take into account of China's objectives of tertiary innovative talents training,and carry out research on curriculum concepts and objectives,structure organization,content system,implementation process and evaluation.Part Two,the implementation of the research.Firstly,the author sorts out terms such as thinking,critical thinking ability and model,curriculum and curriculum design,general education and general education courses,etc.from related literature;the author interprets the relationship between general education courses and critical thinking courses,and extracts the research questions and problem-solving framework;the author then continues to complete relevant analysis and discussion of curriculum design from the theoretical point of view.Secondly,using the cultivation of human rationality as a clue,the author reviews literature on general education,esp.in the American and Chinese context.Examples cited such as the Integration Curriculum at Harvard University,the Classic Literature at Chicago University,the Creative Writing at the University of Pennsylvania,the Core Curriculum of Lingnan University,the Basic Attainment at Taiwan University,General Education Module at Fudan University,and "Innovative Approach to General Knowledge + Innovative Practice" at Dalian University of Technology etc.It is hoped to provide reference on the design of critical thinking course,through the comparative analysis in terms of the course design,content design,organization management,teaching mode and teaching evaluation,etc.Finally,anempirical study on first-year undergraduates' critical thinking ability is conducted in two stages.First,scales are selected to conduct a survey on the first-year students at four universities in Chongqing,Qingdao,Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi to understand the status quo of students' critical thinking ability;then,on the basis of the theory of measurement,after the revision of the original scale to test the reliability and validity,the second measurement is taken after the end of NM University's critical thinking course;the SPSS is used for the description of the survey data,and for the comparative analysis of differences in statistics and related variables.The results of this survey show that the Chinese students' critical thinking ability is at the low-intermediate level,and that the study of critical thinking courses can help students improve their ability of critical thinking.Part Three,the construction framework,i.e.of a problem-solving framework,the identification of the general education curriculum objectives,curriculum module design and presentation and analysis via practical reference cases.Firstly,with the innovative country and innovative talents,the global literacy concept as the starting point,the goal system is constructed via the curriculum source,curriculum design principles,basic orientation,education domain classification;content design is formulated on the curriculum basis,selection principles,content selection,content organization,etc;the theoretical analysis of the design of critical thinking curriculum is then completed.Secondly,in combination of literature review,ability investigation,and comparative study,under the guidance of curriculum construction frame,the specific design of SX university's general education course and critical thinking course is constructed,with the emphasis on social development,students' physical and mental development and subject content;knowledge,skills,emotional attitudes and values are taken into consideration to determine the "three-dimensional goals" system of the curriculum,so as to complete the design of SX university's overall objectives of general education curriculum,the six module curriculum objectives,the critical thinking curriculum modules and curriculum groups,etc.;different types of students learn general knowledge + integration courses,critical thinking cases,critical reading and writing,"question-centered" inquiry courses,etc.to complete the selection and organization of course content;with “knowledge” learning and “problem inquiry” as two main lines,two different styles of critical thinking courses are designed to provide a reference for the establishment of critical thinking as a separate course.