TVI Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum members have repeatedly asserted that teachers are by nature critical thinkers, at least in their various fields of expertise. However, many of us could probably better demonstrate to our students the value of critical thinking skills if we could show students more of our own applications of critical thinking. Toward that end,  here's a recent example of a minor course design change that worked for me and that I now explain to current students who benefit from it:

In my introductory Journalism class, I was giving poor scores over the past two years on Chapter 13's Public Affairs Reporting exercises. After studying and discussing the ins and outs of covering government-related events, students were to read actual crime and accident report sheets and write news stories based on the information in the reports and the writing tips in the chapter's text.

After two years of handing back assignments and watching students smacking their foreheads with their palms as we went over their common mistakes, I decided that we needed to do some of the shorter exercises in class for no credit and go over their typical rookie slip-ups so they could learn from their mistakes before the graded assignments were due.

This simple shift in pedagogy does take an extra class period on the front end of the assignment (which we're all loathe to spend when there's so much to cover). But now I don't need to spend a follow-up class period painfully exposing the normal beginners' weaknesses. Grades have dramatically improved on the assignments and students have gained much more confidence in this essential reporting skill when given the chance to flub up with impunity. Win/win pedagogy!