General Discussion

First of all, I want to say the assignment that Coventina explained further in a replay sounds awesome. I would love to take this class from her.
I know this thread is about the lack of effort or criticism, thinking skills of this coming generation, but it is the that student mentions research so I don’t understand the replies that assume this is a research paper. I also do not understand the people criticizing the student for not understanding the research paper that may or may not have been assigned requires any research beyond checking out some of the additional materials you have either provided or cited. I’d like to see the essay prompt beast from what you’ve written it is not clear whether you require use of the additional materials or have limited the essay to using materials provided. I’m guessing it was much clearer in the written and oral explanations you provided. Although it probably is not the case with this student, some students on the spectrum may not understand the parameters of the assignment if they rely on situational inferences. It seems that the only mistake the student made that was noted in your example was the inability or lack of effort to understand that you’ve already provided the research needed for the paper and have stated as much.

The responses have seemed to jump on the gall to think a research paper doesn’t require independent research when really the student was just asking a question you already answered at least twice. That is no research beyond what has been taught or provided I additional materials is required to answer the question. Lazy? Obtuse? Privileged? Maybe, but doesn’t really demonstrate a lack of critical thinking or the inability of the current college students to carry us into the future.

Coventina is on the front lines, so I imagine she sees this as a further example of the deterioration of college academics. I trust her ability to notice negative trends in students’ abilities to engage course material critically. Many of the responses here are about that rather than the example posted. I’m not sure what most think critical thinking is, but it is more than just thinking of reasons to be critical. In my experience critical thinking is a highly specialized skill that hasn’t been highly demonstrated by any generation or broad social culture. What has been more common are the sundry forms of practical thinking that gets us by in most professions and tasks. In my experience, latter are in obvious decline. Given historical voting records, we shouldn’t oversell our various generations’ critical thinking abilities.