R. Payan-Carreira, R. Silva, H. Rebelo, L. Sebastião
Participatory co-design of critical thinking blended interventions: Bringing the workplace into the classroom
Participatory co-design of critical thinking blended interventions:
Bringing the workplace into the classroom
Rita Payan-Carreira1; Ruben Silva2; Hugo Rebelo; Luis Sebastião
1University of Évora / CIEP-UE, Évora, Portugal ; 2 Anicura Atlântico – Hospital Veterinário, Mafra, Portugal
Under the Think4Jobs project, collaborative partnerships were established between Higher Education Institutions and Labor Market organizations to develop real-world scenarios to be integrated into Critical thinking (CrT) blended curricula. These aim to stimulate students’ critical thinking (both skills and dispositions), addressing profession-specific real-life challenges by seeking solutions. The participatory co-design of the interventions was rooted in the previous identification of the CrT skills and dispositions deem necessary for day-one graduates by labor market representatives, gathered from focus groups interviews. The identified needs concerned making well-informed decisions, whether within clinical or non-clinical settings, critically analysing ambiguous or poorly defined problems, offering corrective solutions, and anticipating potential challenges.
In Portugal, the partnership was established with a large Veterinary Hospital. Together, two labour market representatives and educators structured three sequential interventions, covering the course contents in Andrology, Gynecology, and Obstetrics. The design of the activities followed an adapted “think aloud” approach to deconstruct clinical reasoning into multiple interwoven small steps starting with the initial evaluation of a clinical case and aiming at deciding on the most adequate solution for the proposed problem. For each activity, a document should be produced, conveying the rationale behind the clinical analysis and proposed solutions. The documents were assessed for the factual and conceptual understanding related to the course, and the strength of students’ reasoning, including the ability to substantiate procedural and metacognitive dimensions of knowledge with evidence. CrT skills and dispositions were assessed by a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the term.
In this presentation, we will discuss the operationalization of the University-Business collaboration, and the students’ CrT gains associated to the interventions piloted in the second term of the 2022/23 academic year.
Keywords: critical thinking; curriculum development; learning strategies; educational innovation; university–business collaboration
Biography
Rita Payan-Carreira is a Full Professor at the University of Évora (Portugal), Department of Veterinary Medicine since June 2018. With a teaching career of nearly 35 years, she has been actively engaged in pre-clinical and clinical courses in the Veterinary Medicine Master Programme. Rita's dedication to enhancing her students' clinical reasoning skills prompted her to explore critical thinking. She specifically concentrated on pedagogical interventions that cultivate critical thinking skills and dispositions, integrating these elements into the core content of her courses. She participated in two ERASMUS + Projects – Crithinkedu and Think4jobs, gaining valuable insights and advancements in pedagogy. Find out more at https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5225-4510
