Victoria Cross and Andy Jones

Victoria Cross and Andy Jones take a selfie after talking about mobile learning

“Go Critical Thinking” with Dr. Victoria Cross: An AudioBlog Entry

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

Victoria Cross, a brilliant educator from the Department of Psychology, joined me for our inaugural audio blog entry. Such mini-podcasts will give Wheel readers the opportunity to hear the voices of talented faculty at UC Davis as they discuss their experiences with implementing technology to support student learning.

Click here to listen to ATS Academic Associate Director Dr. Andy Jones (that’s me) and Dr. Victoria Cross talk about her experiences using technology to teach critical thinking and other topics in large enrollment psychology courses.

As Cross puts it, in large classes clickers are “almost essential . . . to encourage participation, encourage attendance, and encourage active engagement with the material.” Cross uses a combination of clickers (personal response systems) and Google Forms to help students move from thinking about science as history to seeing it as an activity in which they participate.

For example, Cross has her students use Google forms to gather data in response to the Three Door Monty Hall problem. By the end of this exercise, Cross has led her students through the collection and visualization of the data, and thus she helps them how to understand and engage in critical thinking as problem-solvers and as participants in experiments.

If you are interested in incorporating personal response systems into your classroom, the IT service catalog has information about how to contact Academic Technology Services to Get Started. Additionally, EdTech Commons provides information about personal response systems and the best strategies for implementing them in the classroom. Furthermore, instructional designers and instructional technologists at Academic Technology Services stand ready to consult with you on any instructional technology that you would like to discuss or pilot.

Thanks to Tor Cross for agreeing to be our first participant in this new series of audio interviews!

Best,

Dr. Andy Jones

An Interview with Tor Cross

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