Two University of Washington professors are taking aim at BS in a provocatively named new course they hope to teach this spring. The professors would like to push the course materials online — teaching it as a MOOC, for example, a freely available course taught over the web.
Here is a new twist on teaching “critical thinking” by two professors at the University of Washington. The professors think that teaching how to face a world in BS is the most important role of education today. West thinks there’s no more important role for education than arming students to face a world awash in BS. Professor West is fond of a quote from Oxford philosophy professor John Alexander Smith, who, in a speech to his students in 1914, told them pretty much the same thing.
“ … If you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education,” Smith said.
PSA supports the teaching of “critical thinking” and especially using all the cloud resources and tools available in creating a user friendly access to the latest and greatest in higher education platforms.