How would you go about proving you have critical, analytical, and synthetic skills?

I suppose the traditional way. I would write a research paper where I demonstrate these skills. I suppose you could present the paper orally, too, to show your ability to think on your feet and to express yourself orally, as well.

@wundayatta Lol, sorry should have been more clear on my question. Re-read with the ETA.

Write a cogent critique of a government or political policy, what-if analysis of an historical event (what if Hitler had delayed his invasion of Russia by a year? for example), or debunk a current myth.

Take an event in your past and explain how you handled it. Good luck.

Write about how your view of situations is different now than it was before you took this class.

I don’t understand. Is this not a research paper—perhaps short—that describes ways of proving these skills? Do the research. Describe the issues involved. Write the paper. It should be a critical analysis of analytical techniques—a meta-paper, I guess.

@wundayatta Yeah, sorry. It’s a short essay in which I have to prove that my skills have increased within the context of the class. I have to prove that this class has been beneficial and helpful and made me grow in these ways.

Again, @Aethelflaed, you know exactly how to do this. You’re a professional by now. You describe where you were at at the beginning (perhaps by analyzing a paper you wrote early on, and then describe what analytical techniques you learned in between, and then offer your latest paper as evidence of the ability to wield these new tools to make your analysis much stronger and more convincing. What am I missing here?

In that case, do a “before and after” analysis of how any number of shibboleths you once held to be certain and true have now been examined and either revised or discarded. And show your work, or you only get half credit.

PS, this seems like a sort of self-aggrandizing kind of thing on the part of the professor. Acceptable, but barely.

Focus in on those ‘how’ and ‘why’ type questions. (I think we have discussed this before in private?). Why did this happen? How did the situation effect xxx? How might it be resolved? If such and such was implemented, how would this affect the outcome?

Use appropriate evidence to support your responses. Don’t just bring in one source after the other but identify key themes and ideas and synthesise when you bring in that material. So paraphrase the point a number of scholars made and use their point to support the idea you are presenting. The introduction of an independent regulatory body would help to reduce ethical breaches (Jones 2007, Brown 2008, Smith 2010). Demonstrate you have been critical by explaining why you have not used XXX (2010) or xxx (2011).

You can do this. You have been doing this now for a long time.

Look up the power verbs for Bloom’s Taxonomy and show how you improved with those skills. The power verbs, thinking styles or question styles that come up when you search “Bloom’s Taxonomy” really will help. I would link some here but there really are many and you’ll get more information by comparing the different sites you find than you would by looking at one site. (I’d take a strong guess that your professor took those 3 words directly from Bloom’s)

Teachers all over the country use Bloom’s to help design questions and evaluate reasoning abilities. If my students demonstrate that they can answer questions in all 6 areas, I consider them flexible thinkers.

The power verbs will help, and I agree with @Bellatrix, you already do all three—expertly, I may add.

@Bellatrix @linguaphile Thanks… that’s actually a little bit the problem – I have to prove that this class has improved my skills, not just that I can do it. Which sort of assumes the professor is teaching those skills to me…

So you have to reflect on what you have learned and how this is being demonstrated through your work now?

I remember taking a couple of courses as an undergraduate in my first year at uni. I had to go and watch films/find advertisements and the like and then do all these little exercises. At the time it seemed like a complete waste of time. I could see no value. It wasn’t until I became a postgrad and started having to understand the process of what I was doing that it clicked…this is what those courses were about. Providing me with analytical tools and skills. Nobody said that though. Nobody explicitly said the purpose of this course is not to let you watch Flash Gordon etc. but is to…

I have seen (and experienced this myself) students who have been getting top marks across all their assignments but when they become postgrads and someone says “so what is your argument?” or “how can you demonstrate this through your writing?” they say “I don’t know. I don’t even really know how I got those marks”. We (academics) need to make sure we are clearly explaining what we are aiming to achieve through our teaching and how you can see and monitor your own improvement. Not just in terms of specific content but also in terms of the process of learning/analysis/comprehension.

It seems to me this professor is at least trying to get you to understand some of these elements. Is the essay an exploration of your process? Of how your understanding of analysis etc. has improved over the course?

@Bellatrix It is a statement explaining how I have progressed in “certain key areas” (like those skills listed above). So, probably both, but I really don’t know what my process is, I just do it. But you are correct – I’m usually not sure why I’ve gotten the marks that I have.

So perhaps using Bloom’s taxonomy will help with this as @Lingua suggested. Go through each element and think about where you started in terms of say ‘evaluation’. Think about where you were at the start of the course and where you are now and try to identify how that transition happened and how your work now demonstrates this change? How has your use of sources developed? In what ways are you more critical of sources than you were at the start of the course? What methods do you use to judge the value of a database? Or an Internet source? How do you weigh up the value of one source compared to another? Do you see what I mean?

Hope this helps :-)

@Bellatrix Ok, yes, that helps. Thanks!