General Education Curriculums And The Development Of Undergraduates' Critical Thinking

Critical thinking of graduates has become one of the core competitiveness of the employment.In the world since this century.Many colleges and universities have put critical thinking into the target of talent training.Critical thinking currently has also become important goal of general education for foreign universities,especially high-level universities and significant index for evaluating the outcome of general education study.Through reviewing the relevant literature,I found that,at present,the classroom teaching theory and practical research on the general education curriculums have gradually been paid attention.But the empirical researches about general education curriculums and the development of undergraduates' critical thinking are not enough.Existing researches mainly concentrate on measuring students' critical thinking and general education learning outcomes indicators.There is no in-depth and systematic research on relationship about general education curriculums and critical thinking.In addition,most of the current studies focus on the measurement of critical thinking skills,while ignoring the tendency of critical thinking and emotional aspects.In order to enrich the existing research on general education curriculums and try to explorer connections between general education curriculums and development of undergraduate students' critical thinking,this paper selects relatively mature general education curriculumss,researches the curriculums implementation on the micro level.This study can not only know abut the status of general education curriculums implementation,making beneficial exploration on improving the general education curriculumss implementation,but also attempt to make recommendations to promote students critical thinking development from the aspect of curriculums implementation.Through reading the relevant literature,I put forward the following research questions:(1)what is the connections between the general education curriculums and the critical thinking of undergraduates?(2)what are the factors that affect the students'critical thinking in the implementation of general education curriculumss(3)whether there is a significant difference in the influence of the general education curriculums on the critical thinking of students from different majors?This study takes N University as an example.N University is the first national "211 Project","985 Project"of colleges and universities,which officially launched undergraduate teaching reform of the "Three Thirds System" in 2009.It makes efforts to explore the diverse talents training mode to combining of general education and wide caliber professional education.N University from the first semester of the academic year 2009-2010,have hired school teachers for freshman to teach 100 general education curricula(including freshman seminar courses).Each student is required to study not less than 14 credits before graduation.I selected 5 general education courses(including 1 freshman seminar)an done a questionnaire survey on these elective courses students from N University.By using descriptive statistics,correlation analysis and other statistical methods,I discusses the flowing three aspects:first,the status quo of the undergraduate students critical thinking;second,status quo of general education curriculums implementation;third,connections between general education courses and undergraduate students' critical thinking.Through data analysis and interview some of the students,I drawn the conclusion of the study,as follows;(1)In N University,undergraduate students' critical thinking should be improved;(2)In N University,general education curriculums implementation is not in place:(3)In N University,objectives of general education curriculums are not clear,which lacks of clear objectives on training students' critical thinking(4)In N University,teachers dilute the concept of general education,who lack of awareness of training students' critical thinking;(5)In N University,students are not take more participation in classroom study,who have prominent utilitarian nature of learning.According to the links between general education curriculums and undergraduate students' critical thinking,I put forward the following suggestions:(1)teachers should change their conceptions of general education,and strengthen the consciousness of training students' critical thinking;(2)colleges and universities should devote to integrate high-quality teaching resources,offering systematic general education courses;(3)we should make clear general education curriculums goals,aiming to cultivate students' critical thinking(4)we are ought to encourage students to participate in classroom teaching,breaking the silence of the classroom atmosphere.