2013 Critical Thinking Teachers of the Year
Selected Comments from Students
Ryan Baggett
He always takes the time to explain the steps required to think critically about issues.
He reminds students to apply the techniques to most everything that they do, and he
works hard to help students improve their own abilities to think critically. He is the
perfect face for this award.
Myra Beth Bundy
She uses a critical thinking rubric to encourage students to enhance their thinking and
writing, and pushes them to the top of the pyramid of Bloom’s taxonomy week after
week after week. She has given me the ability to analyze, evaluate, and apply my
knowledge to create impressive journals and other writings.
Jerry Cook
He uses one of the greatest teaching styles I’ve ever seen. His style keeps our minds
active and allows us to think critically in different ways. He assigns work that challenges
our thinking in ways that force us to combine everything we have talked about in order
to complete a task. I actually enjoy thinking critically in his class.
Allen Engle
He encourages us to think on our own and develop solutions based on the material
given to us in class. He has pushed me and taught me the most during my entire
educational experience. He has prepared me the most for my career and I firmly
believe that he is the best advocate for critical thinking.
Stephen Haggerty
He incorporates the elements of thought, the intellectual standards, and the intellectual
traits into every single lecture and every single assignment. He makes the material
easy to understand and fun to learn, and I now think more critically and creatively in
every life situation, not just academic work.
Charles Hughes
He definitely made me think critically about people who have speech disorders. He
gave us an assignment to go out into the community and assume the role of a person
who stutters, to write a reflection paper on our interactions with others and how we felt.
This hands-on experience and his guidance made me proud to be in this field.
Bob Karolich
He taught us that critical thinking is looking under the surface of things to figure out the
how and the why. There is always more to a situation than first appears. He discussed
critical thinking in depth even on the first day of class, and encouraged us to put on our
“social-work lenses” in order to see things from different perspectives.
MaryAnn Kolloff
She has pushed me to the limit when it comes to critical thinking. I have found new
confidence in myself and my writing because she had given me the tools to analyze
research and think more deeply and more fairly. If anyone deserves recognition for
helping students be fair-minded critical thinkers, it is her.
Fred May
Every presentation we are required to give in his class must be fully developed using
the elements of thought and expanded upon from multiple perspectives. He is
exceptional in teaching us how to incorporate critical thinking into every aspect of our
careers and our lives. He teaches skills that will give students the best lives possible.
Chris Neumann
He uses different approaches to his teaching every day. He finds new ways to make us
think, and challenges us to think beyond our own self-imposed limits. He demonstrates
how we can relate the course material to our own lives. It is actually fun when he
teaches because he makes us want to find out the answers for ourselves.
Marsha Roberts
In the classroom she gives us real-life medical scenarios and makes us figure out what
a patient’s symptoms are telling us, and what questions we need to ask to test our
theories. In the clinical setting she challenges us to go into our patients’ room before
reading anything about them, and ask the right questions to figure out what is wrong
based only on what we see and hear.
PART-TIME INSTRUCTORS
Christy Hardin
She really focused on critical and creative thinking, and encouraged students to
incorporate the elements of thought into all assignments. I am grateful for her attention
to quality over quantity. Her feedback was thoughtful, positive, and detailed, which
helped me to understand how to think critically about my own work.
John Hearn
He engaged his students in the material with hands-on activities, group projects, and
individual projects, all of which required a lot of thought to do well; You could not just
look in a book for the answers. I have multiple projects from his class that I will keep
forever because they remind me of how much I have learned.
Wini Utari
She helped students understand cultural anthropology in an absolutely enriching way.
Hands-on projects encouraged us to think critically about different cultures and cultural
ideas. She helped us to get acquainted with other cultures by immersing us in learning
experiences that promoted both critical and creative thinking skills.
April Warren- Ballard
She taught us so much in our first semester of college. She encouraged us to make
links between courses, to apply critical thinking skills to real-life situations, and helped
us create life maps to explore career options. She has given me knowledge that cannot
be forgotten, and that is how to be successful.