Teachers who are counterfeit critical thinkerssay they welcome a questioning of all viewpoints and assertions, butthen bristle when this is applied to the teacher’s own ideas. Suchteachers also make it clear that certain viewpoints (often those theteacher dislikes) are out of bounds

Full disclosure happens when the teacher regularly makes publicthe criteria, expectations, agendas, and assumptions that guide herpractice.

I would venture that it is almost impossible to overdo this activ-ity of talking your practice out loud

Stu-dents appreciate it not only when the teacher knows the subjectback to front but also when she is able to draw on a substantial his-tory of teaching the course

What I do now is ask the group to bring back to the whole classone or two questions that were raised during their discussion ofthe assigned topic. I’ve noticed two things happen as a result. Theenergy of the reporting out phase is much higher and students seemmore relaxed about their time in their groups and less concernedwith coming up with some profound observations

You need to create a window intoyour head so students can see the thinking behind your decisions

However, another alternative is possible. In one of the first classmeetings of a new course you can invite a senior faculty memberinto your class and have that colleague publicly defer to your exper-tise. You can have him or her express to your students how thatsession helped them understand something in a new way. I am astrong advocate of having a new faculty member be visited earlyin the semester by an experienced colleague who makes it clearshe is not there to supervise, but rather to learn from the noviceinstructor

All of us have to teach a course for the first time. How do wecommunicate a reassuring sense that we’re experienced, when we’reclearly not? Sometimes there is nothing else you can do but sufferthrough this situation and endure the skepticism of students untilyou gain enough experience so that your credibility is strengthened

These days, whenever I ask aquestion that I want students to discuss in small groups I always askfor a minute of mandatory silence before students start talking. Iask them to spend that time thinking about the topic and maybegenerate a question or two about it to guide the discussion

create multiple and regular opportunities for students to pose ques-tions to us

A specific behavior that is commonly identified as indicatingcredibility is the teacher’s ability to respond well to an unexpectedquestion. If a teacher responds clearly, quickly, and knowledgeablyto questions that seem to come out of the blue, their credibilityrockets

clearly knows