This book examines the learning and development process of students' scientific thinking skills. Universities should prepare students to be able to make judgements in their working lives based on scientific evidence. However, an understanding of how these thinking skills can be developed is limited. This book introduces a new broad theory of scientific thinking for higher education; in doing so, redefining higher-order thinking abilities as scientific thinking skills. This includes critical thinking and understanding the basics of science, epistemic maturity, research and evidence-based reasoning skills and contextual understanding. The editors and contributors discuss how this concept can be redefined, as well as the challenges educators and students may face when attempting to teach and learn these skills. This edited collection will be of interest to students and scholars of student scientific skills and higher-order thinking abilities.

This book explores disciplinary teaching excellence through a diverse range of student-staff partnership research projects. Despite being a highly contested term, 'teaching excellence' is something that universities aspire to and are expected to have. However, the editors and contributors argue that not only are definitions of excellence often broad and generic, but they lack nuanced understandings of disciplinary excellence in higher education. This book begins by unpacking some of these contested definitions of teaching excellence, followed by a series of co-authored chapters produced by students and staff who have undertaken research projects where they examine teaching excellence in their respective disciplinary areas. These chapters demonstrate that teaching excellence may be better understood as a process of becoming that is achieved through partnership between teachers and students. This book will be of interest and value to students, educators, and policy-makers concerned about teaching excellence, as well as scholars of student-staff partnerships.

This book explores disciplinary teaching excellence through a diverse range of student-staff partnership research projects. Despite being a highly contested term, 'teaching excellence' is something that universities aspire to and are expected to have. However, the editors and contributors argue that not only are definitions of excellence often broad and generic, but they lack nuanced understandings of disciplinary excellence in higher education. This book begins by unpacking some of these contested definitions of teaching excellence, followed by a series of co-authored chapters produced by students and staff who have undertaken research projects where they examine teaching excellence in their respective disciplinary areas. These chapters demonstrate that teaching excellence may be better understood as a process of becoming that is achieved through partnership between teachers and students. This book will be of interest and value to students, educators, and policy-makers concerned about teaching excellence, as well as scholars of student-staff partnerships.

This book examines the learning and development process of students' scientific thinking skills. Universities should prepare students to be able to make judgements in their working lives based on scientific evidence. However, an understanding of how these thinking skills can be developed is limited. This book introduces a new broad theory of scientific thinking for higher education; in doing so, redefining higher-order thinking abilities as scientific thinking skills. This includes critical thinking and understanding the basics of science, epistemic maturity, research and evidence-based reasoning skills and contextual understanding. The editors and contributors discuss how this concept can be redefined, as well as the challenges educators and students may face when attempting to teach and learn these skills. This edited collection will be of interest to students and scholars of student scientific skills and higher-order thinking abilities.