2016-17 Provost Lecture Series

Critical Thinking: Voices at the Table

Friday, April 14, 2017
10:30 a.m.
Hemisphere Room
5th floor, Hale Library

Patricia Ackerman
Professor, Language Arts Curriculum and Instruction
Polytechnic Campus
2016-2017 Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholars

Biographical Sketch

Patricia E. Ackerman is a Professor of Language Arts at K-State Polytechnic, where she has taught writing and critical thinking for the past seventeen years. Her scholarly interests include writing as learning, peer tutoring, readability analysis, and critical thinking. In addition to teaching, she has directed the campus writing center, the graduate program, and the faculty resource center on the Polytechnic campus. In 2014 she published a book on the History of Marymount College of Kansas. Prior to being selected as the 2016-2017 Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholars, Ackerman received the Marchbanks Award for Teaching Excellence, two MacArthur Family Faculty Fellow Awards, KSU's Presidential Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching and the Willa Literary Award from Women Writing the West. She is currently completing terms on the K-State Faculty Senate and the KSU Faculty Exchange for Teaching Excellence Advisory Board.

Abstract

In April 2004, Kansas State University Faculty Senate adopted five undergraduate student learning outcomes, including critical thinking. As the 2016-2017 Coffman Chair for University Distinguished Teaching Scholars, Ackerman proposed advancing the interests of undergraduate teaching and learning at Kansas State by facilitating university-wide discourse about critical thinking. During her April 14, 2017 Coffman Lecture, Ackerman will explore critical thinking through the lens of contemporary pedagogical theories, disciplinary perspective, and her own teaching practice. Participants will be invited to bring their own voices and experiences to this university-wide discussion during K-State's Year of Critical Thinking, a series of events being coordinated between the Coffman Chair, the Teaching and Learning Center, the Faculty Exchange for Teaching Excellence, and the Office of Assessment.