Drexel University’s LeBow School of Business requires all freshmen to enroll in Foundations of Business for the Fall and Winter quarter.  This class covers a broad scope of topics, and many times the experience is simply receiving information to better understand the business world around them.   While this is an important part of the learning as a new student at LeBow, we are expanding the course outcomes to focus on student development of critical thinking and problem solving skills.

 

This coming academic year we will test new strategies in the Foundations of Business course to help freshmen develop and refine critical thinking and problem solving skills.  In the past we have identified five freshmen Foundations of Business classes as “Writing Intensive†and those sections have incorporated more written assignments than the other sections.  This upcoming academic year we are changing the focus of the assignments, class activities and discussion to help students develop not only writing skills, but also critical thinking and problem solving skills in the “Writing Intensive†sections.  We believe a focus on critical thinking this will make our students better decision makers and problem solvers, which will ultimately make students more valuable to potential employers.   Once results from the test are analyzed, we hope to expand the critical thinking focus to all Foundations of Business sections at Drexel.

 

Critical thinking skills are important for students to understand how to use information, make decisions and eventually solve problems in the workplace.  More specifically, the test sections of Foundations of Business will focus on evaluating different references for points of view and validity, reviewing business trends to develop new ideas, work on collaborative group projects, and formulate strategies based on research and observations.

 

Our panel discussion will include background material about the importance of critical thinking for undergraduates.  Additionally we will share the class activities and assignments developed to help students with critical thinking and problem solving skills.