Immersive Critical Thinking in Asynchronous Sociological Classrooms - A 360 Global Learning Experience

This article presents an overview of recent advances in Teaching critical thinking skills in asynchronous classrooms. This paper utilizes 360 global learning experiences to demonstrate how critical thinking can be achieved in asynchronous global classrooms. Data is extracted from students’ online discussions and learning projects among 147 American and Costa Rican students. Thematic analysis method is used to manage and analyze data. Findings reveal that weekly online conversations provided students with an experiential learning opportunity; comparative analysis of social policies in learning projects created a critical thinking process to analyze, synthesize, and assess information they find online and obtained from classroom exchange. The study-abroad experience further enhanced critical insight already gained in the global virtual classrooms to the lived experiences. The author argues that critical thinking is a process. Through personal involvement in class interactions, group learning projects, and preferably onsite study abroad experiences, critical thinking is an immersive experience evolving in the process of learning. Meanwhile, sociological imagination is developed through micro-level of personal experience sharing and macro-level of comparative understanding of social policies across nations in a virtual classroom.