Designing Your Course to Promote Critical Thinking

Now that we have defined what critical thinking is, and taken some time to share our thoughts on this subject, let's hear ideas about how you should plan and design your class so as to promote critical thinking.

Ideas?

Critical Thinking Definition

Thanks to those of you who have been posting to the blog, and welcome to those of you who have just signed on. It's been great reading your thoughts on this important academic issue. To make sure we are all on the same page, let me give the definition of critical thinking as proposed by Kurfiss in 1988:

"Critical thinking is a rational response to questions that cannot be answered definitively and for which all the relevant information may not be available. It is defined here as an investigation whose purpose is to explore a situation, phenomenon, question, or problem to arrive at a hypothesis or conclusion about it that integrates all available information and that therefore can be convincingly justified. In critical thinking, all assumptions are open to question, divergent views are aggressively sought, and the inquiry is not biased in favor of a particular outcome."

The Critical Thinking Imperative

Welcome to the Critical Thinking blog and thank you for your involvement.

The mission of this task force is to educate faculty about the importance of integrating critical thinking into their courses so in turn they can teach students how to think critically. This is dictated through the core values proposed by Focus 2011 which identify our teaching to be:

• Market Driven
• Experientially Based
• Employment Focused
• Student Centered
• Globally Oriented

I want our discussions on this initiative to be based on your comments and suggestions. My role would be that of a moderator. With that the case, post your feelings on critical thinking and the key areas you feel the task force should discuss.

Thank you.

Alan