Intute: Arts and Humanities - Critical Thinking. Encouraging Critical Thinking Online is a set of free teaching resources designed to develop students' analytic abilities, using the Web as source material.
Two units are currently available, each consisting of a series of exercises for classroom or seminar use. Students are invited to explore the Web and find a number of sites which address the selected topic, and then, in a teacher-led group discussion, to share and discuss their findings. The exercises are designed so that they may be used either consecutively to form a short course, or individually.
The resources encourage students to think carefully and critically about the information sources they use. The subject matter of the exercises is of relevance to a range of humanities disciplines (most especially, though by no means limited to, philosophy and religious studies), while the research skills gained will be valuable to all students. Teacher's Guide (Units 1 and 2) Printable version (PDF) Resources for Unit 1 Resources for Unit 2. Critical Thinking and Deep Leaning.
Paul Richard defines Critical Thinking in his preface for his Critical thinking Workshop Handbook, Winter/Spring 1996, as “the art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of , given set of circumstances and your present limited knowledge and skill”.
However, to maximize the quality of your thinking, you must learn how to become a more effective "critic" of your thinking and make learning about thinking a priority. You must be willing to learn more about how thinking works and how to improve it. “When students think poorly while learning, they learn poorly. When they think well while learning, they learn well. For example, every student comes into your classes with some habits of thinking.
Paul Richard, with A. INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: They include: intellectual sense of justice, intellectual perseverance, intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual empathy, intellectual courage, (intellectual) confidence in reason, and intellectual autonomy. Critical Literacy. I am embarrassed to say that I have not been properly aware of the activities of the Critical Literacies Project based at my own university.
There is interesting material on the site ( ), including a chapter which outlines and reflects on the nature of critical literacy. The focus on Friere's work reminded me of Susie Andretta's information literacy work inspired by Friere's "pedagogy of the question. " My eye was caught by the "Key tenets of critical literacy": interesting also to debate whether these are tenets for IL. Certainly they touch chords with me, although the dominant mode of addressing IL does not emphasise this side of things so explicitly: to quote the first few tenets (and think about substituting "information literacy" for "critical literacy") "Literacy is not a neutral technology, it is always ideologically situated.
As with digital literacy, there is an overlap in the concept/subject, but it is clear that they are not the same thing. Critical Thinking On The Web. Top Ten Argument Mapping Tutorials.
Six online tutorials in argument mapping, a core requirement for advanced critical thinking.The Skeptic's Dictionary - over 400 definitions and essays. The Fallacy Files by Gary Curtis. Best website on fallacies. Butterflies and Wheels. What is critical thinking? Nobody said it better than Francis Bacon, back in 1605: For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture.
A shorter version is the art of being right. More definitions... Program for Critical Thinking 6 Dec 21 May.