Teaching Critical Thinking
What is Critical Thinking?
A Set of Values
- Thinking for yourself, as compared to accepting unquestioningly what others want you to believe.
- Welcoming the opportunity to explore new ideas, points of view and possibilities.
- Using reason to investigate questions, evaluate ideas, advocate positions, and resolve conflicts.
- Including the voices and perspectives of diverse parties in the discussion of issues.
- Weighing ideas based on their merits, not who advocates them.
- Achieving the best possible resolution of questions, as compared to winning arguments for the sake of winning them.
- Inquiry Skills—the ability to frame questions and gather information.
- Understanding and Evaluation Skills—the ability to understand others’ ideas and evaluate arguments offered in support of them.
- Advocacy Skills—the ability to formulate positions and support them in a manner that promotes reasoned discussion.