can critical thinking skills be taught

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Integrating Critical Thinking Into the Classroom

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(This is the second post in a three-part series. You can see Part One here .)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom?

Part One ‘s guests were Dara Laws Savage, Patrick Brown, Meg Riordan, Ph.D., and Dr. PJ Caposey. Dara, Patrick, and Meg were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show . You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Today, Dr. Kulvarn Atwal, Elena Quagliarello, Dr. Donna Wilson, and Diane Dahl share their recommendations.

‘Learning Conversations’

Dr. Kulvarn Atwal is currently the executive head teacher of two large primary schools in the London borough of Redbridge. Dr. Atwal is the author of The Thinking School: Developing a Dynamic Learning Community , published by John Catt Educational. Follow him on Twitter @Thinkingschool2 :

In many classrooms I visit, students’ primary focus is on what they are expected to do and how it will be measured. It seems that we are becoming successful at producing students who are able to jump through hoops and pass tests. But are we producing children that are positive about teaching and learning and can think critically and creatively? Consider your classroom environment and the extent to which you employ strategies that develop students’ critical-thinking skills and their self-esteem as learners.

Development of self-esteem

One of the most significant factors that impacts students’ engagement and achievement in learning in your classroom is their self-esteem. In this context, self-esteem can be viewed to be the difference between how they perceive themselves as a learner (perceived self) and what they consider to be the ideal learner (ideal self). This ideal self may reflect the child that is associated or seen to be the smartest in the class. Your aim must be to raise students’ self-esteem. To do this, you have to demonstrate that effort, not ability, leads to success. Your language and interactions in the classroom, therefore, have to be aspirational—that if children persist with something, they will achieve.

Use of evaluative praise

Ensure that when you are praising students, you are making explicit links to a child’s critical thinking and/or development. This will enable them to build their understanding of what factors are supporting them in their learning. For example, often when we give feedback to students, we may simply say, “Well done” or “Good answer.” However, are the students actually aware of what they did well or what was good about their answer? Make sure you make explicit what the student has done well and where that links to prior learning. How do you value students’ critical thinking—do you praise their thinking and demonstrate how it helps them improve their learning?

Learning conversations to encourage deeper thinking

We often feel as teachers that we have to provide feedback to every students’ response, but this can limit children’s thinking. Encourage students in your class to engage in learning conversations with each other. Give as many opportunities as possible to students to build on the responses of others. Facilitate chains of dialogue by inviting students to give feedback to each other. The teacher’s role is, therefore, to facilitate this dialogue and select each individual student to give feedback to others. It may also mean that you do not always need to respond at all to a student’s answer.

Teacher modelling own thinking

We cannot expect students to develop critical-thinking skills if we aren’t modeling those thinking skills for them. Share your creativity, imagination, and thinking skills with the students and you will nurture creative, imaginative critical thinkers. Model the language you want students to learn and think about. Share what you feel about the learning activities your students are participating in as well as the thinking you are engaging in. Your own thinking and learning will add to the discussions in the classroom and encourage students to share their own thinking.

Metacognitive questioning

Consider the extent to which your questioning encourages students to think about their thinking, and therefore, learn about learning! Through asking metacognitive questions, you will enable your students to have a better understanding of the learning process, as well as their own self-reflections as learners. Example questions may include:

• Why did you choose to do it that way?
• When you find something tricky, what helps you?
• How do you know when you have really learned something?

‘Adventures of Discovery’

Elena Quagliarello is the senior editor of education for Scholastic News , a current events magazine for students in grades 3–6. She graduated from Rutgers University, where she studied English and earned her master’s degree in elementary education. She is a certified K–12 teacher and previously taught middle school English/language arts for five years:

Critical thinking blasts through the surface level of a topic. It reaches beyond the who and the what and launches students on a learning journey that ultimately unlocks a deeper level of understanding. Teaching students how to think critically helps them turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. In the classroom, critical thinking teaches students how to ask and answer the questions needed to read the world. Whether it’s a story, news article, photo, video, advertisement, or another form of media, students can use the following critical-thinking strategies to dig beyond the surface and uncover a wealth of knowledge.

A Layered Learning Approach

Begin by having students read a story, article, or analyze a piece of media. Then have them excavate and explore its various layers of meaning. First, ask students to think about the literal meaning of what they just read. For example, if students read an article about the desegregation of public schools during the 1950s, they should be able to answer questions such as: Who was involved? What happened? Where did it happen? Which details are important? This is the first layer of critical thinking: reading comprehension. Do students understand the passage at its most basic level?

Ask the Tough Questions

The next layer delves deeper and starts to uncover the author’s purpose and craft. Teach students to ask the tough questions: What information is included? What or who is left out? How does word choice influence the reader? What perspective is represented? What values or people are marginalized? These questions force students to critically analyze the choices behind the final product. In today’s age of fast-paced, easily accessible information, it is essential to teach students how to critically examine the information they consume. The goal is to equip students with the mindset to ask these questions on their own.

Strike Gold

The deepest layer of critical thinking comes from having students take a step back to think about the big picture. This level of thinking is no longer focused on the text itself but rather its real-world implications. Students explore questions such as: Why does this matter? What lesson have I learned? How can this lesson be applied to other situations? Students truly engage in critical thinking when they are able to reflect on their thinking and apply their knowledge to a new situation. This step has the power to transform knowledge into wisdom.

Adventures of Discovery

There are vast ways to spark critical thinking in the classroom. Here are a few other ideas:

• Critical Expressionism: In this expanded response to reading from a critical stance, students are encouraged to respond through forms of artistic interpretations, dramatizations, singing, sketching, designing projects, or other multimodal responses. For example, students might read an article and then create a podcast about it or read a story and then act it out.
• Transmediations: This activity requires students to take an article or story and transform it into something new. For example, they might turn a news article into a cartoon or turn a story into a poem. Alternatively, students may rewrite a story by changing some of its elements, such as the setting or time period.
• Words Into Action: In this type of activity, students are encouraged to take action and bring about change. Students might read an article about endangered orangutans and the effects of habitat loss caused by deforestation and be inspired to check the labels on products for palm oil. They might then write a letter asking companies how they make sure the palm oil they use doesn’t hurt rain forests.
• Socratic Seminars: In this student-led discussion strategy, students pose thought-provoking questions to each other about a topic. They listen closely to each other’s comments and think critically about different perspectives.
• Classroom Debates: Aside from sparking a lively conversation, classroom debates naturally embed critical-thinking skills by asking students to formulate and support their own opinions and consider and respond to opposing viewpoints.

Critical thinking has the power to launch students on unforgettable learning experiences while helping them develop new habits of thought, reflection, and inquiry. Developing these skills prepares students to examine issues of power and promote transformative change in the world around them.

‘Quote Analysis’

Dr. Donna Wilson is a psychologist and the author of 20 books, including Developing Growth Mindsets , Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains , and Five Big Ideas for Effective Teaching (2 nd Edition). She is an international speaker who has worked in Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Europe, Jamaica, and throughout the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Wilson can be reached at [email protected] ; visit her website at www.brainsmart.org .

Diane Dahl has been a teacher for 13 years, having taught grades 2-4 throughout her career. Mrs. Dahl currently teaches 3rd and 4th grade GT-ELAR/SS in Lovejoy ISD in Fairview, Texas. Follow her on Twitter at @DahlD, and visit her website at www.fortheloveofteaching.net :

A growing body of research over the past several decades indicates that teaching students how to be better thinkers is a great way to support them to be more successful at school and beyond. In the book, Teaching Students to Drive Their Brains , Dr. Wilson shares research and many motivational strategies, activities, and lesson ideas that assist students to think at higher levels. Five key strategies from the book are as follows:

• Facilitate conversation about why it is important to think critically at school and in other contexts of life. Ideally, every student will have a contribution to make to the discussion over time.
• Begin teaching thinking skills early in the school year and as a daily part of class.
• As this instruction begins, introduce students to the concept of brain plasticity and how their brilliant brains change during thinking and learning. This can be highly motivational for students who do not yet believe they are good thinkers!
• Explicitly teach students how to use the thinking skills.
• Facilitate student understanding of how the thinking skills they are learning relate to their lives at school and in other contexts.

Below are two lessons that support critical thinking, which can be defined as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.

Mrs. Dahl prepares her 3rd and 4th grade classes for a year of critical thinking using quote analysis .

During Native American studies, her 4 th grade analyzes a Tuscarora quote: “Man has responsibility, not power.” Since students already know how the Native Americans’ land had been stolen, it doesn’t take much for them to make the logical leaps. Critical-thought prompts take their thinking even deeper, especially at the beginning of the year when many need scaffolding. Some prompts include:

• … from the point of view of the Native Americans?
• … from the point of view of the settlers?
• How do you think your life might change over time as a result?
• Can you relate this quote to anything else in history?

Analyzing a topic from occupational points of view is an incredibly powerful critical-thinking tool. After learning about the Mexican-American War, Mrs. Dahl’s students worked in groups to choose an occupation with which to analyze the war. The chosen occupations were: anthropologist, mathematician, historian, archaeologist, cartographer, and economist. Then each individual within each group chose a different critical-thinking skill to focus on. Finally, they worked together to decide how their occupation would view the war using each skill.

For example, here is what each student in the economist group wrote:

• When U.S.A. invaded Mexico for land and won, Mexico ended up losing income from the settlements of Jose de Escandon. The U.S.A. thought that they were gaining possible tradable land, while Mexico thought that they were losing precious land and resources.
• Whenever Texas joined the states, their GDP skyrocketed. Then they went to war and spent money on supplies. When the war was resolving, Texas sold some of their land to New Mexico for $10 million. This allowed Texas to pay off their debt to the U.S., improving their relationship.
• A detail that converged into the Mexican-American War was that Mexico and the U.S. disagreed on the Texas border. With the resulting treaty, Texas ended up gaining more land and economic resources.
• Texas gained land from Mexico since both countries disagreed on borders. Texas sold land to New Mexico, which made Texas more economically structured and allowed them to pay off their debt.

This was the first time that students had ever used the occupations technique. Mrs. Dahl was astonished at how many times the kids used these critical skills in other areas moving forward.

Thanks to Dr. Auwal, Elena, Dr. Wilson, and Diane for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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Helping Students Hone Their Critical Thinking Skills

Used consistently, these strategies can help middle and high school teachers guide students to improve much-needed skills.

Critical thinking skills are important in every discipline, at and beyond school. From managing money to choosing which candidates to vote for in elections to making difficult career choices, students need to be prepared to take in, synthesize, and act on new information in a world that is constantly changing.

While critical thinking might seem like an abstract idea that is tough to directly instruct, there are many engaging ways to help students strengthen these skills through active learning.

Make Time for Metacognitive Reflection

Create space for students to both reflect on their ideas and discuss the power of doing so. Show students how they can push back on their own thinking to analyze and question their assumptions. Students might ask themselves, “Why is this the best answer? What information supports my answer? What might someone with a counterargument say?”

Through this reflection, students and teachers (who can model reflecting on their own thinking) gain deeper understandings of their ideas and do a better job articulating their beliefs. In a world that is go-go-go, it is important to help students understand that it is OK to take a breath and think about their ideas before putting them out into the world. And taking time for reflection helps us more thoughtfully consider others’ ideas, too.

Teach Reasoning Skills 

Reasoning skills are another key component of critical thinking, involving the abilities to think logically, evaluate evidence, identify assumptions, and analyze arguments. Students who learn how to use reasoning skills will be better equipped to make informed decisions, form and defend opinions, and solve problems. 

One way to teach reasoning is to use problem-solving activities that require students to apply their skills to practical contexts. For example, give students a real problem to solve, and ask them to use reasoning skills to develop a solution. They can then present their solution and defend their reasoning to the class and engage in discussion about whether and how their thinking changed when listening to peers’ perspectives. 

A great example I have seen involved students identifying an underutilized part of their school and creating a presentation about one way to redesign it. This project allowed students to feel a sense of connection to the problem and come up with creative solutions that could help others at school. For more examples, you might visit PBS’s Design Squad , a resource that brings to life real-world problem-solving.

Ask Open-Ended Questions 

Moving beyond the repetition of facts, critical thinking requires students to take positions and explain their beliefs through research, evidence, and explanations of credibility. 

When we pose open-ended questions, we create space for classroom discourse inclusive of diverse, perhaps opposing, ideas—grounds for rich exchanges that support deep thinking and analysis. 

For example, “How would you approach the problem?” and “Where might you look to find resources to address this issue?” are two open-ended questions that position students to think less about the “right” answer and more about the variety of solutions that might already exist. 

Journaling, whether digitally or physically in a notebook, is another great way to have students answer these open-ended prompts—giving them time to think and organize their thoughts before contributing to a conversation, which can ensure that more voices are heard. 

Once students process in their journal, small group or whole class conversations help bring their ideas to life. Discovering similarities between answers helps reveal to students that they are not alone, which can encourage future participation in constructive civil discourse.

Teach Information Literacy 

Education has moved far past the idea of “Be careful of what is on Wikipedia, because it might not be true.” With AI innovations making their way into classrooms, teachers know that informed readers must question everything. 

Understanding what is and is not a reliable source and knowing how to vet information are important skills for students to build and utilize when making informed decisions. You might start by introducing the idea of bias: Articles, ads, memes, videos, and every other form of media can push an agenda that students may not see on the surface. Discuss credibility, subjectivity, and objectivity, and look at examples and nonexamples of trusted information to prepare students to be well-informed members of a democracy.

One of my favorite lessons is about the Pacific Northwest tree octopus . This project asks students to explore what appears to be a very real website that provides information on this supposedly endangered animal. It is a wonderful, albeit over-the-top, example of how something might look official even when untrue, revealing that we need critical thinking to break down “facts” and determine the validity of the information we consume. 

A fun extension is to have students come up with their own website or newsletter about something going on in school that is untrue. Perhaps a change in dress code that requires everyone to wear their clothes inside out or a change to the lunch menu that will require students to eat brussels sprouts every day. 

Giving students the ability to create their own falsified information can help them better identify it in other contexts. Understanding that information can be “too good to be true” can help them identify future falsehoods. 

Provide Diverse Perspectives 

Consider how to keep the classroom from becoming an echo chamber. If students come from the same community, they may have similar perspectives. And those who have differing perspectives may not feel comfortable sharing them in the face of an opposing majority. 

To support varying viewpoints, bring diverse voices into the classroom as much as possible, especially when discussing current events. Use primary sources: videos from YouTube, essays and articles written by people who experienced current events firsthand, documentaries that dive deeply into topics that require some nuance, and any other resources that provide a varied look at topics. 

I like to use the Smithsonian “OurStory” page , which shares a wide variety of stories from people in the United States. The page on Japanese American internment camps is very powerful because of its first-person perspectives. 

Practice Makes Perfect 

To make the above strategies and thinking routines a consistent part of your classroom, spread them out—and build upon them—over the course of the school year. You might challenge students with information and/or examples that require them to use their critical thinking skills; work these skills explicitly into lessons, projects, rubrics, and self-assessments; or have students practice identifying misinformation or unsupported arguments.

Critical thinking is not learned in isolation. It needs to be explored in English language arts, social studies, science, physical education, math. Every discipline requires students to take a careful look at something and find the best solution. Often, these skills are taken for granted, viewed as a by-product of a good education, but true critical thinking doesn’t just happen. It requires consistency and commitment.

In a moment when information and misinformation abound, and students must parse reams of information, it is imperative that we support and model critical thinking in the classroom to support the development of well-informed citizens.

What is critical thinking? And do universities really teach it?

Principal Fellow/Associate Professor in Higher Education, The University of Melbourne

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Martin Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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There has been a spate of articles and reports recently about the increasing importance of critical thinking skills for future employment.

A 2015 report by the Foundation for Young Australians claims demand for critical thinking skills in new graduates has risen 158% in three years. This data was drawn from an analysis of 4.2 million online job postings from 6,000 different sources in the period 2012-2015.

The report found employers can pay a premium for many enterprise skills. For example, evidence of problem solving and critical thinking skills resulted in a higher mean salary of A$7,745. This was a little more than for those with skills in financial literacy ($5,224) and creativity ($3,129). However, presentation ($8,853) and digital literacy ($8,648) skills appeared to be the most desired – or rewarded.

Being a good critical thinker is a desirable trait for getting a job in today’s economy. Why wouldn’t it be? What business or enterprise does not want a good critical thinker?

An old refrain

Actually, none of this is really new – although the pace might have quickened of late. Employers have long been insisting on the importance of critical thinking skills.

In 2006, a major report by a consortium of more than 400 US employers ranked “critical thinking” as the most desirable skill in new employees.

It was ranked higher than skills in “innovation” and “application of information technology”. Surprisingly, 92.1% regarded critical thinking as important, but 69.6% of employers regarded higher school entrants to university “deficient” in this essential skill.

Employers increasingly recognise what is needed in graduates is not so much technical knowledge, but applied skills, especially skills in critical thinking .

These skills are also said to be important within companies themselves as drivers of employee comprehension and decision making.

What is critical thinking, anyway?

But what is critical thinking? If we do not have a clear idea of what it is, we can’t teach it.

It is hard to define things like critical thinking: the concept is far too abstract.

Some have claimed that critical thinking is not a skill as much as an attitude, a “critical spirit” — whatever that might mean (of course it could be both).

Others have suggested that it comprises skills in argumentation, logic, and an awareness of psychology (cognitive biases).

But this does not help get a crisp and clear understanding.

Over the years theorists have tried to nail down a definition of critical thinking. These include:

“… reflective and reasonable thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.” “…the ability to analyse facts , generate and organise ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems.” “…an awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions , plus the ability and willingness to ask and answer them at appropriate times.” “… thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking to make your thinking better.”

Whatever definition one plumps for, the next question that arises is what are universities doing about teaching it?

A ‘graduate attribute’

Universities claim that they impart critical thinking to students as a “graduate attribute”.

Look at any carefully-prepared institutional list of hoped-for graduate attributes. “Critical thinking” — or its synonyms “analytical thinking”, “critical inquiry” etc — will be there. (Some examples: here , here and here .)

Universities like to think that students exit their institutions thinking much more critically compared to when they went in.

However, what is the evidence for this assumption? Has any university pre-tested for critical thinking skills at admission, and post-tested upon completion of degree to assess gains? Not that I know of.

There are well-validated tests of critical thinking that could be used for such a purpose, the California Critical Thinking Assessment Test being the most used. Others include the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests .

Why hasn’t this been done? I suspect because universities would be justifiably worried about what the results might indicate.

In the margin — and tangentially — some (pessimistic) academics have countered that universities promote precisely the opposite of critical thinking; a culture of uncritical left-wing orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that takes the form of cultural attitude or milieu within the sector and which largely goes unchallenged .

To counter these trends, a group of politically diverse scholars have set up a Heterodox Academy . They agitate for the importance of teaching students how – not what – to think.

How do you teach it?

There is some justification in the claim that universities do not teach critical thinking, despite their oft-cited claims that they do.

In the US media recently, there was a heightened concern about the teaching of critical thinking in universities.

This was sparked by a recent large-scale study – and later a book – using Collegiate Learning Assessment data in the US.

The book provoked widespread interest and media attention in the US, especially on the topic of universities’ failure to teach critical thinking .

It placed serious doubt on the assumption that critical thinking was being adequately taught on American college campuses. It created a storm of discussion in the popular media .

And there is no shortage of studies demonstrating that “very few college courses actually improve these skills”.

Definition unimportant?

How, then, to define critical thinking? It is certainly not an easy question to answer. But perhaps a definition of it is, in the end, unimportant. The important thing is that it does need to be taught, and we need to ensure graduates emerge from university being good at it.

One thing is certain: beyond vague pronouncements and including “critical thinking” among nebulous lists of unmet or hoped-for graduate attributes, universities should be paying more attention to critical thinking and doing a lot more to cultivate it.

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Professors say they teach critical thinking. But is that what students are learning?

Suzanne Cooper. " Do we teach critical thinking? A mixed methods study of faculty and student perceptions of teaching and learning critical thinking at three professional schools . February 21, 2024

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Suzanne Cooper

What’s the issue.

The ability to think critically is an essential skill for professionals, including doctors, government officials, and educators. But are instructors at professional schools teaching it, or do they just think they are? Approaches to teaching and assessing critical thinking skills vary substantially across academic disciplines and are not standardized. And little data exists on how much students are learning—or even whether they know their instructors are trying to teach them critical thinking. 

What does the research say? 

The researchers, including Suzanne Cooper, the Edith M. Stokey Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS, compared instructors’ approaches to teaching critical thinking with students’ perceptions of what they were being taught. They surveyed instructors and conducted focus groups with students at three professional schools (Harvard Medical School, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education). 

The researchers found that more than half (54%) of faculty surveyed said they explicitly taught critical thinking in their courses (27% said they did not and 19% were unsure). When the researchers talked to students, however, the consensus was that critical thinking was primarily being taught implicitly. One student said discussions, debates, and case study analyses were viewed as opportunities “for critical thinking to emerge” but that methods and techniques were not a specific focus. The students were also generally unable to recall or define key terms, such as “metacognition” (an understanding of one’s own thought process) and “cognitive biases” (systematic deviations from norms or rationality in which individuals create their own subjective reality). 

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend that faculty should be required to teach critical thinking explicitly and be given specific approaches and definitions that are appropriate to their academic discipline. They also recommend that professional schools consider teaching core critical thinking skills, as well as skills specific to their area of study.   

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Developing a rehabilitation program that works for incarcerated people, the link between poor housing conditions and covid-19 infection, parents play a role in leading boys and girls down different paths of study.

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Home › Blog › Can Critical Thinking Be Taught? 

Can Critical Thinking Be Taught? 

Look at almost any list of soft skills employers want in a new hire and you’re likely to see it near the top: critical thinking.

Critical thinkers are prized for their ability to see problems clearly, set aside preconceived notions, and come up with solutions. They question team members and (sometimes disconcertingly) their managers. When you have a strong critical thinker on your team, you don’t have someone who will say yes to your every whim. Instead, you have a strong independent thinker, whose critiques improve your team’s strategies, performance, and solutions.

As with all soft skills , it can be tempting to believe that critical thinking is something people are born with — if you want a critical thinker, you have to hire one, right?

That’s not the case, however. Critical thinking is a skill, and like all skills, it can be taught.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to make clearly reasoned judgements based on the logical interpretation, understanding, and impartial analysis of information.

While this may sound like one skill, strong critical thinkers actually need a suite of competencies:

• They must be able to identify and set aside their own pre-existing opinions and biases.
• They must be able to analyze information.
• They must be able to draw inferences from that information.
• They should know how to solve problems.
• They should be able to communicate their process and inferences with other team members.

Critical thinking is particularly important for any role that deals with strategy or planning; executive positions, as well as those in law, education, or medicine, need to be able to think critically in order to do their jobs. However, critical thinking benefits any modern professional, as it allows for clearer decision-making, and may even lead to a happier workforce .

How can you train critical thinking?

Critical thinking can be difficult to train, perhaps because it is a combination of skills, rather than just one. It is possible… though, only if the learner is willing. That is one of three ways you can train critical thinking.

1. Recognize the importance of a critical thinking disposition

You have to want to think critically in order to be a critical thinker. This may seem like an obvious statement, but having a critical thinking disposition — being willing and able to question beliefs and abandon cherished ways of doing things — is a necessary part of being a critical thinker.

Diane Halpern, former head of the American Psychological Association, describes five attitudes that make up a strong critical thinking disposition:

• Willingness to engage in and persist at a complex task.
• Habitual use of plans and the suppression of impulsive activity.
• Flexibility or open-mindedness.
• Willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct.
• An awareness of the social realities that need to be overcome (such as the need to seek consensus or compromise) so that thoughts can become actions.

2. Teach information literacy

A critical thinker should consider the source of the information they’re evaluating. Any new information they’re presented with should be looked at with a critical eye, no matter how that information comes to them — even if it comes from their boss or a colleague.

Research is a big part of critical thinking, and here too, information literacy is important. Your team should know the difference between a trustworthy source and a dubious one, knowing how to verify information, and understanding the context of that information. Not every learner will come to their role knowing how to properly vet sources, so this is an important skill to teach and reinforce in the workplace.

3. Encourage inquiry

Being able to ask plenty of questions is part of evaluating information and making independent decisions. As a manager, you can do this in a few ways. First, you can simply encourage your team to ask questions in the first place. Some employees might not be used to doing this, so take the lead and let them know that questions are welcome. Secondly, you can teach them how to ask the sort of questions that really get at the meat of a problem, like open-ended questions or follow-ups.

The benefits of critical thinking at work

We can’t sugarcoat it: critical thinking isn’t an easy skill to master. Questioning internal bias, conducting research, and being willing to argue for your point of view requires discipline, patience, and humility — that’s a tall order for many.

However, it’s worth attempting to train this skill. Having a team of critical thinkers comes with huge benefits for your organization and for your team members. They’re likely to be better decision-makers, better at solving problems, and better all-around communicators. Your team may also become more self-aware, and more attuned to others, because they’re habitually overcoming their own biases and actively trying to understand other points of view.

So, now that you’ve read this article, do you think that critical thinking can be taught? With the right understanding of your learners and the three considerations above, as well as engaging and easily accessible critical thinking courses , we think so! And even if some team members master just a few of the skills associated with critical thought, it will only benefit you and your team.

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Mit press essential knowledge series, critical thinking.

by Jonathan Haber

ISBN: 9780262538282

Pub date: April 7, 2020

• Publisher: The MIT Press

232 pp. , 5 x 7 in , 10 b&w illus.

ISBN: 9780262357357

Pub date: March 13, 2020

• 9780262538282
• Published: April 2020
• 9780262357357
• Published: March 2020
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• Description

How the concept of critical thinking emerged, how it has been defined, and how critical thinking skills can be taught.

Critical thinking is regularly cited as an essential twenty-first century skill, the key to success in school and work. Given our propensity to believe fake news, draw incorrect conclusions, and make decisions based on emotion rather than reason, it might even be said that critical thinking is vital to the survival of a democratic society. But what, exactly, is critical thinking? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Jonathan Haber explains how the concept of critical thinking emerged, how it has been defined, and how critical thinking skills can be taught and assessed.

Haber describes the term's origins in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and science. He examines the components of critical thinking, including structured thinking, language skills, background knowledge, and information literacy, along with such necessary intellectual traits as intellectual humility, empathy, and open-mindedness. He discusses how research has defined critical thinking, how elements of critical thinking have been taught for centuries, and how educators can teach critical thinking skills now.

Haber argues that the most important critical thinking issue today is that not enough people are doing enough of it. Fortunately, critical thinking can be taught, practiced, and evaluated. This book offers a guide for teachers, students, and aspiring critical thinkers everywhere, including advice for educational leaders and policy makers on how to make the teaching and learning of critical thinking an educational priority and practical reality.

Jonathan Haber was an educational researcher, writer and entrepreneur working in the fields of critical-thinking education, assessment, and technology-enabled learning whose work has been featured in the New York Times , the Boston Globe , the Chronicle of Higher Education , and the Wall Street Journal . He is the author of another MIT Press Essential Knowledge book, MOOCs , and The Critical Voter .

Additional Material

Watch MIT Press Live with Jonathan Haber.

Check out an interview with Jonathan Haber, the man who teaches you to cultivate critical thinking.

Watch Jonathan Haber discuss critical thinking on the David Pakman Show

Listen to an interview with Jonathan Haber at Partially Examined Life.

Read Jonathan Haber's piece in Inside Higher Ed: It's Time to Get Serious About Teaching Critical Thinking.

Related Books

Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

Are there any services that can help me use more critical thinking?

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Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis: Improving Skills

By Dr. Charles M. Russo   |  06/28/2024

Intelligence analysts must be critical thinkers. They need to be able to synthesize contrasting information received from multiple sources and use that information to anticipate and prevent illicit activities, including terrorism, human trafficking, and organized crime. The entire intelligence process explores various facets of critical thinking and how it toughens the analytical skills of industry professionals.

Analysts must also be strong writers, able to share information both clearly and concisely. Ultimately, intelligence analysts are responsible for presenting data through comprehensive written reports, maps, or charts based on their research, collection, and analysis of intelligence data.

In my years of being an intelligence analyst for the U.S. federal government (civilian and contractor), active-duty military, and reserve, I have seen my share of analysts and their work, good and bad. Throughout my 26-year career, I cannot pretend that I was always a stellar analyst myself.

But as the years went by, I learned a lot and greatly improved my critical thinking and writing skills in regard to the art of intelligence analysis. How did I accomplish that? By adopting a reflective framework and proactively reading, writing, and thinking more.

Such a framework potentially influences the entire Intelligence Community by ensuring that analysts can effectively communicate their findings, positively influencing decision-making processes and operational outcomes. When analysts adopt a reflective framework, they not only improve their ability to analyze information, but also enhance their capacity to create intelligence products that are clear, concise, and actionable.

Improving Your Critical Thinking

When intelligence failures happen, the failures are often blamed on the lack of imagination by the analysts, as in the  9/11 Commission Report . The importance of critical thinking within the context of intelligence analysis has been heard again and again from:

• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
• The U.S. Intelligence Community
• Many professional schools, such as the National Defense Intelligence College, National Intelligence University, Central Intelligence Agency University, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy

The first thing analysts need to do to improve their critical thinking skills is to spend time thinking about how they think. Improving critical thinking skills requires one to be self-directed, self-monitored, self-disciplined, and self-corrective.

Practitioners must be mindful of commanding their thinking and adopting a critical thinking stand. Humans have biases, assumptions, and preconceptions that often distort the quality of thought. If the analyst understands what critical thinking is and how to think critically, their ability to process information should naturally and ultimately lead to improved analysis.

Like anything, improving how you think takes practice. Analysts should exercise their minds by reading and talking about what they’re learning.

There are a plethora of books, articles, and tips to help you improve your analytical thinking skills and to add structured reasoning to your repertoire. The majority of articles encourage active reading and playing brain games as a practical and fun way to improve cognitive functionality and intuitive thinking. Spending just 15 minutes a day on such activities has been shown to boost brain power.

Reading and comprehending materials meant specifically for those in the intelligence field will further advance your critical thinking skills. Here’s a list of resources to help an analyst improve critical thinking and analysis skills:

• Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
• A Tradecraft Primer: Structured Analytic Techniques for Improving Intelligence Analysis
• Thinking and Writing: Cognitive Science and Intelligence Analysis
• Critical Thinking and Intelligence Analysis
• How We Know What Isn’t So
• Critical Thinking about Research: Psychology and Related Fields
• Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations by Roger Z. George
• An Introduction to Intelligence Research and Analysis by Jerome Clauser
• Handbook of Scientific Methods of Inquiry for Intelligence Analysis by Henry W. Prunckun
• Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis

Ways to Improve Your Writing

In addition to critical thinking, it is vital for analysts to be effective writers. Being able to write well is something that can be taught and often improves with time and experience.

Author and historian David McCullough once stated: “Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.” That’s why critical thinking skills are so important and directly contributes to strong analytic writing skills.

Analytical writing is used to synthesize and interpret information, not to describe. An analyst renders what is complex and makes it simple to show relationships between pieces of information.

Since the analyst’s mission is to read, weigh, and assess fragmented information to determine its meaning, the analyst has to look for the “big picture.” The analyst has to be able to draw conclusions that are greater than the data they are based on.

Follow BLUF

When writing, an analyst should present conclusions first, also known as the “Bottom Line Up Front” (BLUF). Leading with an assessment and proceeding with supporting information allows a reader to immediately know the message.

Writing must exemplify clarity and brevity. An analyst writes primarily in an expository style, which requires the use of precise words and simple language. It cannot be stressed enough that when writing an intelligence document, the analyst must focus on clarity and structure.

A successful intelligence product is one that conveys the same message to all who read it. To ensure this, the analyst must write clearly and concisely in a way that is simple, yet succinct, so that any reader cannot misunderstand the message. Analysts should always be working to enhance their writing skills to improve clarity, brevity, precision, and structure.

Know Your Audience

Part of writing well is knowing your readers and what they need. As an analyst, you should be asking two questions:

• What is the message you are conveying?

Your audience is looking for insight into situations, and your judgments will help them make decisions. While you’re writing, visualize the client and pretend like you’re speaking directly to them. Play devil’s advocate and try to anticipate the questions readers may ask about your work.

Edit, Edit, Edit

Few analysts get it right on the first draft. Each analyst should take time to edit and further develop their intelligence products.

Too many times, individuals want to write something and immediately push it further up the chain without review. Unless there’s a strict timeline, this practice is often unwise.

Analysts must take the time to read, review, and revise their work. Proofread, check for grammar and punctuation, evaluate if your language can be more direct and simple, and continuously revise your writing to improve its clarity.

Read It Out Loud

It helps to read your work out loud to hear how it sounds. This practice can help you catch problems with sentence structure or word usage. While this suggestion may seem very basic, it is one often- overlooked way to improve your writing.

Ask Others to Review

Turn to others for insight about your writing by asking for feedback and suggestions. It’s often very beneficial to have a fresh set of eyes on an intelligence product since the author tends to become so engrossed in the material. When someone provides feedback, take the time to evaluate their suggestions or corrections so you can learn from it and avoid those mistakes in the future.

Enroll in Writing or Academic Courses

Look for opportunities to write more. If you’re pursuing a degree, get feedback from your professors on your papers. Many agencies within the U.S. Intelligence Community also offer writing courses.

For instance, the National Intelligence University and the Naval Postgraduate School offers writing courses to their students. In addition, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence offers  Analytic Tradecraft Standards  (ODNI Intel Community Directive 203), which provides a common foundation for developing analytic skills.

Analysts should check with each agency within the U.S. Intelligence Community from time to time to see if new writing courses are being offered.

Other Resources to Improve Your Writing

One of the most authoritative books to help both the aspiring analyst and the seasoned veteran improve their writing is James S. Major’s “ Communicating with Intelligence: Writing and Briefing in the Intelligence and National Security Communities .” What makes this book significant is Major's inclusion of practical exercises to reinforce his key points at the end of each chapter.

This book focuses on “writing with intelligence.” It covers the value of reading intelligence publications, the basic tools of writing, critical drafting and polishing processes, and techniques for reviewing analytical papers.

The book also focuses on briefing techniques. It lays out the elements of a good briefing and the manner in which it should be delivered.

Other features included in the book are a glossary for writers, a briefing checklist, a sample briefing, and a self-evaluation form. This book should be in every intelligence analyst’s repertoire of intelligence literature for how to become a better analytic writer and briefer.

Becoming a better thinker and writer takes time, experience, and practice. Every analyst must be self-motivated to improve these skills to produce stronger, more thorough intelligence products.

Intelligence Studies Degrees at American Military University

American Military University (AMU) offers both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in intelligence studies. These programs are tailored for adult learners who plan to pursue job opportunities in the intelligence, national security, and corporate sectors or who are industry professionals seeking to upskill their knowledge and abilities.

With an online format and monthly course starts, these programs offer the flexibility needed for students balancing other commitments. The faculty comprises experienced professionals from the U.S. intelligence community and military, bringing real-world expertise to the curriculum.

Bachelor of Arts in Intelligence Studies

The objectives of AMU’s online bachelor's degree in intelligence studies include developing a thorough understanding of the entire intelligence analysis process, counterintelligence, and ethical considerations. Students will have the opportunity to research intelligence practices, integrate various intelligence disciplines, and evaluate intelligence activities within legal and ethical frameworks.

Master of Arts in Intelligence Studies

The online master's degree in intelligence studies at AMU offers a more advanced education in strategic intelligence, emphasizing analysis, collection, and operations shaped by defense sector experts. Students will have the chance to explore counterintelligence, international relations, and homeland security.

In addition, students will potentially learn to analyze the Intelligence Community's evolution, understand the intelligence cycle, investigate data sources, and assess security threats. They will examine national intelligence structures, study planning, collection, and analysis methods, and evaluate security threats.

For more details, visit our program page.

Dr. Charles M. Russo is an instructor in the School of Security and Global Studies at American Public University. He possesses a PhD in Public Safety Leadership from Capella University and an MA in Intelligence Studies from American Public University. Charles served in the US Navy for 17 years as an Intelligence Specialist and has taught Criminal Justice, Homeland Security and Intelligence at American Public University, Colorado Technical University and several other state universities. He is a retired US Intelligence Community Intelligence Analyst after serving over 26 years, which included the US Navy, US Air Force, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is the CEO of  Intelligence Career Services , a provider of mentoring and assisting individuals looking to become active in the IC. He is also a consultant supporting intelligence, law enforcement and emergency response training and education efforts across state and local government. He currently lives and works in Carson City, Nevada. To reach him, email  [email protected] .

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Ask the Cognitive Scientist: How Can Educators Teach Critical Thinking?

How does the mind work—and especially how does it learn? Teachers’ instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind. In this regular American Educator column, we consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application.

I ndividuals vary in their views of what students should be taught, but there is little disagreement on the importance of critical thinking skills. In free societies, the ability to think critically is viewed as a cornerstone of individual civic engagement and economic success.

Despite this consensus, it’s not always clear what’s meant by “critical thinking.” I will offer a commonsensical view. 1 You are thinking critically if (1) your thinking is novel—that is, you aren’t simply drawing a conclusion from a memory of a previous situation; (2) your thinking is self-directed—that is, you are not merely executing instructions given by someone else; and (3) your thinking is effective—that is, you respect certain conventions that make thinking more likely to yield useful conclusions. These would be conventions like “consider both sides of an issue,” “offer evidence for claims made,” and “don’t let emotion interfere with reason.” This third characteristic will be our main concern, and as we’ll see, what constitutes effective thinking varies from domain to domain.

Critical Thinking Can Be Taught

Planning how to teach students to think critically should perhaps be our second task. Our first should be to ask whether evidence shows that explicitly teaching critical thinking brings any benefit.

There are many examples of critical thinking skills that are open to instruction. 2 For example, in one experiment, researchers taught college students principles for evaluating evidence in psychology studies—principles like the difference between correlational research and true experiments, and the difference between anecdote and formal research. 3 These principles were incorporated into regular instruction in a psychology class, and their application was practiced in that context. Compared to a control group that learned principles of memory, students who learned the critical thinking principles performed better on a test that required evaluation of psychology evidence.

But perhaps we should not find this result terribly surprising. You tell students, “This is a good strategy for this type of problem,” and you have them practice that strategy, so later they use that strategy when they encounter the problem.

When we think of critical thinking, we think of something bigger than its domain of training. When I teach students how to evaluate the argument in a set of newspaper editorials, I’m hoping that they will learn to evaluate arguments generally, not just the ones they read. The research literature on successful transfer of learning * to new problems is less encouraging.

Teaching Critical Thinking for General Transfer

It’s a perennial idea—teach something that requires critical thinking, and such thinking will become habitual. In the 19th century, educators suggested that Latin and geometry demanded logical thinking, which would prompt students to think logically in other contexts. 4 The idea was challenged by psychologist Edward Thorndike, who compared scores from standardized tests that high school students took in autumn and spring as a function of the coursework they had taken during the year. If Latin, for example, makes you smart, students who take it should score better in the spring. They didn’t. 5

In the 1960s, computer programming replaced Latin as the discipline that would lead to logical thinking. 6 Studies through the 1980s showed mixed results, 7 but a recent meta-analysis offered some apparently encouraging results about the general trainability of computational thinking. 8 The researchers reported that learning to program a computer yielded modest positive transfer to measures of creative thinking, mathematics, metacognition, spatial skills, and reasoning. It’s sensible to think that this transfer was a consequence of conceptual overlap between programming and these skills, as no benefit was observed in measures of literacy.

Hopeful adults have tried still other activities as potential all-purpose enhancers of intelligence—for example, exposure to classical music (the so-called Mozart effect), 9 learning to play a musical instrument, 10 or learning to play chess. 11 None have succeeded as hoped.

It’s no surprise then that programs in school meant to teach general critical thinking skills have had limited success. Unfortunately, the evaluations of these programs seldom offer a good test of transfer; the measure of success tends to feature the same sort of task that was used during training. 12 When investigators have tested for transfer in such curricular programs, positive results have been absent or modest and quick to fade. 13

Transfer and the Nature of Critical Thinking

We probably should have anticipated these results. Wanting students to be able to “analyze, synthesize, and evaluate” information sounds like a reasonable goal, but those terms mean different things in different disciplines. Literary criticism has its own internal logic, its norms for what constitutes good evidence and a valid argument. These norms differ from those found in mathematics, for example. Thus, our goals for student critical thinking must be domain-specific.

But wait. Surely there are some principles of thinking that apply across fields of study. Affirming the consequent is always wrong, straw-person arguments are always weak, and having a conflict of interest always makes your argument suspect. 14 There are indeed principles that carry across domains of study. The problem is that people who learn these broadly applicable principles in one situation often fail to apply them in a new situation.

The law of large numbers provides an example. It states that a large sample will probably be closer to a “true” estimate than a small sample—if you want to know whether a set of dice is loaded, you’re better off seeing the results of 20 throws rather than two throws. People readily understand this idea in the context of evaluating randomness, but a small sample doesn’t bother them when judging academic performance; if someone receives poor grades on two math tests, observers judge they are simply bad at math. 15

In another classic experiment, researchers administered a tricky problem: a malignant tumor could be treated with a particular ray, but the ray caused a lot of collateral damage to healthy tissue. How, subjects were asked, could the ray be used to destroy the tumor? Other subjects got the same problem, but first read a story describing a military situation analogous to the medical problem. Instead of rays attacking a tumor, rebels were to attack a fortress. The military story offered a perfect analogy to the medical problem, but despite reading it moments before, subjects still couldn’t solve the medical problem. Merely mentioning that the story might help solve the problem boosted solution rates to nearly 100 percent. Thus, using the analogy was not hard; the problem was thinking to use it in the first place. 16

These results offer a new perspective on critical thinking. The problem in transfer is not just that different domains have different norms for critical thinking. The problem is that previous critical thinking successes seem encapsulated in memory. We know that a student has understood an idea like the law of large numbers. But understanding it offers no guarantee that the student will recognize new situations in which that idea will be useful.

Critical Thinking as Problem Recognition

Happily, this difficulty in recognizing problems you’ve solved before disappears in the face of significant practice. If I solve a lot of problems in which the law of large numbers is relevant, I no longer focus on the particulars of the problem—that is, whether it seems to be about cars, or ratings of happiness, or savings bonds. I immediately see that the law of large numbers is relevant. 17 Lots of practice is OK if you’re not in a hurry, but is there a faster way to help students “just see” that they have solved a problem before?

One technique is problem comparison; show students two solved problems that have the same structure but appear to be about different things, and ask students to compare them. 18 In one experiment testing this method, business school students were asked to compare two stories, one involving international companies coping with a shipping problem, and the other concerning two college students planning a spring break trip. In each, a difficult negotiation problem was resolved through the use of a particular type of contract. Two weeks later, students were more likely to use the solution on a novel problem if they had contrasted the stories compared to other students who simply read them. 19 Richard Catrambone developed a different technique to address a slightly different transfer problem. He noted that in math and science classes, students often learned to solve standard problems via a series of fixed, lockstep procedures. That meant students were stumped when confronted with a problem requiring a slight revision of the steps, even if the goal of the steps was the same. For example, a student might learn a method for solving word problems involving work like “Nicola can paint a house in 14 hours, and Carole can do it in 8. How long would it take them to paint one house, working together?” A student who learns a sequence of steps to solve that sort of problem is often thrown by a small change—the homeowner had already painted one-fourth of the house before hiring Nicola and Carole.

Catrambone 20 showed that student knowledge will be more flexible if students are taught to label the substeps of the solution with the goal it serves. For example, work problems are typically solved by calculating how much of the job each worker can do in an hour. If, during learning, that step were labeled so students understood that that calculation was part of deriving the solution, they would know how to solve the problem when a fraction of the house is to be painted.

Open-Ended Problems and Knowledge

Students encounter standard problems that are best solved in a particular way, but many critical thinking situations are unique. There are no routine, reusable solutions for problems like designing a product or planning a strategy for a field hockey match. Nevertheless, critical thinking for open-ended problems is enabled by extensive stores of knowledge about the domain. 21

First, the recognition process described above (“oh, this is that sort of problem”) can still apply to subparts of a complex, open-ended problem. Complex critical thinking may entail multiple simpler solutions from memory that can be “snapped together” when solving complex problems. 22 For example, arithmetic is needed for calculating the best value among several vacation packages.

Second, knowledge impacts working memory. Working memory refers, colloquially, to the place in the mind where thinking happens—it’s where you hold information and manipulate it to carry out cognitive tasks. So, for example, if I said “How is a scarecrow like a blueberry?,” you would retrieve information about scarecrows (not alive, protect crops, found in fields, birds think they are alive) and blueberries (purple, used in pies, small, featured in Blueberries for Sal ) from your memory, and then you’d start comparing these features, looking for overlap. But working memory has limited space; if I added three more words, you’d struggle to keep all five and their associations in mind at once.

With experience, often-associated bits of knowledge clump together and thus take up less room in working memory. In chess, a king, a castle, and three pawns in a corner of the board relate to one another in the defensive position, so the expert will treat them as a single unit. An experienced dancer similarly chunks dance moves allowing him to think about more subtle aspects of movement, rather than crowding working memory with “what I’m to do next.”

Third, knowledge is sometimes necessary to deploy thinking strategies. As noted above, sometimes you have an effective thinking strategy in your memory (for example, apply the law of large numbers) but fail to see that it’s relevant. In other situations, the proper thinking is easily recognized. We can tell students that they should evaluate the logic of the author’s argument when they read an op-ed, and we can tell them the right method to use when conducting a scientific experiment. Students should have no trouble recognizing “Oh, this is that sort of problem,” and they may have committed to memory the right thinking strategy. They know what to do, but they may not be able to use the strategy without the right domain knowledge.

For example, principles of scientific reasoning seem to be content free: for example, “a control group should be identical to the experimental group, except for the treatment.” In practice, however, content knowledge is needed to use the principle. For example, in an experiment on learning, you’d want to be sure that the experimental and control groups were comparable, so you’d make sure that proportions of men and women in each group were the same. What characteristics besides sex should you be sure are equivalent in the experimental and control groups? Ability to concentrate? Intelligence? You can’t measure every characteristic of your subjects, so you’d focus on characteristics that you know are relevant to learning. But knowing which characteristics are “relevant to learning” means knowing the research literature in learning and memory.

Experimental evidence shows that an expert doesn’t think as well outside her area of expertise, even in a closely related domain. She’s still better than a novice, but her skills don’t transfer completely. For example, knowledge of medicine transfers poorly among subspecialties (neurologists do not diagnose cardiac cases well), 23 technical writers can’t write newspaper articles, 24 and even professional philosophers are swayed by irrelevant features of problems like question order or wording. 25

How to Teach Students to Think Critically

So what does all this mean? Is there really no such thing as a “critical thinking skill” if by “skill” we mean something generalizable? Maybe, but it’s hard to be sure. We do know that students who go to school longer score better on intelligence tests, and certainly we think of intelligence as all-purpose. 26 Still, it may be that schooling boosts a collection of fairly specific thinking skills. If it increases general thinking skills, researchers have been unable to identify them.

Although existing data favor the specific skills account, 27 researchers would still say it’s uncertain whether a good critical thinker is someone who has mastered lots of specific skills, or someone with a smaller set of yet-to-be-identified general skills. But educators aren’t researchers, and for educators, one fact ought to be salient. We’re not even sure the general skills exist, but we’re quite sure there’s no proven way to teach them directly. In contrast, we have a pretty good idea of how to teach students the more specific critical thinking skills. I suggest we do so. Here’s a four-step plan.

First, identify what’s meant by critical thinking in each domain. Be specific by focusing on tasks that tap skills, not skills themselves. What tasks showing critical thinking should a high school graduate be able to do in mathematics, history, and other subjects? For example, educators might decide that an important aspect of understanding history is the ability to source historical documents; that is, to interpret them in light of their source—who wrote it, for what purpose, and for what intended audience. Educators might decide that a key critical thinking skill for science is understanding the relationship between a theory and a hypothesis. These skills should be explicitly taught and practiced—there is evidence that simple exposure to this sort of work without explicit instruction is less effective. 28

Second, identify the domain content that students must know. We’ve seen that domain knowledge is a crucial driver of thinking skill. What knowledge is essential to the type of thinking you want your students to be able to do? For example, if students are to source documents, they need knowledge of the relevant source; in other words, knowing that they are reading a 1779 letter from General George Clinton written to George Washington with a request for supplies won’t mean much if they don’t have some background knowledge about the American Revolutionary War—that will enable them to make sense of what they read when they look up Clinton and his activities at the time.

The prospect of someone deciding which knowledge students ought to learn—and what they won’t learn—sometimes makes people uneasy because this decision depends on one’s goals for schooling, and goals depend on values. Selection of content is a critical way that values are expressed. 29 Making that choice will lead to uncomfortable tradeoffs. But not choosing is still making a choice. It’s choosing not to plan.

Third, educators must select the best sequence for students to learn the skills. It’s obvious that skills and knowledge build on one another in mathematics and history, and it’s equally true of other domains of skill and knowledge; we interpret new information in light of what we already know.

Fourth, educators must decide which skills should be revisited across years. Studies show that even if content is learned quite well over the course of half of a school year, about half will be forgotten in three years. 30 That doesn’t mean there’s no value in exposing students to content just once; most students will forget much, but they’ll remember something, and for some students, an interest may be kindled. But when considering skills we hope will stick with students for the long term, we should plan on at least three to five years of practice. 31

Some Practical Matters of Teaching Critical Thinking

I’ve outlined a broad, four-step plan. Let’s consider some of the pragmatic decisions educators face as they contemplate the teaching of critical thinking.

Is it all or none ? I’ve suggested that critical thinking be taught in the context of a comprehensive curriculum. Does that mean an individual teacher cannot do anything on his or her own? Is there just no point in trying if the cooperation of the entire school system is not assured?

Obviously that’s not the case; a teacher can still include critical thinking content in his or her courses and students will learn, but it’s quite likely they will learn more, and learn more quickly, if their learning is coordinated across years. It has long been recognized among psychologists that an important factor influencing learning, perhaps the most important factor, is what the student already knows. 32 Teaching will be more effective if the instructor is confident about what his or her students already know.

Student age : When should critical thinking instruction start? There’s not a firm, research-based answer to this question. Researchers interested in thinking skills like problem solving or evidence evaluation in young children (preschool through early elementary ages) have studied how children think in the absence of explicit instruction. They have not studied whether or how young children can be made to think more critically. Still, research over the last 30 years or so has led to an important conclusion: children are more capable than we thought.

The great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget proposed a highly influential theory that suggested children’s cognition moves through a series of four stages, characterized by more and more abstract thought, and better ability to take multiple perspectives. In stage theories, the basic architecture of thought is unchanged for long periods of time, and then rapidly reorganizes as the child moves from one developmental stage to another. 33 A key educational implication is that it’s at least pointless and possibly damaging to ask the child to do cognitive work that is appropriate for a later developmental stage. The last 30 years has shown that, contrary to Piaget’s theory, development is gradual, and does not change abruptly. It has also shown that what children can and cannot do varies depending on the content.

For example, in some circumstances, even toddlers can understand principles of conditional reasoning. For instance, conditional reasoning is required when the relationship of two things is contingent on a third thing. A child may understand that when she visits a friend’s house, she may get a treat like cake or cookies for a snack or she may not. But if her friend is celebrating a birthday, the relation between those two things (a visit and getting cake) becomes very consistent. Yet when conditional reasoning problems are framed in unfamiliar contexts, they confuse even adult physicians. Much depends on the content of the problem. 34

Thus, research tells us that including critical thinking in the schooling of young children is likely to be perfectly appropriate. It does not, however, provide guidance into what types of critical thinking skills to start with. That is a matter to take up with experienced educators, coordinating with colleagues who teach older children in the interests of making the curriculum seamless.

Types of students : Should everyone learn critical thinking skills? The question sounds like a setup, like an excuse for a resounding endorsement of critical thinking for all. But the truth is that, in many systems, less capable students are steered into less challenging coursework, with the hope that by reducing expectations, they will at least achieve “mastery of the basics.” These lower expectations often pervade entire schools that serve students from low-income families. 35

It is worth highlighting that access to challenging content and continuing to postsecondary education is, in nearly every country, associated with socioeconomic status. 36 Children from high socioeconomic status families also have more opportunities to learn at home. If school is the chief or only venue through which low socioeconomic status students are exposed to advanced vocabulary, rich content knowledge, and demands for high-level thinking, it is absolutely vital that those opportunities be enhanced, not reduced.

Assessment : Assessment of critical thinking is, needless to say, a challenge. One difficulty is expense. Claims to the contrary, multiple-choice items do not necessarily require critical thinking, even when items are carefully constructed and vetted, as on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). One researcher 37 administered items from the history NAEP for 12th-graders to college students who had done well on other standardized history exams. Students were asked to think aloud as they chose their answers, and the researchers observed little critical thinking, but a lot of “gaming” of the questions. Assessing critical thinking requires that students answer open-form questions, and that means humans must score the response, an expensive proposition.

On the bright side, the plan for teaching critical thinking that I’ve recommended makes some aspects of assessment more straightforward. If the skills that constitute “critical thinking” in, say, 10th-grade chemistry class are fully defined, then there is no question as to what content ought to appear on the assessment. The predictability ought to make teachers more confident that they can prepare their students for standardized assessments.

A s much as teaching students to think critically is a universal goal of schooling, one might be surprised that student difficulty in this area is such a common complaint. Educators are often frustrated that student thinking seems shallow. This review should offer insight into why that is. The way the mind works, shallow is what you get first. Deep, critical thinking is hard-won.

That means that designers and administrators of a program to improve critical thinking among students must take the long view, both in the time frame over which the program operates and especially in the speed with which one expects to see results. Patience will be a key ingredient in any program that succeeds.

Daniel T. Willingham is a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of When Can You Trust the Experts? How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education and Why Don’t Students Like School? His most recent book is The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads . This article is adapted with permission from his report for the government of New South Wales, “How to Teach Critical Thinking.” Copyright 2019 by Willingham. Readers can pose questions to “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” by sending an email to [email protected] . Future columns will try to address readers’ questions. *For more on the research behind transfer of learning, see “If You Learn A, Will You Be Better Able to Learn B?” in the Spring 2020 issue of American Educator , available here . ( return to article )

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