Critical Thinking

CRITICAL THINKING is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information, gathered or generated by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, and/or communication as a guide to belief or action. Critical thinking is not the simple acquisition and retention information; the development of a particular set of skills, and/or the repetitive application of those skills without the critical evaluation of their results. Critical thinking encompasses the eight elements of reason: purpose, point of view, question at issue, information, interpretations and inference, concepts, assumptions, implications and consequences. (www.criticalthinking.org )

21st Century learning promotes the idea that knowledge must be examined. Students should actively engage in the process of thinking about the information they review in a logical manner, questioning, validating, justifying, predicting and making inferences. The ability to think critically is a must.

There are various venues to cultivate critical thinking. We emphasize that critical thinking is not only a part of the learning process but a part of life. In our cohort, critical thinking is fostered via Project Based Learning, Problem Based Learning and inquiry.

Implementing Problem Based Learning (PBL) provides students the opportunity to engage in critical thinking with lessons that require them to process information and determine which information is needed followed by implementing authentic research to answer the problem. Here are some websites that have cases created that you can use as is or modify.
http://www.cse.emory.edu/cases/ http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/ideas.htm
http://cte.umdnj.edu/active_learning/active_pbl.cfm

Here are two tools that we think can assist students with organizing information in the critical thinking process.

Take a look at https://bubbl.us/beta/ and www.mindmeister.com