critical thinking skills in game

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PMC10279556

Developing critical thinking skills through gamification

Claudia viviana angelelli.

a Heriot-Watt University, Centre for Translation and interpreting Studies in Scotland; School of Social Sciences, EH144AS, Edinburgh, Scotland

Geisa Muller de Campos Ribeiro

b Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) – Faculdade de Informação e Comunicação (FIC) and Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT), Avenida Esperança s/n, Câmpus Samambaia, 74690-900, Goiânia, Brazil

Maico Roris Severino

Eilidh johnstone, gana borzenkova, dayane costa oliveira da silva.

Misinformation as well as the proliferation of fake news has been a problem during COVID-19 pandemic. This has affected many vulnerable communities in Brazil. The ability to understand and sort out pieces of reliable information and fake news has become a fundamental cognitive skill. In this study we report on the development of a serious game (a card-based role-playing game) using Brazilian folk heroes aimed to develop critical thinking skills to empower vulnerable communities affected by misinformation and fake news. Four groups located in the city of Goiânia (Brazil) participated in this research: one group of people experiencing homelessness; two groups of favela residents (one urban and one in the suburbs) and one group of recyclable material collectors from a cooperative. We gained entry and built trust with each of these groups and worked together for 10 months during the pandemic. We conducted participatory observations, individual interviews with each participant and discussed their daily interaction with information, specifically in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. The analyses of the observations and interview data gave us a glimpse of the communicative needs of the groups. Inserting players into a narrative where they can make decisions based on critical thinking and their own reflections on the pandemic was important for building knowledge and developing critical thinking in these communities. The nature of the game (interactive and cooperative) allowed participants to focus on problem-solving skills and group work. It encouraged them to use real-life knowledge and skills to solve the fictional problems presented by the narrative.

1. Introduction

“Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information” ( Freire, 2009 [1970], p. 170)

The global coronavirus pandemic has led to major changes in human behaviour, habits, and thought processes. Once simple decisions such as sending children to school, visiting the supermarket or meeting friends and family must now be preceded by complex assessments of the potential risks. People must make safe choices to the best of their ability based on the information available to them, which may be drawn from sources such as broadcast news, public health campaigns, social media posts and word of mouth. Unfortunately, not all of these sources are reliable. Misinformation has been a major issue worldwide throughout the pandemic ( Zarocostas, 2020 ), and understanding which information to trust has become a key cognitive skill.

Literature suggests that critical thinking can effectively combat misinformation ( Machete & Turpin, 2020 ; Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019 ), but much of the existing research on teaching it has been carried out in schools or universities, and in the Global North ( Cicchino, 2015 ; Halpern, 2001 ). It is time to develop methods for teaching critical thinking beyond formal education settings, beyond traditional teaching materials and classroom management and particularly to diverse learners from disadvantaged communities. Paulo Freire, on whose philosophy this project is grounded, saw education as central to the fight against oppression. He argued for a process he called ‘conscientisation’, where people are led to analyse and think critically about how inequality features in their lives. As Lucio-Villegas (2018, p. 163) writes, “It can be said that this process of becoming conscious is also the long and winding road to emancipation”. Widening the scope of critical thinking education could contribute to building the emancipatory pedagogy Freire hoped for.

Disadvantaged communities in Brazil have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Limited access to specialised hospital care plays a role, as does the relative lack of official public awareness campaigns compared to higher-income districts. This is compounded by the prevalence of widespread misinformation and fake news, which have hindered efforts to mitigate the impact of the pandemic ( Ricard & Medeiros, 2020 ).

Distinguishing accurately between real and fake news is a vital skill, particularly during the pandemic. However, it is a skill that must be learned, and as with any other type of education, the chance to learn and practice critical thinking skills is not evenly spread across the socio-economic scale ( Freire, 1992 , p. 71). This project, rooted in Dewey (1933) and Freire (1992) focussed on developing participant's abilities to make informed decisions by understanding and applying concepts such as making a point, identifying the supporting evidence on which the point is based and evaluating this evidence. We saw the need to develop critical thinking individually but also to negotiate it with others, to raise awareness on the consequences of one's own decisions on others. Two activities supported participants to develop these abilities: 1) Conversation circles sessions: during five sessions participants worked individually and in pairs with materials tailored to their realities (including degrees of literacy, disabilities, as well as contextual information); 2) Serious game: one session provided participants opportunities to collaboratively analyse information and draw reasoned conclusions about its accuracy. In the conversation circles, we engage in critical thinking activities moving along steps adapted from Bloom's taxonomy (1956) , using materials which reflect participants’ daily lives and stories from their communities. During these sessions, participants learn to deal with the onslaught of fake news that has become a dangerous part of everyday life. This learning empowers them to make informed choices about their own and others’ health – something that has, perhaps, never been more important than now. This article focuses on a serious game to complement the conversation circles, aiming to develop critical thinking skills to empower vulnerable communities which are particularly affected by misinformation and fake news. In this article we report on the development and implementation of a serious game (a role playing game) in the context of developing critical thinking skills.

2. Serious games: brief review of the relevant literature

Serious games can be defined as “games whose primary intent is training or learning with definable learning goals, instead of being primarily intended for entertainment” ( Harz & Stern, 2008 , p. 13). Serious games can be used to enhance learning in a wide range of fields and for learners of all ages. They often incorporate simulations and role-play of real-life experiences, which can be used to support both formal and informal learning ( Qian & Clark, 2016 ; Romero et al., 2014 ) and the engaging learning experience promotes effective recall ( Boyle et al., 2016 ; Connolly et al., 2012 ; McDonald, 2017 ). Serious games can be digital or analogue, but some research suggests that analogue games may support learning more effectively than digital ones ( Talan et al., 2020 ). This could be because of the increased opportunity for cooperation and communication between players, or because of the flexibility offered by analogue formats (ibid., p.494).

Mitgutsch (2011) differentiates between learning in games, where players acquire new knowledge or information, learning through games, where players develop skills based on their in-game interactions, and learning beyond games, where players are able to apply these newfound or newly-improved skills to the real world). This final type of learning can set in motion a “transformative learning process […] in which the players explore new perspectives and develop new concepts of themselves, others and the world that they connect to real life circumstances” (ibid., p.56). Mitgutsch asserts that there is not yet conclusive evidence that such transformative learning can occur through serious games. However, there are growing indications that it might. Researchers and educators have found that participants’ cognitive skills can be enhanced by the need to cope with a variety of challenging scenarios within the interactive game environment ( Hwang et al., 2013 ; Prensky, 2001 ). Others in the education sector have noted the effect of game-based learning on players’ problem-solving abilities and their ability to think critically ( Michael & Chen, 2006 ; Qian & Clark, 2016 ; Romero et al., 2014 ). Serious games can be considered an effective tool for the development of 21st-century skills including communication, collaboration, and critical thinking ( Romero et al., 2014 ). An ever-widening range of audiences are now recognising the potential of serious games to change the way players learn ( McGonigal, 2011 ).

In this research project, a serious game provided the ideal complement for the critical thinking sessions. Although the project's goal was an educational one, in the widest sense of the word, it was vital that whatever activity was created for the participants did not feel academic. This would likely have discouraged participation, particularly by those who had negative experiences in school or who have had little formal education. Using a serious game creates a relaxed, engaging environment where participants are positioned not as ‘learners’ but as co-creators of knowledge.

2.1. Serious games, fake news, and COVID-19

In February 2020, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that, “We're not just fighting an epidemic; we're fighting an infodemic” ( Zarocostas, 2020 ). The spread of misinformation has been a well-recognised issue since at least 2016, when the Oxford Dictionaries declared ‘post-truth’ their Word of the Year ( Higgins, 2016 ). In post-truth situations, people are more easily influenced by emotions than by facts. The effects of misinformation and fake news have been particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Susceptibility to misinformation may make people less likely to get vaccinated against the virus and less likely to comply with public health measures ( Roozenbeek et al., 2020 , p. 12), endangering themselves and those around them. Conspiracy theories disseminated on social media have led to violence, with telecommunications masts in Europe, North America and Australasia destroyed due to a belief that COVID-19 is caused by 5 G technology ( Jolley & Paterson, 2020 ).

Although recent studies have specifically targeted the COVID-19 ‘infodemic’, serious games research has a long history of exploring issues of misinformation and fake news. These studies have demonstrated that serious games can contribute to participants’ ability to identify and think critically about misinformation.

Roozenbeek and van der Linden (2018 , 2019 ) base their research on inoculation theory, which suggests that exposing participants to incorrect information and providing them with means to argue against it can create ‘mental antibodies’ allowing them to recognise misinformation when they encounter it again, in much the same way that viral antibodies allow the immune system to recognise and react to a virus. Controlled exposure to misinformation could therefore provide a ‘vaccine’ against fake news ( McGuire, 1964 apud Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2018 , p. 571). In their 2018 study, Roozenbeek and van der Linden created a multi-player board game in which players created their own misleading news articles. The game was designed to encourage players to think actively about the techniques used in misinformation, and they found that this process of ‘active inoculation’ did reduce the perceived reliability and persuasiveness of fake news articles (2018, p. 576). The researchers stress that their board game study was necessarily small-scale and exploratory; however, their 2019 experiment, which involved 15,000 participants playing an online browser game designed along the same principles, had similar results. Playing the game “significantly reduced the perceived reliability of tweets that embedded several common online misinformation strategies” (2019, p. 7). They also found the greatest change in those participants who had been most susceptible to fake news before playing the game, suggesting that inoculation could be of significant help to those most at risk of misinformation (2019, p.8).

Focussing on misleading multimodal texts, Clever et al. (2020) developed an app-based game in which participants have to match a headline to an image, and are rewarded both for successfully misleading others and for finding the true headline. Their study does not measure participant sensitivity to fake news before and after playing the game, so they are not able to identify whether the game succeeds in sensitising participants to fake news. Likewise, Katsaounidou et al. (2019) do not measure the effectiveness of their browser-based information-verification game, although their players did report feeling that it had helped them to better identify fake news. This is self-reported rather than empirically verified, but since these studies follow a similar process of inoculation to Roozenbeek's and van der Linden's, it is certainly possible that the games involved have similar effects.

Although the inoculation metaphor predates the outbreak of COVID-19, it seems particularly apt for the current moment. Basol et al. (2021) have designed a game along these lines which specifically targets misinformation around the pandemic. In Go Viral!, participants post on simulated social media sites and create their own conspiracy theories. Researchers found that participants were much more likely to identify manipulative misinformation about COVID-19 after playing the game (2021, p.6). Players were also more likely to suspect real news of being manipulative immediately after playing the game, but a follow-up assessment carried out a week later showed that this effect dissipated entirely with time, while participants’ increased sensitivity to fake news remained (2021, p.13). Basol et al. also found that players were less inclined to share fake news with others after playing the game (2021, p.14), suggesting that such interventions could be key in the worldwide fight against COVID-19 misinformation. Go Viral! has also been listed by the WHO as an anti-misinformation resource, and has been played over 300,000 times ( Basol et al., 2021 , p. 3).

Other researchers have focused on designing serious games to encourage responsible pandemic behaviour. Hernández (2020) created a game focused on COVID-19 prevention measures among the general public, and her results demonstrate the importance of game mechanics as well as informativity: her participants reported that the game provided useful facts, but was overly simple (2020, p.39). Suppan et al. (2020) targeted healthcare workers in long-term care facilities, identifying this as a sector where patients are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, but where resources are lacking and overwork may impact workers’ ability to adhere to guidelines. Suppan et al. (2021) found that participants were significantly more willing to change their behaviour after playing the game than when they were shown infection prevention and control guidelines in a non-game format. The game is translated into German and Italian and will be deployed at the national level across Switzerland ( Suppan et al., 2021 ).

The current project shares a range of attributes with the games mentioned above. As Roozenbeek's and van der Linden's (2018 , 2019 ) inoculation approach, our project provides participants with small amounts of misinformation in a controlled environment, and scaffolds analysis and discussion. However, working with disadvantaged communities in Brazil required the development of a game that would be accessible with minimum technology to participants with a range of literacy levels, as well as one that was appropriate to the target culture. These requirements led to the use of a critical-thinking-focused tabletop role-playing game rather than the more common board game or digital (whether app- or browser-based) formats.

3. Serious role-playing games

The term ‘role-playing game’ (RPG) can refer to a range of phenomena including tabletop role-playing games, single-player video games, and multiplayer online games. In all these types of game, the player takes on a character role that is different from their everyday persona. Tabletop RPGs, arguably the common ancestor of all the RPG genres ( Zagal & Deterding, 2018 ) and the type of game used in this research, are usually played in a group led by a facilitator. The facilitator describes the fictional world for the players, who react by narrating their characters’ actions. The game exists primarily in the facilitator's and the players’ shared imagination. This open-endedness is the key difference between tabletop RPGs and other types of game and has led to some difficulty in defining RPGs at all: Zagal and Deterding describe them as “the exception, the outlier, the not-quite-a- game” (2018, p.19). However, it is this very open-endedness and flexibility that makes RPGs useful serious games, as they can be adapted to reflect a wide range of real-world scenarios ( Ferrand et al., 2009 ).

Researchers have used serious RPGs to tackle subjects from wetlands management ( Morardet & Milhau, 2012 ) to migratory bird identification ( Chu & Chang, 2014 ). Several studies have used RPGs to encourage climate-adaptive farming practices ( Salvini et al., 2016 ; Sautier et al., 2017 ; Villamor & Badmos, 2016 ), to explore climate-aware infrastructure planning ( Schenk, 2014 ) or to raise awareness about the climate crisis ( de Suarez et al., 2012 ; Rumore et al., 2016 ). These are highly complex issues involving a range of factors, tensions and stakeholders, and RPGs are able to capture this complexity without requiring extensive technical knowledge from the players ( Flood et al., 2018 , p. 5). They provide ‘inhabitable learning systems’ ( de Suarez et al., 2012 , p. 13) which are able to challenge inadequate mental models. De Suarez et al. compare games to flight simulators: in the same way that pilots can learn to fly using sophisticated simulations, decision-makers can learn to balance delicate issues using serious games (2012, p.12–13).

Various serious games can act as ‘flight simulators’, but collaborative RPGs are particularly effective for social learning. Assuming a role allows participants to depart from their usual viewpoints and consider other perspectives ( Ahamer, 2013 ), and it empowers them to voice their opinions. As Morardet and Milhau note, role-playing “levels the playing field between stakeholders, allowing them to sit at the same table informally. Freedom of speech is higher in the game than in reality” (2010, p.47). The game provides a safe space for the exploration of contested issues, and for collaborative problem-solving.

Although the facilitator may provide guidance, problem solving is led by the players. Knowledge is not imparted by a lofty authority figure, but rather co-created by the group. Rumore et al. (2016) found that the social learning fostered in the RPG setting seemed to translate into increased awareness, political engagement and community action. Participants are empowered to take their newfound knowledge and skills beyond the game setting, and RPGs can become the catalyst for continued independent learning ( Flood et al., 2018 , p. 12). Social learning also provides space for the integration of local and traditional knowledge systems into decision-making processes ( Villamor & Badmos, 2016 ).

Flood et al. identify three types of learning that can occur in games including RPGs: cognitive learning, where participants acquire new knowledge; relational learning, where participants develop communication and cooperation skills; and normative learning, where participants are led to question accepted norms and values (2018, p.17–8). RPGs may highlight certain aspects over others – for example, Schenk (2014) focuses on building understanding and cooperation between stakeholders, while Hertzog et al. (2014) emphasise disseminating information about water management practices – but all RPGs, to some extent, involve all three of these learning types. This makes them immensely powerful tools for capacity building, skills development and information sharing.

RPGs feature prominently in serious games research carried out in the Global South ( Edwards et al., 2019 ; Hertzog et al., 2014 ; Morardet & Milhau, 2012 ; Salvini et al., 2016 ; Villamor & Badmos, 2016 ). In communities where there may be limited access to digital resources, or where literacy levels may vary, RPGs provide a low-resource, replicable medium for collective learning and engagement. The minimal written material involved also likely simplifies translation of the game into local languages where necessary (cf. Evans, 2013 ), or localisation to different cultures. The game itself provides a common language for the players, scaffolding discussion of the issues involved among participants with different knowledge bases ( Eisenack, 2013 ), and far from being a hindrance, having participants with different backgrounds and stakeholder positions involved in the game enriches the experience for all players ( Edwards et al., 2019 ).

An RPG therefore presented the ideal serious game format for this project. It provided an opportunity for participants to collaboratively develop critical thinking skills and deal with allegorical scenarios which reflected real-world issues; it required few resources and could easily be played in a range of settings; it was accessible to participants who did not have smartphones, and to those with lower literacy levels; it was easily replicated, both by the facilitators within this project and, potentially, by future projects. For some of the participants with lower literacy levels, the team noted the need to have more than one facilitator while playing. Even when participants did help each other out, it was important to make sure all of them could access all the information available at the same time.

Deciding to create a collaborative, analogue game enabled this project's success, but also changed its course. The team initially included game developers and programmers whose research focused on individual, digital games. As a result of the decision to pursue a RPG, these team members could not implement their initial research agendas and left to other projects. When working with vulnerable communities and designing empirically driven games these changes are to be expected, and researchers working with vulnerable communities are familiar with this risk.

4. Methods and initial results informing the game development

To design the RPG, which is the focus of this article, the team relied on various methods to assess and understand the participants’ needs, as well as to design and implement the RPG. Our approach was ethnographic. The project lasted 18 months (from October 2019 to March 2021). A team of 7 researchers in Brazil (including 2 co-Is and 3 research associates/assistants) and 4 in Scotland (including PI, co-I and 2 research assistants) divided tasks during the lockdown. Some activities needed to be done in situ (e.g., observations, implementation of activities) while others could be done remotely (e.g., design of data collection instruments and of materials for the conversation circles and the game, training of community leaders, and data analyses). By the time travelling between Brazil and Scotland was opened, PI and CIs worked together in Brazil to discuss findings with the participants on site and finish the project.

Once we received ethical approval, we started ethnographic observations (Brazilian team) to build trust and gain entry in four distinct communities (See Section 5 below). Simultaneously, the Scottish team worked remotely on a series of training sessions for local community leaders to act as local researchers. After gaining entry to four sites (3 months), we observed and interacted with participants for 6 months. Based on observations and informal conversations we designed a survey to capture how participants’ get information on COVID-19 and news in general. Each participant could fill the questionnaire with a researcher. Based on the data gathered we designed a semi-structured protocol and conducted a series of semi-structured interviews to explore partcicipants’ perceptions on media, how/to whom they assign trust, how they access news, among other questions. The data collected during the survey and interviews informed the design of two key activities in the project: the conversational circles and the serious game. Interviews and focus groups were conducted at the end of the Conversation Circles sessions and at the end of the game session to explore participants'positions vis à vis fake news.

The characteristics of the participants influenced the project's focus on critical thinking about (fake) news. Findings from initial interviews ( n = 60), conducted by researchers in situ to explore participant's selection of sources of news, showed that broadcast television is the main source of news and information for these communities. There are two main news channels, Globo and Record, with conflicting political leanings, which seemed to split the population into two camps. Interviews suggested a high level of trust towards information gained from either news channel, with some participants triangulating the information by viewing both channels. Word of mouth and WhatsApp are also seen as fairly reliable sources of information. Other sources such as Facebook are viewed as less trustworthy and are treated with some caution. This is a positive sign, indicating some awareness of the spread of misinformation on social media. However, mixed public messaging and the prevalence of scientific denialism within the Brazilian political sphere ( Dall'Alba et al., 2021 ) mean that even information provided through authoritative channels may not be reliable. People also get information through the internet, friends and family. In this environment, critical thinking must extend to all information sources.

Community preferences also informed the design of the game. Interviews with community leaders and representatives suggested that phone-based games are unpopular and that phones are used exclusively for social media, further justifying the use of an analogue RPG rather than a browser- or app-based game. The interviews also highlighted that a game-based learning approach could provoke resistance, as participants might associate the game with gambling and addiction. Most forms of gambling have been banned in Brazil since 2008, but gambling addiction continues to be a problem, and treatment options are few and far between ( Tavares, 2014 ). To avoid any adverse effects on participants, it was important for the project to ensure that the game did not use any mechanics that could resemble gambling or prove addictive, as community members might have refused to take part in the game activity for fear of addiction or for religious reasons.

Therefore, in order to protect participants and to foster open debate, an allegorical story was used for the game. The story, in which players discover and combat a blight in the rainforest, mirrors the COVID-19 pandemic but frees participants from the complex real-world dynamics surrounding it. This is an innovative measure, as serious RPGs (e.g. Morardet & Milhau, 2012 ; Rumore et al., 2016 ; Salvini et al., 2016 ; Schenk, 2014 ; Speelman et al., 2013 ; Villamor & Badmos, 2016 ) tend to replicate real-world scenarios rather than using allegory. This often seems to work well, as participants are able to gain factual knowledge about the issues involved as well as develop critical thinking skills ( Salvini et al., 2016 ; Sautier et al., 2017 ). However, in some cases it has led to non-participation of stakeholders or conflict between players. For example, Hertzog et al. (2014) found that international companies involved in water management refused to participate in a role-playing activity, stating that they were unable to discuss their corporate strategies in public (2014, p.6). Villamor and Badamos, who note the processes of peer pressure at work during their game, quote one participant as saying to another, “We really need to talk after this game; I don't like the way you manage your cows” (2016, p. 7). Future research could consider whether an allegorical approach, as used in the present study, might help to mitigate these frictions.

The research methods used in this research is presented in Fig. 1 .

Methods used.

5. Participants and communities

The project targeted three participant groups in the city of Goiânia: residents from two favelas, members of a recycling cooperative, and people experiencing homelessness (PEH).

For over 100 years, Brazil's metropolitan centres have been characterised by the presence of favelas. No longer properly translated as ‘shanty towns’ or ‘slums’, some favelas have developed into “consolidated urban villages built of masonry and reinforced concrete” ( Cummings, 2015 , p. 1). However, favelas still tend to be densely populated, with high levels of poverty, food insecurity and crime, and are still marginalised within Brazilian society. Fix and Arantes (2021) write that favelas “sum up contradictions and conflicts and simultaneously embody forms of resistance and urban imagination” (2021, p. 13). The most recent census reports that in 2010, over 11 million people or around 6% of the total population of Brazil lived in favelas ( Pereira, 2020 , p. 42).

Informal waste collectors or catadores perform a valuable social function in Brazil, collecting recyclable materials to be sold for processing. However, the work is underpaid, heavily stigmatised and brings significant health risks ( Gutberlet et al., 2013 ). Catadores can find some protection from these issues by organising into cooperatives, which in Brazil are sometimes supported by governmental or nongovernmental organisations (ibid. p.4608). These cooperatives vary in size, level of organisation, and available resources, but they may provide training and safety equipment, and some campaign for better public recognition of the catadores’ work (N. F. Ramos et al., 2013 , p. 235). The cooperative involved in this research supports vulnerable people both by providing them with a stable income and by helping them to gain access to basic services such as vaccination programmes and child support. Catadores must also follow the rules of the cooperative, which mandate PPE and prohibit alcohol or drug use. During the pandemic, additional rules have been put in place to prevent virus transmission. The cooperative experiences high personnel turnover, as catadores move between areas or into other employment.

People experiencing homelessness live in precarious circumstances and often have difficulty accessing healthcare. In Brazil, the situation for PEH has deteriorated in recent years, particularly since 2017, as the result of economic and political instability ( Honorato & Oliveira, 2020 , p. 1065). Brazil's National Policy for the Homeless Population, or Decree 7053/2009, defines PEH as “a heterogeneous population group having in common extreme poverty, interrupted, or weakened family ties, and lack of regular conventional housing, thus using public places and degraded areas as temporary or permanent living spaces, as well as shelters for temporary overnight stays or as temporary housing” (quoted in Nunes et al., 2021 , p. 2). This heterogeneity sets the PEH group apart from the other two target audiences for this study. Favela residents and catadores are likely to have low levels of education, but PEH come from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds and are likely to have had other living and employment situations prior to their experience of homelessness. Nunes et al. (2021) highlight PEH as a complex population with distinct needs which existing public health services rarely meet, and this has remained the case during the pandemic. The charitable organisation that assists PEH involved in this research has delivered thousands of masks and hygiene kits to PEH and provides over 1500 meals per day. They have also worked hard to raise awareness about COVID-19, finding that since PEH are isolated from usual channels of communication, they have limited access to information about the pandemic. In the table below ( Table 1 ) we present the number of participants per site attending the conversation circles and the RPG.

Participants per site.

CC – Number of participants who attended at least 3 of the total of 5 Conversation Circle (CC) sessions.

GS – Number of participants who attended the single Game Session (GS).

Each of these three groups have distinct characteristics, but there is one main commonality: all are particularly at risk from COVID-19. Crowded living conditions in the favelas make social distancing or self-isolation impossible, and facilities for handwashing are often limited or non-existent ( Pereira, 2020 ). For catadores , infections and illness resulting from exposure to contaminated materials have been an issue since before the pandemic (N. F. Ramos et al., 2013 ). For PEH, the exhortation to “stay home” is impossible to follow ( Honorato & Oliveira, 2020 ). All these factors increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission, and measures to raise awareness of safe pandemic behaviour among these populations are vital. This project aimed to contribute to this effort.

The following section briefly discusses the ‘conversation circles’, a series of workshops designed to build the critical thinking skills which participants then need to apply during the serious game.

6. Conversation circles

Before playing the game, participants take part in workshops or ‘conversation circles’ (CCs) designed to develop critical thinking skills and apply them during the game experience. Each of the five CCs begin with a social activity intended to build trust between participants, then progress to activities focused on critical thinking, and end with guided reflection on what has been learned during the session.

The sessions gradually increase in complexity, scaffolding in-depth critical thinking in an accessible and enjoyable way. Learners are given explicit information about critical thinking techniques ( Abrami et al., 2008 ). They are encouraged to apply these techniques to familiar, everyday situations such as deciding which pair of shoes to buy as well as to more abstract topics such as trusting or not trusting a person. After completing the five sessions, participants are well-equipped with conscious critical thinking skills, which they can then apply effectively during the serious game.

Conversation circles and the serious game complement one another in raising awareness on critical thinking. While the CCs included discussion and training for participants, the serious game provided reflection about the content presented in the conversation circles. It also provided the opportunity for participants to work with others as well as to negotiate and plan strategies and courses of action. Games allow for interactive teaching-learning strategies and knowledge construction. Their fun, interactive and cooperative nature encourages group problem solving, one of the project's aims.

7. Facilitating critical thinking in the game

Critical thinking is “a metacognitive process, consisting of a number of sub-skills (e.g., analysis, evaluation and inference) that, when used appropriately, increases the chances of producing a logical conclusion to an argument or solution to a problem” ( Dwyer et al., 2014 , p. 43). One of the earliest attempts to classify the processes involved in critical thinking, Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (1956), identifies six thinking processes, divided into lower-order and higher-order processes. Dwyer et al. note that although more recent work has built on this framework, the six categories of thought defined here remain fundamentally consistent with modern conceptions of thinking (2014, p.43). For Dwyer et al., the six key learning outcomes are memory, comprehension, analysis, evaluation, inference and reflective judgement (ibid, p.43), as can be seen in Fig. 2 . Memory and comprehension facilitate the higher-level thinking skills; analysis, evaluation and inference combine to enable reflective judgement (ibid. p.49). It is this reflective judgement that empowers critical thinkers to reject fake news and make informed decisions on topics such as COVID-19 vaccination or safe pandemic behaviour.

Bloom's taxonomy (adapted from Dwyer et al., 2014 , p.43).

The importance of teaching critical thinking has long been recognised ( Halpern, 2001 ). However, it is notoriously difficult to teach ( Willingham, 2008 ). Approaches to teaching critical thinking, and the success of those approaches, vary widely. Meta-analysis of studies on teaching critical thinking has shown that both the type and the pedagogical basis of the teaching methods used have significant effects on whether and how much participants’ critical thinking improves ( Abrami et al., 2008 , p. 1120). It seems to be particularly important that participants are explicitly told that they are learning critical thinking skills: the least effective interventions were the ones that embedded critical thinking techniques implicitly into course material (ibid., p.1120). Participants in this project were informed during the recruitment process that the conversation circles and game would focus on critical thinking, and so they were aware of the project's goals from the outset.

As demonstrated in the literature review, serious games and game-based learning have been used to teach a wide range of knowledge and skills. Although most games do not explicitly teach critical thinking, many have the requisite complexity to foster it ( Romero et al., 2014 , p. 158) and recent projects are turning towards a specific focus on critical thinking ( Cicchino, 2015 ; Halpern et al., 2012 ; Lee et al., 2016 ; McDonald, 2017 ). In an analysis of 20 studies focused on teaching critical thinking, Mao et al. (2021, p. 19) found that game-based learning (GBL) had a significantly positive impact on players’ critical thinking skills, particularly when the game involved role-playing.

Cicchino (2015) outlines six principles of GBL which a game must fulfil in order to foster critical thinking. Although Cicchino's work mostly comes from elementary school groups, we found these basic principles can be applied to adults, as can be seen in Table 2 .

Adapted from Cicchino, 2015 , pp.3–4.

Within the game setting, these principles led to engagement, collaboration, higher-level (in the Bloom's taxonomy sense) discourse, and a meaningful experience for players. The overall outcomes of a game created based on this framework include deeper and longer-lasting understanding of the content, flexible understanding which can be adapted to new situations, and increased critical thinking skills ( Cicchino, 2015 , p. 4). Since these were the planned outcomes of this project, a game-based learning environment was developed according to these six principles.

In the freeform tabletop roleplaying game, participants take on the roles of traditional Brazilian folk heroes. The story evolves through the actions of the characters, as interpreted by the facilitator, following a basic pattern of play. First, the facilitator sets the scene, providing situations to which players can react. The players then collectively decide how they want to act or respond, and the facilitator describes the effects of these actions on the story. The facilitator has the final say on what happens, ensuring that gameplay never deviates too far from the intended plot. Some of the narrative is emergent, but certain points in the game involve pre-set choices which players must resolve appropriately for the story.

To help structure play for participants unfamiliar with role-play, players are provided with a set of cards describing their character's abilities. Cards were used because they are an effective and compact way of presenting knowledge. The cards include visual elements, which are helpful for players with lower literacy levels, and can be referred to throughout the game. They can also be hidden, which contributes to the communicative aspect of the game: players must share their abilities and knowledge verbally, rather than by showing their character cards to the group. The strengths and weaknesses listed on the cards help players decide on the best course of action for their character.

Players are also provided with a handout which describes the game environment. Like the cards, these use visual representations to ensure that all participants are able to understand the information provided.

The game complies with Cicchino's six principles in the following ways, as can be seen in Table 3 .

Adapted from Cicchino, 2015 .

Participants are thus able to develop transferable critical thinking skills in a safely allegorical environment. The information provided to players is inconsistent between sources, and the players must discuss and interpret it in order to assess its accuracy. This critical approach to new information is an essential skill in a ‘post-truth’ world ( Higgins, 2016 ), and particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

8. Game characters and story

Players take the role of one of five characters based on Brazilian folk heroes. Each character can also be played by two or more participants working together, introducing a further layer of negotiation into play by requiring participants to agree on how their shared character should proceed. This also allows larger groups to take part in the game. Table 4 shows an example of the cards prepared for the game.

Example character.

The character roles were modelled on Brazilian mythological heroes for several reasons. Many of these characters are seen as guardians of nature, which provides logical motivation for them to work together in the story setting. They have diverse skills, knowledge and abilities, meaning that each character can make a unique contribution to the team. Importantly, participants are usually familiar with the characters’ abilities and motives prior to playing the game. Players can use their background knowledge of the characters to decide what they might do within the game, which alleviates some of the difficulty of role-playing for participants new to the format.

The characters’ diverse knowledge bases are central to the game's goal of fostering critical thinking, as players synthesise their characters’ knowledge to solve the problems presented in the story. The characters’ skills and personality are less important to the game mechanics. For example, Saci Pererê's medical knowledge is the most important. If the game were to be translated or localised for other cultures, it would be vital to find characters with the same knowledge bases.

8.1. The story

The characters meet by a river in the rainforest and notice that something is wrong. They work together to cross the river and discover a blight on the trees. The characters investigate the blight by looking at it, smelling, touching or tasting it, or asking forest animals for information. A supernatural white deer, Anhangá, appears, and tells the characters about a kind of medicine that can be used to treat the blight. The characters can acquire this medicine by finding an amulet for Cuca, a mysterious alligator-like creature, or by making it themselves with ingredients they find in the forest. Applying the medicine to the trees cures the blight, but any characters who previously touched the infected trees now discover that they too are infected. They must now discuss whether to take the medicine themselves or not and justify their decision.

9. Results and discussion

The game was developed as a communicative strategy to establish a bridge between researchers and participants, but in a more relaxed and informal environment. Inserting the players in a narrative where they can make decisions based on critical thinking and their own reflections about the pandemic was important to the construction of knowledge in these communities. The nature of the game (playful, interactive and cooperative) helped to focus participants on problem-solving skills and groupwork outside of traditional methodologies, which was part of the project's aim. The game also helped to reinforce many concepts and habits that were discussed during the conversation circles, and it allowed participants to use real-life situations to solve the fictional problems presented by the game's narrative. They were also capable of comparing fictional characters and objects to real life events. Some evidence on these findings will be presented below.

In each community, the participants were separated into groups according to the number of people present during each session. Local researchers narrated the game and facilitated discussions, presenting new cards and scenarios. More dynamic participation from local researchers was necessary to guide the participants during the game as the story evolved. Each of the communities included people with learning difficulties, and facilitators worked to ensure that all participants understood the dynamics of the game.

In many instances, some participants gave suggestions on how to advance the story and their suggestions sometimes came ahead of the facilitator's narrations, as for example, in Buena Vista, even before Anhangá appeared in the story, one participant asked if they had a glove to touch the slime and another commented that there could be a medicine to save the forest from the plague.

In Cooperrama, some participants associated the game with their own personal experiences to solve problems. For example, some participants had knowledge of plants, fungi and they decided to apply the remedy in the game to the soil, since fertilizers are also applied in this way. It was evident that some decisions were made based on participants' environmental awareness, as they work with recyclable materials. Many participants refused to cut down the trees, burn the forest to eliminate the pest or injure animals, even when it was necessary for the game to continue.

In all of the locations, there was suspicion about Cuca's morals. In Brazilian popular culture, Cuca is often presented as a villain and in the game, Cuca is portrayed as a character of dubious morals. In both the cards and the storybook she is described as a character with questionable traits, but she still helps the other characters during their journey.

In the Buena Vista favela , even though they did not fully trust Cuca, the participants believed that trusting Cuca was the best option. One participant compared Cuca to pop culture anti-heroes such as Batman and even joked that if Cuca tried anything against the group, she would be at a disadvantage, five to one, so they could beat her in a fight or tie her up. Another participant also compared Cuca to a bandit who only cares about gold, since at the end of the story, she asks the characters to find the Muiraquitã , an amulet buried in a nearby region. The story does not explain Cuca's intentions, desires or motivations, just that she wants to possess the amulet.

In Cooperama, one participant compared Cuca with Brazilian politicians due to the lack of clarity in their actions. In Vila Lobo, the group unanimously decided to take the medicine because they did not think Cuca was reliable. After some discussion, the second group of PEH chose to go to Cuca for the medicine, because they came to the conclusion that she had knowledge, and also because she is a being that lives in the forest. One participant commented that “she wants good things for the forest too”. In addition, they did not feel confident preparing the remedy, even with the step-by-step procedure.

This evidence shows that participants demonstrated a high degree of creativity, critical thinking and the ability to associate game-based learning with reality. All noted the need to make collective decisions and find shared solutions. Among the observed critical thinking skills, there is an emphasis on the evaluation and analysis phases. In their testimonials gathered at the end of the session, participants talked about the importance of listening to others with respect, of being mindful of different points of view and of making decisions based on dialogue. One participant from the favela Buena Vista stated: “Listen and help friends when they need it… do not think only of yourself… to make decisions, we need to evaluate and always put ourselves in the other's shoes and that for every action there is a reaction”. In the Vila Lobo favela , one participant even made an association between the forest and plague with the current pandemic, stating that we must join forces to fight COVID-19: “If we don't work together, the pandemic will last a long time”. Therefore, the games showed to be efficient in building critical thinking among participants and offering opportunities for socialisation. One participant from Cooperama said: “I learned that you have to discuss to reach an agreement and I learned that people have different opinions. I learned this by having more dialogue with friends”.

It is of course difficult to know whether the observed results will last over time. In a longitudinal game-based study on fake news inoculation, Maertens et al. (2021) found that for a group of participants who were regularly tested on their ability to identify fake news, the increased sensitivity to misinformation generated by the initial intervention lasted for up to three months. However, for participants who were not regularly tested, the effect dissipated within two months. They suggest that the assessments carried out with the first group may have served as ‘booster shots’, reinforcing the initial inoculation (ibid., p.12–13). Inoculation theorists have emphasised the role of boosters in forging long-term resistance to misinformation ( Ivanov et al., 2018 ; Pfau et al., 2006 ).

A game-based intervention, if sufficiently engaging, could provide an organic way of delivering inoculation boosters. For example, in Eisenack's work with the commercially-available board game Keep Cool, some participants found the game so entertaining that they wanted to purchase it (2013, p. 345). Continuing to play the game could refresh the skills these participants gained in the initial intervention and playing the game with other people could spread these skills beyond the project's initial reach. There are some indications that a similar process could occur with this project: game facilitators reported community interest in holding more game sessions. At the time of writing this article, some sites have already completed their second and third rounds of workshops. However, it is unlikely that all participants will be involved in these sessions, and it is possible that those who are not may see their critical thinking skills developed during their involvement in the project degrade over time. Exploring whether this occurs and to what extent would be insightful for a future follow-up study.

10. Limitations of our study, final considerations and call for further research

Snowball/convenience sampling was carried out due to relationships of trust within the communities which worked well for this study. However, this sampling method is not without its limitations. As participants were self-selected, it is possible that those who decided to take part in the study were already interested in critical thinking, an inclination which could make them particularly receptive to learning about it. An entirely random sample might produce different results but, randomization of subjects and experimental design was not the goal of this study.

As previously outlined, this study covered a range of target populations, each with their own characteristics. This meant that for the purpose of this study, one small group of participants could be drawn from each participating site. Using this range of participants demonstrated that the game-based methodology can be effective across different disadvantaged communities. Observational evidence indicates changes in how participants payed attention and listened to others, questioned the sources of information and justified their own claims. Differences in results between the groups, however, may be the result of individual tendencies and cannot be generalised to the wider community. A study focusing exclusively on, for example, PEH or catadores could draw wider conclusions about that community's particular tendencies around critical thinking. This could provide further insights into targeted methods of developing critical thinking with that specific population. There was also some turnover within the groups, as 27% of participants dropped out of the study during the circle conversation sessions. This happened mainly in the Vila Lobó favela , perhaps due to the fact that the facilitator was not a residing member of the community, impacting engagement. This suggests that the involvement of a residing community member as a facilitator is an important aspect of participant engagement.

An important consideration for the wellbeing of participants and the success of the project was to avoid conflict within the game setting. The COVID-19 pandemic and the government's handling thereof are highly-charged emotional issues. Additionally, in Brazil as in many other countries, public opinion is polarised. There were concerns that an open discussion of the pandemic could antagonise participants who support the government at the time or stifle debate if participants felt unable to voice their opinions for fear of others’ reactions. Research has demonstrated that conflicting opinions about the pandemic can even lead to violence ( Jolley & Paterson, 2020 ), and this risk should clearly be avoided at all costs when designing a research project. Consequently, the team decided not to include any statement/situation that might have the slightest potential of creating conflict among participants.

Looking ahead, our team plans to replicate this study in other vulnerable communities of Brazil. Our community partners have articulations with organizations that work with favela residents (such as Central Única das Favelas - CUFA), collectors of recyclable materials (such as the National Movement of Recyclable Materials Collectors - MNCR) and homeless people. Project materials have been developed in English and Portuguese. We also anticipate the possibility to work in other Spanish speaking countries in Latin America.

In sum, this study has contributed to the existing bodies of work on both serious games and critical thinking pedagogy. Previous work on game-based inoculation against fake news has tended to use digital games ( Basol et al., 2021 ; Clever et al., 2020 ; Roozenbeek & van der Linden, 2019 ), and this study has demonstrated that an analogue RPG can provide an accessible, low-resource alternative. It has also shown that using an allegorical game setting rather than a realistic one (such as Hertzog et al., 2014 ) can remain relevant to real-world events while mitigating some of the tension involved in discussion of highly charged issues, as was the case with discussions about self-care during the pandemic in an environment of political polarization. Finally, it has illustrated that a game-based approach to critical thinking can be effective and engaging not just for schoolchildren ( Cicchino, 2015 , p. e.g.; McDonald, 2017 ) but also, as evident from the information on Table 1 , for adult learners with varying levels of literacy and previous critical thinking experience.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Claudia Viviana Angelelli: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Geisa Muller de Campos Ribeiro: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Maico Roris Severino: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Eilidh Johnstone: Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Gana Borzenkova: Data curation, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft. Dayane Costa Oliveira da Silva: Data curation, Investigation, Resources, Visualization.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest regarding this publication.

Acknowledgments

Research reported in this article was supported by United Kingdom Research and Innovation/Global Challenge Research Fund grant AH/V007025/1. Our deepest gratitude goes to the participants from all sites and the local community leaders who worked with us for over twenty-one months.

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Research Roundup: Game-based Learning and Critical Thinking Skills

Using Game-Based Learning to Foster Critical Thinking in Student Discourse

Our first featured study took place in the 8th-grade social studies classroom, where researcher Marc I. Cicchino explored how game-based learning influences critical thinking through student discourse in a traditional classroom setting. Drawing on parallels to problem-based learning , Cicchino’s findings reveal that specific features of the game-based learning intervention , combined with distinct cycles of gameplay, effectively promote higher levels of critical thinking among students.

Notably, Cicchino reports that students developed independent beliefs before engaging in collaborative discourse, indicating a nuanced understanding of critical thinking within the game-based learning context. This study’s insights have implications for game-based learning framework developers, researchers exploring learning games, and educators seeking to integrate games into their classrooms, providing valuable considerations for fostering critical thinking skills in students.

From experiencing to critical thinking: a contextual game-based learning approach to improving nursing students’ performance in Electrocardiogram training

Exploring a novel pedagogical approach for improving nursing students’ performance in Electrocardiogram (ECG) training, this study addresses the challenges associated with memorizing diverse ECG waveforms and their clinical significance. In traditional instruction, learners often struggle with this crucial skill, risking potential life-threatening situations if correct judgments are not made promptly.

Researchers introduced a two-week experiment that compared the learning outcomes of nursing students engaging with a contextual game designed for ECG learning to those receiving traditional instruction. The experimental results revealed that students involved in the contextual game exhibit superior learning performance, attitudes, motivation, and critical thinking tendencies compared to their counterparts undergoing traditional instruction. Given our experience in creating educational games for healthcare and medical contexts , these results don’t surprise us!

A digital role-playing game for learning: effects on critical thinking and motivation

This article delves into how digital role-playing game-based learning impacts high school students’ critical thinking ability and motivation. The study involved 32 participants who engaged in a digital game created with RPG Maker, incorporating critical thinking questions into its storylines . Through a four-day workshop camp, students practiced critical thinking skills while researchers assessed changes in their critical thinking performance and learning motivation. Researchers’ findings showed significant improvements in both overall critical thinking performance and learning motivation among student participants.

Effects of Game-Based Learning on Students’ Critical Thinking: A Meta-Analysis

Through conducting a comprehensive meta-analysis, the researchers of this next study aimed to unravel the impact of game-based learning on students’ critical thinking, delving into 20 empirical studies encompassing 1,947 participants. The results unveiled a substantial positive effect of game-based learning on critical thinking. Notably, role-playing games emerged as the most impactful game type (echoing the study above!). Furthermore, this research highlights the nuanced influence of cultural context , revealing that game-based learning had a more pronounced effect on students in collectivistic countries compared to those in individualistic nations.

Additionally, the study debunked claims suggesting that game-based learning might impede critical thinking through cognitive biases or cognitive load distractions. Overall, this study emphasizes game-based learning’s role in fostering complex problem-solving, diverse strategy exploration , and critical evaluation of decisions!

Game-Based Learning as an Effective Tool for Enhancing Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills

In this article, researchers document the integration of game-based learning as a tool to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills in students, particularly within the context of an online course on “Internet Applications.” By incorporating a role-playing game divided into two stages, the researchers aimed to create an engaging and collaborative learning experience.

The results indicated a positive reception from participants, with 77% of students expressing enjoyment, deep engagement, and satisfaction with the game as a learning tool. The collaborative nature of the game, where students worked together to solve a common problem, contributed to the development of critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and enhanced understanding of the course concepts. This study’s conclusion supports the efficacy of game-based learning in fostering thriving communities of practice, improving student learning outcomes, and providing a motivating and engaging environment for collaborative interaction in online classrooms.

The effects of digital storytelling games on high school students’ critical thinking skills

In a quest to enhance critical thinking skills among high school students, this study introduced Ren’py software as a digital storytelling (DST) tool within the framework of a civics education course named “Thinking Utopia.” The 9-week course involved 46 students working collaboratively in groups of 3 to 4, engaging in activities focused on designing DST games.

Although quantitative analysis of critical thinking test scores showed no significant improvement, qualitative insights from interviews revealed a consensus among students. They acknowledged that the collaborative game script writing and the design of original hurdle questions indeed sparked their critical thinking abilities while fostering other essential skills like communication, problem-solving, and media literacy . This article contributes not only a model course plan for integrating game-based design into civics education , but also provides insight into the multifaceted impact on students’ critical thinking and learning experiences in collaborative settings.

The evidence is clear—game-based learning acts as a powerful catalyst for fostering critical thinking abilities! If you’re intrigued and would like to create a custom learning game for your specific educational endeavors, we encourage you to reach out to us . Harness the power of play to unlock new heights of critical thinking in any learning environment !

More compelling game-based learning research:

Research Roundup: Video Games and Civic Engagement

Research Roundup: AR and VR for Education and Training

Research Roundup: Personalized Learning and Game-based Learning for K-12 Students

FGP 18: Season One Finale

Welcome to the season one finale! We want to extend a heartfelt thank you for listening to the first season of the Filament Games Podcast. We enjoyed releasing each episode and reading your Tweets, Facebook comments, and notes on Soundcloud. Rest assured, we will be back with season two before the end of 2016. If…

Filament Games | Educational Game Developer

Top 10 Hashtags for Amplifying your EdTech and Game-Based Learning Tweets

How many times have you written the perfect Tweet, only for it to seemingly slip by completely unnoticed by your friends, fans, and followers? That never feels good, does it? With more than 500 million new Tweets sent each day, it’s easy to see why your content might sometimes be unseen or underappreciated by others. But…

Work Life is Atlassian’s flagship publication dedicated to unleashing the potential of every team through real-life advice, inspiring stories, and thoughtful perspectives from leaders around the world.

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Principal Writer

How to build critical thinking skills for better decision-making

It’s simple in theory, but tougher in practice – here are five tips to get you started.

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Have you heard the riddle about two coins that equal thirty cents, but one of them is not a nickel? What about the one where a surgeon says they can’t operate on their own son?

Those brain teasers tap into your critical thinking skills. But your ability to think critically isn’t just helpful for solving those random puzzles – it plays a big role in your career.

An impressive 81% of employers say critical thinking carries a lot of weight when they’re evaluating job candidates. It ranks as the top competency companies consider when hiring recent graduates (even ahead of communication ). Plus, once you’re hired, several studies show that critical thinking skills are highly correlated with better job performance.

So what exactly are critical thinking skills? And even more importantly, how do you build and improve them?

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate facts and information, remain objective, and make a sound decision about how to move forward.

Does that sound like how you approach every decision or problem? Not so fast. Critical thinking seems simple in theory but is much tougher in practice, which helps explain why 65% of employers say their organization has a need for more critical thinking.

In reality, critical thinking doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us. In order to do it well, you need to:

Remain open-minded and inquisitive, rather than relying on assumptions or jumping to conclusions
Ask questions and dig deep, rather than accepting information at face value
Keep your own biases and perceptions in check to stay as objective as possible
Rely on your emotional intelligence to fill in the blanks and gain a more well-rounded understanding of a situation

So, critical thinking isn’t just being intelligent or analytical. In many ways, it requires you to step outside of yourself, let go of your own preconceived notions, and approach a problem or situation with curiosity and fairness.

It’s a challenge, but it’s well worth it. Critical thinking skills will help you connect ideas, make reasonable decisions, and solve complex problems.

7 critical thinking skills to help you dig deeper

Critical thinking is often labeled as a skill itself (you’ll see it bulleted as a desired trait in a variety of job descriptions). But it’s better to think of critical thinking less as a distinct skill and more as a collection or category of skills.

To think critically, you’ll need to tap into a bunch of your other soft skills. Here are seven of the most important.

Open-mindedness

It’s important to kick off the critical thinking process with the idea that anything is possible. The more you’re able to set aside your own suspicions, beliefs, and agenda, the better prepared you are to approach the situation with the level of inquisitiveness you need.

That means not closing yourself off to any possibilities and allowing yourself the space to pull on every thread – yes, even the ones that seem totally implausible.

As Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D. writes in a piece for Psychology Today , “Even if an idea appears foolish, sometimes its consideration can lead to an intelligent, critically considered conclusion.” He goes on to compare the critical thinking process to brainstorming . Sometimes the “bad” ideas are what lay the foundation for the good ones.

Open-mindedness is challenging because it requires more effort and mental bandwidth than sticking with your own perceptions. Approaching problems or situations with true impartiality often means:

Practicing self-regulation : Giving yourself a pause between when you feel something and when you actually react or take action.
Challenging your own biases: Acknowledging your biases and seeking feedback are two powerful ways to get a broader understanding.

Critical thinking example

In a team meeting, your boss mentioned that your company newsletter signups have been decreasing and she wants to figure out why.

At first, you feel offended and defensive – it feels like she’s blaming you for the dip in subscribers. You recognize and rationalize that emotion before thinking about potential causes. You have a hunch about what’s happening, but you will explore all possibilities and contributions from your team members.

Observation

Observation is, of course, your ability to notice and process the details all around you (even the subtle or seemingly inconsequential ones). Critical thinking demands that you’re flexible and willing to go beyond surface-level information, and solid observation skills help you do that.

Your observations help you pick up on clues from a variety of sources and experiences, all of which help you draw a final conclusion. After all, sometimes it’s the most minuscule realization that leads you to the strongest conclusion.

Over the next week or so, you keep a close eye on your company’s website and newsletter analytics to see if numbers are in fact declining or if your boss’s concerns were just a fluke.

Critical thinking hinges on objectivity. And, to be objective, you need to base your judgments on the facts – which you collect through research. You’ll lean on your research skills to gather as much information as possible that’s relevant to your problem or situation.

Keep in mind that this isn’t just about the quantity of information – quality matters too. You want to find data and details from a variety of trusted sources to drill past the surface and build a deeper understanding of what’s happening.

You dig into your email and website analytics to identify trends in bounce rates, time on page, conversions, and more. You also review recent newsletters and email promotions to understand what customers have received, look through current customer feedback, and connect with your customer support team to learn what they’re hearing in their conversations with customers.

The critical thinking process is sort of like a treasure hunt – you’ll find some nuggets that are fundamental for your final conclusion and some that might be interesting but aren’t pertinent to the problem at hand.

That’s why you need analytical skills. They’re what help you separate the wheat from the chaff, prioritize information, identify trends or themes, and draw conclusions based on the most relevant and influential facts.

It’s easy to confuse analytical thinking with critical thinking itself, and it’s true there is a lot of overlap between the two. But analytical thinking is just a piece of critical thinking. It focuses strictly on the facts and data, while critical thinking incorporates other factors like emotions, opinions, and experiences.

As you analyze your research, you notice that one specific webpage has contributed to a significant decline in newsletter signups. While all of the other sources have stayed fairly steady with regard to conversions, that one has sharply decreased.

You decide to move on from your other hypotheses about newsletter quality and dig deeper into the analytics.

One of the traps of critical thinking is that it’s easy to feel like you’re never done. There’s always more information you could collect and more rabbit holes you could fall down.

But at some point, you need to accept that you’ve done your due diligence and make a decision about how to move forward. That’s where inference comes in. It’s your ability to look at the evidence and facts available to you and draw an informed conclusion based on those.

When you’re so focused on staying objective and pursuing all possibilities, inference can feel like the antithesis of critical thinking. But ultimately, it’s your inference skills that allow you to move out of the thinking process and onto the action steps.

You dig deeper into the analytics for the page that hasn’t been converting and notice that the sharp drop-off happened around the same time you switched email providers.

After looking more into the backend, you realize that the signup form on that page isn’t correctly connected to your newsletter platform. It seems like anybody who has signed up on that page hasn’t been fed to your email list.

Communication

3 ways to improve your communication skills at work

If and when you identify a solution or answer, you can’t keep it close to the vest. You’ll need to use your communication skills to share your findings with the relevant stakeholders – like your boss, team members, or anybody who needs to be involved in the next steps.

Your analysis skills will come in handy here too, as they’ll help you determine what information other people need to know so you can avoid bogging them down with unnecessary details.

In your next team meeting, you pull up the analytics and show your team the sharp drop-off as well as the missing connection between that page and your email platform. You ask the web team to reinstall and double-check that connection and you also ask a member of the marketing team to draft an apology email to the subscribers who were missed.

Problem-solving

Critical thinking and problem-solving are two more terms that are frequently confused. After all, when you think critically, you’re often doing so with the objective of solving a problem.

The best way to understand how problem-solving and critical thinking differ is to think of problem-solving as much more narrow. You’re focused on finding a solution.

In contrast, you can use critical thinking for a variety of use cases beyond solving a problem – like answering questions or identifying opportunities for improvement. Even so, within the critical thinking process, you’ll flex your problem-solving skills when it comes time to take action.

Once the fix is implemented, you monitor the analytics to see if subscribers continue to increase. If not (or if they increase at a slower rate than you anticipated), you’ll roll out some other tests like changing the CTA language or the placement of the subscribe form on the page.

5 ways to improve your critical thinking skills

Beyond the buzzwords: Why interpersonal skills matter at work

Think critically about critical thinking and you’ll quickly realize that it’s not as instinctive as you’d like it to be. Fortunately, your critical thinking skills are learned competencies and not inherent gifts – and that means you can improve them. Here’s how:

Practice active listening: Active listening helps you process and understand what other people share. That’s crucial as you aim to be open-minded and inquisitive.
Ask open-ended questions: If your critical thinking process involves collecting feedback and opinions from others, ask open-ended questions (meaning, questions that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no”). Doing so will give you more valuable information and also prevent your own biases from influencing people’s input.
Scrutinize your sources: Figuring out what to trust and prioritize is crucial for critical thinking. Boosting your media literacy and asking more questions will help you be more discerning about what to factor in. It’s hard to strike a balance between skepticism and open-mindedness, but approaching information with questions (rather than unquestioning trust) will help you draw better conclusions.
Play a game: Remember those riddles we mentioned at the beginning? As trivial as they might seem, games and exercises like those can help you boost your critical thinking skills. There are plenty of critical thinking exercises you can do individually or as a team .
Give yourself time: Research shows that rushed decisions are often regrettable ones. That’s likely because critical thinking takes time – you can’t do it under the wire. So, for big decisions or hairy problems, give yourself enough time and breathing room to work through the process. It’s hard enough to think critically without a countdown ticking in your brain.

Critical thinking really is critical

The ability to think critically is important, but it doesn’t come naturally to most of us. It’s just easier to stick with biases, assumptions, and surface-level information.

But that route often leads you to rash judgments, shaky conclusions, and disappointing decisions. So here’s a conclusion we can draw without any more noodling: Even if it is more demanding on your mental resources, critical thinking is well worth the effort.

Advice, stories, and expertise about work life today.

Role of Educational Games in Developing Critical Thinking Skills

by Skill Prepare | Jan 2, 2024 | Blog

In the landscape of education, the integration of educational games has emerged as a pivotal tool in enhancing critical thinking skills among learners. Critical thinking, a cornerstone of intellectual development and problem-solving, is increasingly recognized as a vital skill in the 21st century. This comprehensive exploration delves into how educational games are not just a source of entertainment but a powerful medium for cultivating analytical, evaluative, and creative thinking in students of all ages.

The Essence of Critical Thinking in Education

Critical thinking involves the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas. It’s about being active, rather than passive, in learning – questioning, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or a conclusion. In the context of education, critical thinking is essential for students to navigate through the vast sea of information available today, discerning fact from opinion, and making informed decisions.

This skill is not innate; it must be nurtured and developed. In an educational setting, critical thinking goes beyond mere memorization or the regurgitation of facts. It involves encouraging students to question the status quo, challenge traditional thought processes, and look beyond the surface of apparent truths. This approach to learning fosters a deeper understanding of the material, enabling students to apply their knowledge in various contexts, both academic and real-world.

Critical Thinking In Education

Critical thinking in education is also about cultivating an open-mindedness, where students are encouraged to consider multiple perspectives and respect differing viewpoints. This aspect is particularly important in our increasingly globalized world, where understanding and empathy across cultures and ideologies are paramount. By fostering an environment where debate and discussion are not just allowed but encouraged, educators can help students develop the ability to analyze complex issues, identify biases, and think independently.

Moreover, critical thinking is closely tied to problem-solving skills. In the classroom, students faced with complex problems must learn to break these down into manageable parts, systematically analyze each component, and synthesize this information to form a coherent solution. This process is crucial not only in academic success but also in personal and professional life, where problem-solving is a highly valued skill.

Educational Games: A Catalyst for Critical Thinking

Critical thinking, a skill vital for navigating the complexities of the modern world, is increasingly being nurtured through innovative educational tools like video games and virtual reality (VR). These platforms offer unique opportunities for immersive learning and the development of critical thinking skills.

Video Games as Tools for Critical Thinking

Interactive Problem-Solving : Video games often present complex problems that require players to think critically and devise strategies. This interactive problem-solving encourages learners to engage deeply with the content, applying logic and reasoning to overcome challenges.
Scenario-Based Learning : Many video games are designed around specific scenarios, which can range from historical events to futuristic simulations. These scenarios require players to analyze situations, consider various factors, and make decisions that can alter the game’s outcome, mirroring real-life decision-making processes.
Adaptive Challenges : Video games can adapt to the player’s skill level, offering more challenging tasks as the player progresses. This adaptability ensures that learners are continuously pushed to expand their critical thinking abilities.
Feedback and Reflection : Video games provide immediate feedback on the player’s actions, allowing for reflection and adjustment of strategies. This feedback loop is essential in developing critical thinking, as it helps learners understand the consequences of their decisions.

The Role of VR in Enhancing Critical Thinking

Immersive Learning Environments : VR creates immersive, realistic environments where learners can interact with the virtual world. This immersion provides a rich context for developing critical thinking skills, as learners can experience and manipulate complex systems in a lifelike setting.
Safe Space for Experimentation : VR offers a safe environment for experimentation, where learners can test hypotheses and explore different approaches without real-world risks. This freedom encourages experimentation and innovation, key components of critical thinking.
Enhanced Engagement : The immersive nature of VR captures the learner’s full attention, enhancing engagement with the educational content. Engaged learners are more likely to invest effort in critical thinking and problem-solving.
Real-World Application : VR can simulate real-world scenarios, providing learners with practical experiences in a virtual setting. This application helps bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world practice, enhancing the learner’s ability to apply critical thinking skills in practical situations.

Integrating Video Games and VR into Critical Thinking Education

Curriculum Design : Incorporating video games and VR into the curriculum requires careful planning to ensure that these tools align with educational objectives and enhance critical thinking skills.
Teacher Training : Educators need to be trained in using these technologies effectively. Understanding how to guide students in reflecting on their gaming experiences is crucial for the development of critical thinking.
Balancing Traditional and Innovative Methods : While video games and VR are powerful tools, they should be used in conjunction with traditional teaching methods to provide a balanced and comprehensive educational experience.
Assessment and Evaluation : Developing methods to assess and evaluate the critical thinking skills gained through video games and VR is essential. This assessment ensures that the learning objectives are being met and provides insights into how these tools can be improved.

Types of Educational Games Enhancing Critical Thinking

Puzzle-Based Games: Players actively engage in solving puzzles or navigating mazes in these games. They don’t just passively observe; they immerse themselves in challenges that sharpen their pattern recognition, boost their logical reasoning, and enhance their sequential thinking skills. Each puzzle presents a unique problem, requiring players to apply critical thinking to devise solutions.

Strategy Games: These games demand active planning and resource management from players. They don’t simply play; they strategize, think ahead, anticipate outcomes, and develop tactics to achieve specific goals. Players learn to manage limited resources, respond to changing scenarios, and make decisions that have long-term implications, mirroring real-life strategic planning.

Simulation Games: In these games, players don’t just mimic real-life scenarios; they immerse themselves in them. They experiment with different strategies and directly experience the outcomes of their decisions in a controlled, simulated environment. This hands-on approach allows players to understand complex systems and the consequences of their actions, enhancing their ability to apply critical thinking in real-world contexts.

Role-Playing Games (RPGs): RPGs don’t just tell a story; they put players right in the middle of character-driven narratives. Players make choices that significantly affect the game’s outcome, fostering a deep sense of empathy and ethical reasoning. As they navigate through the game’s storyline, players develop a deeper understanding of different perspectives and the impact of their decisions on the narrative and characters involved.

Benefits of Educational Games in Developing Critical Thinking

Engagement and Motivation: Games capture students’ attention and make learning fun. They motivate students to explore and understand deeper aspects of the subject matter. This active engagement transforms learning from a chore into an adventure.

Immediate Feedback: Educational games offer real-time responses to students’ actions. Students see the results of their decisions right away. They learn to connect actions with consequences quickly. This immediate feedback loop encourages them to think critically and adjust their strategies on the fly.

Safe Environment for Experimentation: Games provide a secure space for trial and error. Students feel free to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them. They test different hypotheses and problem-solving methods without the fear of real-world repercussions. This freedom boosts their confidence in tackling complex problems.

Development of Soft Skills: Educational games do more than sharpen critical thinking. They actively foster essential soft skills. Students develop better communication, learn to collaborate effectively, and adapt to new challenges. These skills are crucial for success both inside and outside the classroom.

Implementing Educational Games in the Classroom

Align Games with Educational Objectives: Educators must select games that align with learning goals. They should choose games that challenge students and complement the curriculum. This alignment ensures that gaming is not just for fun but serves an educational purpose.

Facilitate Guided Reflection: Teachers must lead post-game discussions. These discussions are key for students to reflect on their gaming experiences. They help students articulate their decision-making processes. This reflection deepens their understanding of the concepts learned.

Encourage Collaborative Play: Teachers should organize group gaming sessions. These sessions build teamwork skills. They expose students to different viewpoints. This exposure broadens their perspectives and sharpens their critical thinking.

Use Games as Supplementary Tools: Educators should integrate games with traditional teaching methods. Games should not replace but complement standard teaching techniques. This approach ensures a balanced and comprehensive educational experience.

Maximizing the Impact of Educational Games on Critical Thinking

Choose Games Wisely: Teachers must select games that challenge and engage. The right game can turn complex concepts into exciting challenges. It should align with curriculum goals and stimulate critical thinking.

Integrate Games with Curriculum: Teachers need to weave games into the curriculum seamlessly. They should use games to reinforce and expand on lesson topics. This integration makes learning cohesive and comprehensive.

Monitor and Guide Gameplay: Teachers should actively monitor gameplay. They must guide students to ensure productive gaming sessions. This oversight helps students stay focused on educational objectives.

Encourage Reflective Thinking: After gameplay, teachers should prompt students to reflect. They should ask questions that provoke thought about the game’s lessons. This reflection helps students internalize and apply what they’ve learned.

Provide Diverse Gaming Experiences: Teachers need to offer a variety of games. Different games develop different aspects of critical thinking. Variety keeps students engaged and caters to diverse learning styles.

Challenges and Considerations

Ensuring Educational Value: Educators must carefully choose games. They need to pick games with rich educational content. This selection ensures that students gain real learning value, not just entertainment.

Balancing Screen Time: Teachers must balance digital and non-digital activities. Too much screen time can be counterproductive. They should mix gaming with traditional learning methods. This balance keeps students engaged and prevents digital fatigue.

Accessibility and Inclusivity: Games must cater to all students. They should suit various learning styles and abilities. This inclusivity ensures every student benefits, regardless of their unique needs or challenges.

Educational games actively develop critical thinking skills, offering an interactive, engaging, and enjoyable approach to enhancing cognitive abilities. They prepare students for the complexities of the modern world. As education evolves, integrating well-designed educational games into learning environments becomes increasingly crucial. These games play a significant role in shaping future generations of critical thinkers. They transform traditional learning methods, making critical thinking a core component of education. Students not only learn but also apply their knowledge in dynamic scenarios. This application fosters a deeper understanding and a more profound ability to analyze and solve problems. Educational games are not just tools; they are gateways to a world where thinking critically is both a skill and an adventure.

Kids Channel
Parents & Teachers

How Video Games Can Help Children Develop Critical Thinking Skills

To relax and kill time, video games have become a popular pastime. The impact of video games on children’s cognitive development, especially in the area of critical thinking, has been debated for some time. In this article, we’ll look at the ways in which kids can benefit from playing video games that encourage them to think critically.

A Definition of Critical Thinking.

The ability to reason logically and make sound decisions based on evidence is known as critical thinking. It’s a key ability for solving problems and making choices in life. Children who learn to think critically will be better able to handle challenges and make wise decisions as adults.

Why and how video games can help you think critically

Playing video games can be a great way to exercise one’s critical thinking skills because of the environment they present. In order to advance through the game, players often have to use their critical thinking skills to solve puzzles, choose appropriate strategies, and evaluate data. Having these abilities is crucial for improving one’s critical thinking.

Some concrete examples of how video games can foster analytical thinking in kids are as follows:

First, the ability to think critically and creatively is fostered by the problem-solving nature of many video games. Players will need to utilize critical thinking abilities like analysis, evaluation, and synthesis to overcome challenges.

Second, the ability to make good decisions is essential in video games because players are frequently given multiple paths to take with varying outcomes. Players need to think analytically about the consequences of their actions in order to make the most informed decisions.

Third, strategy: to succeed in many games, you’ll need to come up with and put into action a plan. Planning, prioritizing, and analyzing the available resources are all examples of critical thinking skills that will be needed.

Fourth, the ability to analyze and make sense of complex situations is essential in the gaming industry. To be successful, players need to employ critical thinking skills and dissect these systems.

Gaining proficiency in critical thinking has many advantages.

There are many positive outcomes for a child’s academic and social development when they acquire critical thinking skills through gaming. Some examples are as follows:

Students who are able to think critically about their schoolwork and grasp difficult concepts at a younger age perform better in school.

Enhanced Personal Decision-Making: Children who practice critical thinking grow up to make better choices about their health, safety, and relationships.

Children who practice critical thinking grow up to be better problem solvers in all walks of life, from their personal relationships to their careers.

Children who learn to think critically are more likely to grow up to be creative problem solvers because they have the tools to think outside the box.

In conclusion, video games can be a great way for kids to exercise their brains and learn to think critically. Children can learn to handle difficult situations and make educated decisions by practicing problem solving, decision making, strategy, and analytical thinking. Video games can be a fun and effective way for children to develop critical thinking skills, so parents and teachers should think about incorporating them into their children’s learning experiences.

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5 Games for Building Critical Thinking Skills

alfordabby's Blog

Games can be more than just a fun way to pass time; they can stimulate your brain and help you develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is the ability to examine information rationally and make a logical judgment based on your analysis. Critical thinking skills help us solve problems, make good decisions, and understand the consequences of our actions.

In this blog, we discuss five of our favorite games to improve critical thinking skills and sharpen the mind.

Chess is the most widely played board game of all time. Your goal in chess is to get a checkmate by getting your opponent’s king into a position where it can be captured and cannot be freed by your opponent’s next move. To win, you must use critical thinking and problem-solving skills to decide which pieces to move to yield the best results on the board.

Chess is all about thinking strategically, anticipating consequences, weighing options, and making strategic decisions. If you want to beat your opponent, you’ve got to get your mental muscles moving!

2. 4 in a Row

4 in a Row is a classic strategy game that encourages players to think strategically with every move to trick and beat their opponent. The objective of the game is to connect four pieces horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Like Chess, you’ll have to plan your moves in advance to stump your opponent.

Identifying patterns and thinking ahead are both key critical thinking skills and 4 in a Row teaches both.

3. Backgammon

Despite being one of the oldest known board games, Backgammon is still one of the most popular critical thinking games. The objective of the game is to move all your checker pieces off the board and into one of the boxes on the right side.

Playing Backgammon can help teach basic arithmetic as well as more complicated themes like probability and luck. The game teaches players to not rely on pure luck by using strategies and tactics to overcome a bad roll. Players must use critical thinking skills to think ahead and identify patterns to determine the least damaging move and what move will give them an advantage if their opponent has a good roll.

2048 is a single-player puzzle game that encourages players to plan ahead and think strategically. The objective of the game is to join the numbers to get a single tile to be 2048.

2048 requires you to use critical thinking skills to identify the best way to move a tile to generate the number 2048. The game also promotes strategic planning to maximize your time before you run out of moves.

To further improve your critical thinking skills and make the game more challenging, consider setting a time limit.

5. Minesweeper

This single-player puzzle game teaches pattern recognition and deductive reasoning. Minesweeper is a game rooted in logic, problem solving, and deduction. The objective of the game is to clear all the squares on the board that don’t have mines and flag all the mines in the shortest time possible.

Minesweeper teaches pattern recognition as you’ll learn how to look at a series of numbers and figure out what the numbers mean when they’re in a specific order. The more you play the more you’ll pick up on different patterns and the quicker you’ll be able to solve deduction-based problems.

This goes to show that games are not just a form of entertainment. The right games can also be intellectually stimulating and improve critical thinking skills. To further improve your critical thinking skills while having fun at the same time, check out our favorite thinking games to put your critical thinking skills to the test and train your brain.

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.

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7 Games for Critical Thinking that Add Play to Your Day

7 fun games for the classroom that promote critical thinking and problem solving skills. These games are great for literacy and math centers, morning tubs, indoor recess, and small groups!

Let’s talk about the importance of PLAY and games in our classrooms today. Do you agree with the following?

Learning should be fun.

Learning should be engaging.

Learning should be JOYFUL!

I thought so! For children (and adults) play is a key the way the brain learns. When our students complete puzzles, they are working on problem-solving skills. When they play a game with rules to follow, they are learning how to cooperate and interact with others. When they play against an opponent, they are learning how to develop strategies, predict outcomes, and use logical thinking skills. What a better way to squeeze in play than with critical thinking games in the classroom? In this post, I’ll share seven of my favorite critical thinking games for primary students.

For your convenience, I’ve added links to the materials I talk about within the blog post. These are Amazon Affiliate links. This just means Amazon tosses a few cents my way if you make a purchase with the links – at absolutely, positively, no extra cost to you! These little links help me to continue sharing ideas, freebies, and giveaways with you on the site.

Finding Time for Games in the Classroom

Time. It’s a four-letter word that teachers across the world have a love-hate relationship with. “There’s not enough time!” is a phrase one will frequently hear from a kindergarten teacher as much as a middle school teacher. We know that our students need time to play and have fun in school. We know that games promote SO MANY wonderful skills and brain-friendly challenges for our students. In addition to Pinterest, teaching blogs, IG, and educational websites, I like to turn to the shelves of stores such as Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us for critical thinking games that my students will love to play! There are TONS of educational and high-quality games that you can find pre-assembled and ready to go- for a great price! So, when can we squeeze games into the classroom? Below are some of my favorite times to add board games and mind-challenging games into our schedule:

Morning Work
Small Groups
Indoor Recess
Friday Game Days (Use small group time or morning work time for games!)
Math Centers
Literacy Centers
Word Work Centers

Teaching Students How to Play

It’s important to model how to play each game with your students. The critical thinking games I am going to share in this post take a lot of brain energy! They are designed to be fun- but challenging- for your students. As a result, don’t expect students to pick up how to play instantly and be able to independently play the games right away. I like to model and play the games with my students at the small group table. For example, every time I introduce a new Brainamin short or long vowel game as a word work center for my students, we play it at the small group table. I do this for math and literacy centers, too. In this way, I can correctly show students the materials, the rules, and I can even play with them to model my thinking and let them hear what I am thinking as I strategize my next moves and make decisions throughout the game. When students have had ample time to play and see how the game works WITH you, they will be more confident and have more fun when they play with their friends and classmates.

Organizing Your Games

Whenever possible, I like to get rid of the boxes the games come in and put them into plastic tubs. The boxes just seem to deteriorate over time, and the lids on the plastic bins help us keep everything tidy and organized. I use many of my critical thinking games during morning work time on Mondays and Fridays and during math and literacy centers. (On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays we use my See, Think, Wonder, Write routine for morning work .) I will be sharing more about my morning tub time (or what I like to call, Brain Bins) in future blog posts. For now, you can find the bins I use to store my critical thinking games in the links below. You’ll find two sizes of bins. For games that have a board game to them, I like to use the larger, flatter bins. For card games or other critical thinking materials such as the toys and activities I mentioned in this post , I use the medium bins because they take up less space and are really deep!

Medium Bins:

Now, let’s get started learning about seven really fun games that you can use for centers in your classroom. These games will challenge your students’ minds, while encouraging them to use problem-solving, critical thinking, logical thinking, deductive reasoning skills, and most importantly, have fun learning!

Hoot Owl Hoot

If you teach little ones, Hoot Owl Hoot is a MUST. Hoot Owl Hoot is designed by a company called Peaceable Kingdom. This is an award-winning game that focuses on cooperative play. (The game won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award.) The object of the game is to help the owls fly back to their nest before the sun comes up. Students use color cards to move the owls closer to the nest. If they draw a sun card, they are one step closer to daylight. The BEST part of this game? EVERYONE wins! That’s right. The students must work together to get all of the owls to their nest. Whether you have a preschooler at home or teach kindergarten or first grade, this is a great game for kids! On top of the cooperative play, students have to use problem-solving skills and shared decision-making skills to be successful. It’s truly a wonderful game that challenges little ones’ thinking skills while having fun with friends!

SEQUENCE LETTERS

Sequence Letters is a game designed for ages 4-7, making it the perfect literacy and word work center for the kindergarten and first-grade classroom. To play, students name the letter on their card, say the sound for that letter, and then match it to a picture on the board that begins with that letter sound. The object is to get five of your game tokens in a row on the board. Can we talk about how perfect this game is for an intervention group or kindergarten small reading lesson?! What I love even more is that the letter cards feature the letter in both uppercase and lowercase, so students are seeing both forms every time they play. Sequence Letters is a game that every primary teacher needs to add to their classrooms!

SEQUENCE FOR KIDS

Sequence for Kids is another version in the Sequence games line-up. This is a great critical thinking game for students who cannot yet read, and it makes the perfect indoor recess game for strategy skills! At first, the initial concept of the game seems TOO easy: Students simply place a token on the picture on the board that matches the picture on their card. When a player gets four tokens in a row, he or she wins. Don’t let this game fool you! There is a lot of thinking-rich strategy skills involved when playing this game. You see, in addition to the picture cards, there are also unicorn and dragon cards. A unicorn card allows you to place your game token anywhere on the board. A dragon card allows you to remove an opponent’s game token. Now, you’ve got a game that involves some “if this…then that” thinking! Which, my friends, are the games I love for kids! You can find Sequence for Kids below:

Brain-Freeze

If you don’t own Brain-Freeze , RUN and get it! It is not only engaging, fun, and child-friendly, but it is the perfect strategy game for young students ages 5 and up. Brain-Freeze reminds me of a cooler version of Guess Who for kids. It also builds mental skills such as memory, deductive-reasoning, and strategy skills. It received multiple awards for children and only takes about 15 minutes to play. That amount of playing time makes it an ideal game to place in a literacy center or math center for kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade students. To play, one child chooses a sweet treat off of the “menu” and circles characteristics of the treat on their game board. The other child guesses and asks questions about what the sweet treat is, just like in the game, Guess Who? Using a dry-erase marker, the player who is guessing crosses out and eliminates different choices based on the clues and the answers the first player gives. The object is to correctly guess the sweet treat the first player secretly chose at the beginning of the game. This game is also wonderful for asking questions and using inference skills! Find it here:

On the Dot: 7 fun games for the classroom that promote critical thinking and problem solving skills. These games are great for literacy and math centers, morning tubs, indoor recess, and small groups!

Let’s move on to some more challenging games. These next few games are great for second-grade and up. On the Dot is a challenging puzzle game that requires focus, creative thinking, and an ability to look at things from new perspectives. It’s a true brainteaser that students will love! To play, students choose two transparent cards. The cards have colored dots on them. The student must rotate, flip, turn, or overlap the cards in order to get the dots on both cards to match up. This game is great for building and practicing logical thinking, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving. With 60 different puzzles to match up, On the Dot is a game that can stay in your bins for a long time!

Swish: 7 fun games for the classroom that promote critical thinking and problem solving skills. These games are great for literacy and math centers, morning tubs, indoor recess, and small groups!

Swish is a game designed for ages 8 and up. It reminds me of On the Dot with transparent cards and colored hoops, or circles. Players take turns stacking and matching up the colored cards. When a match is made, the player keeps both cards. The player with the most matches wins. After playing this game a few times, I decided the Swish Junior game would be the best version to start with in the primary classroom. The pace would go faster and kindergarten and first-grade students would feel more confident and successful. In the Junior version (ages 5+), players layer or stack two or more transparent cards to make a match. The cards have shapes on them in various colors and sizes, making it a much better game for primary students! The Junior version would be great for building spatial reasoning skills and promoting shape recognition. You can find the Swish Junior version below:

For my last critical thinking game, I can’t get enough of my Brainamin games! In this post, I’ll feature the CVC-e and long vowel edition , but I also have a Brainamin Short Vowel Bundle and a B rainamin Vowel Teams Bundle available, too. This is one of the best games to add to a morning tub or literacy center, and it’s certainly fun to use as a small group warm-up game! If you have students who are struggling with decoding and phonics skills, these games also make a nice change of pace for an intervention group. To play, students flip over two cards: a word card, and a picture card. The students will scan the cards and find the matching word and picture, as shown below:

There is only one match, so the students must think fast and be the first person to find it. The student who finds the match first gets to keep both cards in his or her pile. The student who has the most matches in his or her pile at the end of the game wins. (You can also just play for fun and not keep “score” using the matches.) Let’s play again. Can you find the matching word and picture in the cards shown below?

Brainamin long vowel (cvc-e) phonics and decoding game

SO fun, right?! What I love MOST about Brainamin is that you can play with a group of students, or with just two students. In fact, students can even play against themselves as an independent game as they race to find the matches among the deck of cards. Brainamin not only improves phonics skills but it also works on visual discrimination skills, critical thinking skills, deductive reasoning, decoding, and fluency for word recall. You can find the different Brainamin bundles and games that I have available by below:

Brainamin Short Vowels (cvc words)
Brainamin Long Vowels (cvc-e words)
Brainamin Vowel Teams
…more to come in the future!

Try Brainamin for FREE!

You can learn more about critical thinking AND get a FREE Brainamin Short A game pack in a blog post I wrote by clicking HERE or on the blog post image below:

I hope you enjoyed learning about these seven games for critical thinking in the primary classroom! I know they will add fun, play, and lots of great thinking skills into your classroom routine. In order to save this post for later or share it with a colleague, feel free to use the image below to PIN IT on Pinterest !

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One Comment

Loved all the games which you have shared with us. Perfect way to engage kids in such fun games for long hours which helps to nurture their overall growth. In this world of technology. where kids are inclined more towards playing online or video games, which affects their physical as well as mental growth. I think it the responsibility of parents to involve kids in games or activities which helps to improve their overall development. Saved your entire list of games to incorporate these in regular kids play. Thanks for sharing such an awesome list of games with us.

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Group games are ideal for developing critical-thinking skills.

The link between critical thinking and one’s education is obvious – you can’t learn well unless you think well.

Critical thinking is the ability to look at problems in new ways, to analyse how parts of a whole interact with one another and to interpret information and draw conclusions.

Critical thinking and problem-solving skills were once thought to be the domain of gifted people. Today, they are necessary for every individual and group who seeks to make sensible decisions about financial, health, civic, workplace and leisure activities.

The solutions to international concerns such as climate change and global warming require highly developed critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. These skills include the ability to effectively analyse and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs.

Benefits of Developing Critical-Thinking Abilities

The ability to solve interesting and unfamiliar problems often leads to the development of other skills such as increased engagement, higher concentration levels and improved thought processing.

Here are a few examples of experiences that occur in many programs which may provide you with an opportunity to focus on problem-solving skills:

Forming a project team to solve an existing, yet complex problem.
Thinking of a new campaign slogan to broadcast a difficult, yet important message.
Adopting a rational, analytical and evidence-based approach to investigate a conflict.
Challenging one of your group’s long-held beliefs or practices.

Naturally, one of the most powerful (not to mention, enjoyable) ways to develop and strengthen your group’s problem-solving skills is to employ the use of fun group games.

Group Activities Which Develop Critical-Thinking Skills

The images below provide links to a sample of simple group activities which may help you develop the critical thinking and problem-solving abilities of your group, drawn from playmeo’s ever-expanding activity database .

Enjoy browsing to your heart’s content.

If you’re not yet a playmeo subscriber, join today to unlock hundreds more group games and activities just like these.

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Critical thinking is clear, rational, logical, and independent thinking. It’s about improving thinking by analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing how we think. It also means thinking in a self-regulated and self-corrective manner. It’s thinking on purpose! The Critical Thinking Workbook helps you and your students develop mindful communication and problem-solving skills with exciting games and activities. It has activities that are adaptable to any grade level you want. The activity pages in the Critical Thinking Workbook are meant to be shared and explored. Use it as an electronic document or as worksheets. You can either print off the pages and use them as activity sheets, or you can edit them directly right in the document on your computer. There are also Answer Keys for the activities that need them provided at the back of the book.

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5 Board Games to Develop Critical Thinking Skills

board games to improve your critical thinking skills

Do you know why board games are called that way? It’s because you only play them when you’re bored .

Lousy puns aside, board games have come a long way from being just lowly time passers. Board games can be as simple as token-and-dice races to as complex as world building, role-playing sessions. But did you know that board games can give more than just fun and entertainment? Did you know that they can make you smarter?

Brief Evolution of Board Games

Board games or tabletop games have been around since 3500 BC, and are as many as there are cultures in the world. Board games have been found buried with the ancient pharaohs of Egypt. There are ancient books in Iran and China that talk about in-depth rules and descriptions of board games. Chess, a game enjoyed by many all over the world, originally came from India. Backgammon, a game still enjoyed today, has been played since 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia.

People still enjoy these games even today, which proves the staying power of tabletop games. You might think that because technology has paved the way for more advanced and visually appealing games, casual tabletop games would’ve died out. But actually, board games have been gaining steady traction since 2010 . This is because the internet has actually made it easier to promote and sell board games. Unlike before, you’d need to walk through a toy shop to see board games. Now you can just search for them online. You can buy them with a click and have them delivered to your doorstep.

Not Just for the Bored

Tabletop games continue to be popular because of a number of reasons. For one thing, they’re mostly meant to be played with others on a face-to-face setting. This means board games naturally build camaraderie and friendly competition. In fact, chess is one of Armenia’s national sports , and Scrabble is a huge deal in Nigeria .

Aside from giving enjoyment, many board games can also enhance or train the brain. It’s true that some board games are simple and require pure luck or chance to win. However, many games will need some level of physical or mental skill.

This is where the “brain training” can actually happen. As you play the games over and over, your mind must learn the skills needed to win the game. Chess and Clue, for example, are great games for training logic and problem-solving. Boggle and Scrabble on the other hand can improve language and memory. And then, some board games improve critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking is the analyzation of information to make a decision or judgment. There are many skills associated with the critical thinking, but the six core ones are:

Interpretation – This skill is the ability to recognize information and understanding them by putting them into categories and giving them meaning. An example is when you see a leaky faucet and recognize it as a problem.
Analysis – This skill helps you examine the information or ideas and deciding which course or courses of action to make. An example of analytical thinking is deciding to fix the leaky faucet while also putting a basin to collect the dripping water while you get to work.
Evaluation – This skill is useful when you need to weigh different options or approaches and decide on the best one. An example would be evaluating whether fixing the same leaky faucet or replacing it with a new one would be better.
Inference – This skill is used when you draw patterns or connections from abstract elements so you can draw reasonable hypotheses or conclusions. An example would be deducing that the leak in the faucet is caused by a worn O ring after observing the source of the leak.
Explanation – This skill involves communicating the justification behind the decision. An example would be explaining how you deduced the worn O ring because the leak stems from the handle and not the spout.
Self-regulation – This critical thinking skill involves sensing your own lapse in judgment and taking steps to correcting yourself.

These six cores often work with each other in quick succession to display critical thinking as a whole.

Brain Games

But could board games really enhance your critical thinking skills? Yes, they can . In fact, some institutions encourage the use and play of certain board games rather than casual handheld games.

Now, if you’d like to get in on the action, you’ll be happy to know that it’s easy to get mind-enhancing board games. Here are 5 that you should check out:

Mancala has been around for thousands of years. There are several variations of Mancala found in Africa and Middle East and Southeast Asia. Players select a hole or pit, and then place a counter (known as “seed” but commonly uses beads) taken from the selected pit in to each of the pits they will pass as they make their move around the board. Players often attempt to capture the other’s seeds. The one with the most seeds in their storage at the end of the game wins.

Mancala develops mathematical skills, as well as the ability to think and plan ahead.

Also known as Settlers of Catan, is a multiplayer board game. Designed by Klaus Teuber, Catan trains players how to strategize.

Players begin with two settlements and two roads. The goal is to build the most successful and effective civilization of all. Players will roll dice to get the resources they need to build their empire—stone, brick, lumber, and the like.

Catan develops communication, strategy, and inference. Players can trade for resources they need, which needs communication. They will also learn to strategize and plan ahead based on their assumptions on what the others players’ immediate goals are, based on their actions.

Bonus: Catan has several spin-off board games, such as A Game of Thrones and Star Trek .

3. Quoridor

Quoridor is an abstract strategy game that can be played by 2-4 people. Mirko Marchesi designed the game and Gigamic Games published it.

The object of the game is simple: players must move their token from one end of the board to the other. However, here’s where the challenge and strategy come into play. Instead of moving your piece, you can opt to place a wall to block the path of your opponent’s instead.

Quoridor is a Mensa Mind Game awardee, and with good reason. It’s simple, but its trial-and-error playthrough can lead to hundreds of unique gameplays. This board game develops adaptability, inference, logic, and the ability to plan ahead.

4. Pandemic

Pandemic is a bit different from other board games. While most of tabletop games will have players compete against each other, Pandemic will have players cooperate with each other to achieve a common goal.

Designed by Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games, Pandemic can be played by 2-4 people. Players will be randomly given one of these roles: medic, dispatcher, operations expert, scientist, and researcher, and will have four actions per turn. Players must all work together to stop four diseases from spreading and becoming a pandemic.

This board game develops problem-solving skills, cooperation, and teamwork. Pandemic is a great way to enhance your evaluation and explanation skills.

Pandemic has several expansions and editions, including On the Brink , which includes a fifth player.

Lastly, no list about mind-enhancing board games will be complete without chess. This classic game from India has been around for centuries, and will be probably be around for centuries more. Chess has been ported into several digital platforms, and has even been modified into fantasy and fiction (such as wizard’s chess in Harry Potter ).

Chess is played by 2 people. The goal is to capture the opponent’s king. Each player has a set of pieces, either black or white. Each set has the same number and kind of piece, including knights, pawns, bishops, rooks, and a king and queen. Each piece has a unique way of moving and capture, and players must manipulate one per turn until they can checkmate the opponent’s king.

Chess develops focus, concentration, logic, inference, and evaluation. In competitions, moves are marked for time, so players will be trained to think fast. Chess has thousands of combinations of moves and playthroughs, which will also enhance players’ creativity and adaptability.

Chess has many variants. For example, a hexagonal chess board exists. The board has three cell colors, and each player has three sets of bishops. Another variant is the 3-player chess , which also uses a hexagonal board. However, the board and set pieces have the same standard colors and numbers. The board for the 3-player chess converges in the middle.

Learning While Having Fun

Who says board games are only for children? The wide varieties of board games available will assure you that you can find one that you can enjoy at any age. The best part? You also get to give your brain a workout while having fun with family and friends.

Today’s modern technology has paved the way for solo games and casual time-wasters. Much of the beauty of playing with a real person has been lost. It’s nice to try playing board games every once in a while to bring back the dying skill of interpersonal communication and socialization. Why not give these a try?

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11 Activities That Promote Critical Thinking In The Class

52 Critical Thinking Flashcards for Problem Solving

Critical thinking activities encourage individuals to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information to develop informed opinions and make reasoned decisions. Engaging in such exercises cultivates intellectual agility, fostering a deeper understanding of complex issues and honing problem-solving skills for navigating an increasingly intricate world. Through critical thinking, individuals empower themselves to challenge assumptions, uncover biases, and constructively contribute to discourse, thereby enriching both personal growth and societal progress.

Critical thinking serves as the cornerstone of effective problem-solving, enabling individuals to dissect challenges, explore diverse perspectives, and devise innovative solutions grounded in logic and evidence. For engaging problem solving activities, read our article problem solving activities that enhance student’s interest.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is a 21st-century skill that enables a person to think rationally and logically in order to reach a plausible conclusion. A critical thinker assesses facts and figures and data objectively and determines what to believe and what not to believe. Critical thinking skills empower a person to decipher complex problems and make impartial and better decisions based on effective information.

Importance of Acquiring Critical Thinking Skills

Acquiring critical thinking skills was never as valuable as it is today because of the prevalence of the modern knowledge economy. Today, information and technology are the driving forces behind the global economy. To keep pace with ever-changing technology and new inventions, one has to be flexible enough to embrace changes swiftly.

Read our article: How to Foster Critical Thinking Skills in Students? Creative Strategies and Real-World Examples

Today critical thinking skills are one of the most sought-after skills by the companies. In fact, critical thinking skills are paramount not only for active learning and academic achievement but also for the professional career of the students. The lack of critical thinking skills catalyzes memorization of the topics without a deeper insight, egocentrism, closed-mindedness, reduced student interest in the classroom and not being able to make timely and better decisions.

Benefits of Critical Thinking Skills in Education

Certain strategies are more eloquent than others in teaching students how to think critically. Encouraging critical thinking in the class is indispensable for the learning and growth of the students. In this way, we can raise a generation of innovators and thinkers rather than followers. Some of the benefits offered by thinking critically in the classroom are given below:

It allows a student to decipher problems and think through the situations in a disciplined and systematic manner
Through a critical thinking ability, a student can comprehend the logical correlation between distinct ideas
The student is able to rethink and re-justify his beliefs and ideas based on facts and figures
Critical thinking skills make the students curious about things around them
A student who is a critical thinker is creative and always strives to come up with out of the box solutions to intricate problems
Critical thinking skills assist in the enhanced student learning experience in the classroom and prepares the students for lifelong learning and success
The critical thinking process is the foundation of new discoveries and inventions in the world of science and technology
The ability to think critically allows the students to think intellectually and enhances their presentation skills, hence they can convey their ideas and thoughts in a logical and convincing manner
Critical thinking skills make students a terrific communicator because they have logical reasons behind their ideas

Critical Thinking Lessons and Activities

11 Activities that Promote Critical Thinking in the Class

We have compiled a list of 11 activities that will facilitate you to promote critical thinking abilities in the students. We have also covered problem solving activities that enhance student’s interest in our another article. Click here to read it.

1. Worst Case Scenario

Divide students into teams and introduce each team with a hypothetical challenging scenario. Allocate minimum resources and time to each team and ask them to reach a viable conclusion using those resources. The scenarios can include situations like stranded on an island or stuck in a forest. Students will come up with creative solutions to come out from the imaginary problematic situation they are encountering. Besides encouraging students to think critically, this activity will enhance teamwork, communication and problem-solving skills of the students.

Read our article: 10 Innovative Strategies for Promoting Critical Thinking in the Classroom

2. If You Build It

It is a very flexible game that allows students to think creatively. To start this activity, divide students into groups. Give each group a limited amount of resources such as pipe cleaners, blocks, and marshmallows etc. Every group is supposed to use these resources and construct a certain item such as building, tower or a bridge in a limited time. You can use a variety of materials in the classroom to challenge the students. This activity is helpful in promoting teamwork and creative skills among the students.

It is also one of the classics which can be used in the classroom to encourage critical thinking. Print pictures of objects, animals or concepts and start by telling a unique story about the printed picture. The next student is supposed to continue the story and pass the picture to the other student and so on.

4. Keeping it Real

In this activity, you can ask students to identify a real-world problem in their schools, community or city. After the problem is recognized, students should work in teams to come up with the best possible outcome of that problem.

5. Save the Egg

Make groups of three or four in the class. Ask them to drop an egg from a certain height and think of creative ideas to save the egg from breaking. Students can come up with diverse ideas to conserve the egg like a soft-landing material or any other device. Remember that this activity can get chaotic, so select the area in the school that can be cleaned easily afterward and where there are no chances of damaging the school property.

6. Start a Debate

In this activity, the teacher can act as a facilitator and spark an interesting conversation in the class on any given topic. Give a small introductory speech on an open-ended topic. The topic can be related to current affairs, technological development or a new discovery in the field of science. Encourage students to participate in the debate by expressing their views and ideas on the topic. Conclude the debate with a viable solution or fresh ideas generated during the activity through brainstorming.

7. Create and Invent

This project-based learning activity is best for teaching in the engineering class. Divide students into groups. Present a problem to the students and ask them to build a model or simulate a product using computer animations or graphics that will solve the problem. After students are done with building models, each group is supposed to explain their proposed product to the rest of the class. The primary objective of this activity is to promote creative thinking and problem-solving skills among the students.

8. Select from Alternatives

This activity can be used in computer science, engineering or any of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) classes. Introduce a variety of alternatives such as different formulas for solving the same problem, different computer codes, product designs or distinct explanations of the same topic.

Form groups in the class and ask them to select the best alternative. Each group will then explain its chosen alternative to the rest of the class with reasonable justification of its preference. During the process, the rest of the class can participate by asking questions from the group. This activity is very helpful in nurturing logical thinking and analytical skills among the students.

9. Reading and Critiquing

Present an article from a journal related to any topic that you are teaching. Ask the students to read the article critically and evaluate strengths and weaknesses in the article. Students can write about what they think about the article, any misleading statement or biases of the author and critique it by using their own judgments.

In this way, students can challenge the fallacies and rationality of judgments in the article. Hence, they can use their own thinking to come up with novel ideas pertaining to the topic.

10. Think Pair Share

In this activity, students will come up with their own questions. Make pairs or groups in the class and ask the students to discuss the questions together. The activity will be useful if the teacher gives students a topic on which the question should be based.

For example, if the teacher is teaching biology, the questions of the students can be based on reverse osmosis, human heart, respiratory system and so on. This activity drives student engagement and supports higher-order thinking skills among students.

11. Big Paper – Silent Conversation

Silence is a great way to slow down thinking and promote deep reflection on any subject. Present a driving question to the students and divide them into groups. The students will discuss the question with their teammates and brainstorm their ideas on a big paper. After reflection and discussion, students can write their findings in silence. This is a great learning activity for students who are introverts and love to ruminate silently rather than thinking aloud.

Read our next article: 10 Innovative Strategies for Promoting Critical Thinking in the Classroom

5 Fun Critical Thinking Games to Play with Your Child

by Dr. Jody LeVos | Mar 27, 2024 | Critical Thinking

Playing games is a great way for your child to develop their critical thinking skills—and the metaphor of a game is a great way to think about these important life skills!

Every time your child works through a problem they need to solve, a sequence they need to memorize, or a decision they need to make, they’re making their way toward the goal of improving their critical thinking.

It’s like a game where the reward at the end is better decision-making, stronger reasoning skills, and academic and professional success!

Kids will keep playing this game over the course of their lives, connecting new ideas to old ones and discarding one opinion for another. Each time, they’ll get better.

Ready to start? We’ve got some fun and easy game ideas for you!

The Short Cut

Critical thinking is one of the 5 C’s that help kids thrive in school and life (an essential part of the Begin Approach to learning)
The ability to think critically—as opposed to being intelligent—has been linked to wellness and fewer “negative life events”
Good critical thinking activities often involve following rules, breaking tasks into sequences, asking questions, and understanding multiple perspectives
Games (like this memory game ) are a fantastic way to develop critical thinking with kids because you can slip in challenges with the fun!

Why Is Critical Thinking Important?

Critical thinking is a necessary skill for understanding the world.

Through weighing options, studying different perspectives, and making good choices, our children can lead their lives in a positive and healthy way.

Critical thinking allows our kids to:

Analyze information and make decisions
Recall short sequences of information and simple instructions
Ignore distractions to focus on a task
Grasp the differences between sources of information
Reason using logic
Make connections between things

It’s one of the most important contributors to their overall well-being!

Fun Critical Thinking Games to Play with Your Child

6 Critical Thinking Exercises for Everyday Life

Games aren’t the only critical thinking exercises that work well for kids. They also encounter many opportunities to build their skills on any given day.

How can you tap into those chances? Try these techniques.

1. Explain Things

No doubt you often find yourself on the receiving end of your child’s questions. Try to answer all of them. Daunting as that might sound (we know!), this helps your child learn how to formulate the questions they need to ask to make good judgments.

2. Back Up Rules with Good Reasons

Help your child understand the reasons behind rules. (A typical Q&A volley: “Please find a quiet activity to do after dinner.” “Why?” “Because your brother is asleep and we don’t want to wake him up.”)

This kind of exchange allows your child to understand why you’re asking them to do something, which fosters critical thinking.

3. Play Real-Life Problem-Solving Games

Playing strategy games—even simple ones designed for kids—develops analytical skills. You can also have fun turning household tasks into problem-solving games, like figuring out which socks go to which person when you’re folding laundry.

4. Cultivate Curiosity

Encourage your child to ask questions and dig deep to find answers. Curiosity leads to challenging assumptions and gaining new information. Ultimately it helps your child develop complex thinking skills.

5. Encourage Open-Mindedness

Help your child learn to be flexible in their thinking by giving them time to gather information before they make decisions. Considering various solutions helps kids learn that more than one way to do things can be correct.

6. Model Analytical Thinking

Our kids are always watching us. One of the best ways to influence your child’s critical thinking skills is by talking through decisions as you make them. (“I want to walk to the store. I can take a shortcut, but it’s on that dirt path and I’m wearing new sneakers. I want to keep them clean, so I’ll walk on the road instead.”)

5 Games to Guide Your Child’s Critical Thinking

There are many educational critical thinking games you can play at home that help kids improve their skills! We’ve gathered a few we love:

This classic guessing game encourages analytical thinking and problem-solving skills (like deduction) as your child searches for specific objects based on clues.

Plus, it‘s highly portable! Play it in the car, on a walk, or even at the grocery store!

What You Need

Nothing except space!
Explain you’ll take turns identifying an object in your space.
Model the game by going first. Choose an object that both of you can see.
Then share one detail about it. (“I spy something purple.”)
Ask your child to guess what you’ve chosen.
If your child is stumped or getting frustrated, add more clues (“The purple thing is a food, and it’s over by the apples.”)
Trade roles so that your child chooses something for you to guess.

More Ways to Play

Choose different rules, such as “the object has to start with a specific sound or letter of the alphabet,” or “share three adjectives that describe the object,” or “make up one phrase this object might say”

2. Once Upon a Time

Storytelling is a great way to work on critical thinking skills like understanding cause and effect, choice-making, and sequencing. This game also taps into kids’ creativity (another one of the 5 C’s) through making up stories.

Nothing but your imagination!
Explain you’re going to build a story together by taking turns, one sentence at a time. You can give an example by reciting a story that your child already knows.
Give an exciting first sentence that jumps into action, such as, “Once upon a time, a kid was on a rocket ship headed to Mars, when a meteor hit and fuel began to leak.”
Ask your child to continue the story. If they get stuck, try asking them questions like “What did the rocket ship do next?” or “What did the kid do first to fix the problem?” or “How did the kid feel?”
Continue taking turns until you come to a natural ending.
Write down the story as you tell it, then read it out loud
Create a book out of the story, using paper, markers, and a stapler or tape (art projects use many critical thinking skills)
Use a prop to center the story around, like a toy or a stuffed animal
Go outside and tell a story based on what you imagine you see in the clouds

3. Bet You Can Build It!

Designing a structure takes curiosity, planning, trial and error, and problem-solving. You can turn this activity into a game by laying out rules to follow.

Marshmallows
Craft sticks
Cardboard tubes
Anything else you’ve got at home!
Gather your materials.
Give your child the rules for the building challenge. (“Create the tallest building you can without it tipping over” or “Use all the marshmallows and toothpicks.”)
Work on the structure together or each do your own.
Celebrate when you’ve finished!
Use a timer to add urgency to the game
Bring the game to the floor and use bigger building materials, like blocks or plastic bricks
Bring it outside and use objects found in nature

Get your child moving their whole body as they use planning, organization, and problem-solving skills to find their way through a maze.

A surface to draw on, like a sidewalk, driveway, or playground blacktop
Objects to use as obstacles
A finish-line treasure (a favorite toy, a treat, etc.)
Draw a maze with chalk. Try making a path by drawing borders on each side or a “tightrope” by only drawing one line your child will need to balance on as they walk.
Add dead ends to make the maze more challenging.
Use objects to create obstacles for your child to problem-solve a way past.
Add a treasure at the finish to engage their imagination.
Have your child start at one end and try to find their way through!
Hone in on the treasure component of the maze by creating a scavenger hunt .
Ask your child to draw a map of the maze when they’ve finished.

5. Obstacle Course

An obstacle course builds real-life skills. To get through their days, kids need to be able to remember lots of information (just think about all the rules at school!).

They also encounter problem-solving based on sequencing and memorizing shortcuts, directions, and solutions.

Think about learning how to write. Letters have to be in a specific order to make a word. That’s sequencing.

Or you may allow your child to walk to school or the bus stop on their own. That’s all about memorizing directions.

Obstacle courses can help them practice these skills!

Masking tape or chalk
Jump rope or broom
Big bouncy ball
Play tunnel, table, or chair
Board or pool noodle
Log and plank
Pillows, bean bag chairs, or large stuffed animal
Any other objects you want!
Gather your objects—you can play this game inside or outside.
Design a path for your child by placing interactive objects along it. For instance, they can jump over the broom, crawl under the table, and balance on the log and plank.
Show your child the sequence. You can demonstrate it or have them do a trial run.
Let them start!
Try asking your child to do the course backwards or blindfolded—with a partner!
On a hot day (and outdoors!), add water components like carrying a bucket of water or running through a sprinkler
Draw a map and instead of telling your child how to move through the course, give them the map to follow
Add a fun time component and challenge your child to finish the course faster each time they do it

Cultivating Critical Thinking Skills with Begin

Because critical thinking is such an essential skill set, at Begin we build it into our age- and stage-matched learning membership . Kids can learn sequencing, make their own games, do science experiments, and more with award-winning activity kits from Little Passports , the codeSpark coding app , and more!

Take our online quiz today to discover which stage of the Begin membership is best for your family!

As our Chief Learning Officer, Jody leads a highly knowledgeable team of early learning experts at Begin. She has a Ph.D. in Developmental Science, focused on children’s mathematical and cognitive development.

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Dr. Jody LeVos

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15 Fantastic Logic and Critical Thinking Games

Games are wonderful additions to any homeschool. In fact, we typically play at least one game a day – sometimes even gameschooling for an entire day!

Not only do games bring joy and lightheartedness to the school day, they can help teach new concepts and practice old ones.

One of the most important reasons I include games in our homeschool frequently is because they are amazing for building logic and critical thinking skills!

Logic and Critical Thinking Games for Kids

This post includes affiliate links.

If you’ve read any of my blog posts about brain training , you’ll know that I place a lot of value on building logical thinking skills in kids. Luckily, games are one of the best ways to do that – and they don’t even require much effort on our part!

While almost every game has logic and critical thinking value, some games are made specifically to give those skills a workout. I’ve included 15 of my favorites here for you!

Logic and Critical Thinking Games

Think Fun Invasion of The Cow Snatchers STEM Toy and Logic Game for Boys and Girls Age 6 and Up - A Magnet Maze Logic Puzzle

Invasion of the Cow Snatchers – A creative, single player game that uses magnetic playing pieces as you maneuver a flying saucer around obstacles on a farm to beam up all the cattle.

Domino Maze – In this hands-on, single player game, you create fun domino mazes with a critical thinking twist as you set out to build based on challenge cards.

Thinking Putty Puzzle – This is another hands-on, single player game that “stretches” your thinking skills as you complete mazes with Thinking Putty.

Qwirkle – A family favorite, this game is kind of like Scrabble with shapes & colors. Your goal is to rack up as many points as possible as you work to complete symbol combinations.

Battleship – Coordinate graphing and logical thinking are required to sink all your opponent’s ships in this classic game for two players.

Mastermind – Another classic game for two players, Mastermind is truly a top pick for practicing logical thinking skills as you deduce a hidden code.

FoxMind Games Zoologic Logic Puzzle Game

ZooLogic – This is such a cute single player game. You must figure out how to organize dogs, cats, and mice on puzzle cards so that no fights ensue between the animals.

Guess Who? – This is the perfect game to teach beginning critical thinking skills as you ask pertinent questions to figure out your opponent’s mystery character.

SET – Get ready to work logic skills faster than your opponents as everyone races to put together the next combination of cards based on shape, color, shading, and number.

Clue – A good, old-fashioned game of Clue is perfect for sharpening logic and critical thinking skills since the goal is to use deductive reasoning to solve the mystery before anyone else.

Cat Crimes – In this hands-on, single player logic puzzle, you place cat characters on the board based on clues you are given in order to determine which one is to blame for an oopsie that has occurred.

Codenames – While this game can be played with as few as four people, it’s great for a crowd, too. Spymasters use word clues to help their teams logically consider which cards on the table will locate friendly spy agents instead of foes.

Think Fun Rover Control Coding Board Game and STEM Toy for Boys and Girls Age 8 and Up

Rover Control – This creative, single player coding game teaches basic programming skills through critical thinking puzzles in which a rover must go through various start to finish challenges.

Rush Hour – A classic, single player game, Rush Hour utilizes logical thinking as you work to get an ice cream truck out of a rush hour traffic jam.

Rook – This four player card game is another family favorite that is won by logic and critical thinking between teammates (as well as a little luck.)

Gameschooling

There are so many wonderful games available these days! I’ve written about favorites for other subjects plenty of times. Feel free to click on any of the images below to see a different list of games.

P.S. Games make great gifts for any holiday or birthday. They also make great family gifts or for people who are hospital or homebound. Games are one the most frequent things we give when a gift is in order!

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10 Engaging Online Games To Test Your Critical Thinking Skills

Last Updated on October 4, 2023 by Editorial Team

To define it in very simple terms, critical thinking refers to the overall analysis of all the facts and figures you have at your disposal and using them in an organized way to make a judgment or a decision. There are a lot of interactive ways that can help develop your critical thinking abilities. However, what better way to do it than playing games and having fun?

Conventional learning methods mainly demand a longer attention span which is at times difficult for young individuals. In such cases, using online games to ace the skill can be a wise choice. This post includes a list of ten online critical thinking games to develop critical thinking skills while keeping you focused and occupied in learning new things.

Online games to improve your critical thinking ability

Various game developers have launched games that require the player to use their deep critical thinking skills in order to play and win. From matching numbers to presenting the player with real-life situations, these online critical thinking games come in myriad forms.

1. Spent

The first game on the list is Spent, based on the concept of budgeting and the various challenges one has to face in day-to-day life. While playing the game, the player will face multiple difficult scenarios and has to make crucial decisions that will directly impact their income (in the game). The kind of problems and challenges that you will face while playing the game include:

Issues related to your health concern
Getting correctly educated
Trying your best to provide the basic amenities for the members of your family

This game will get one’s mind racing as it requires making quick and critical decisions that will have an impact on the growth of the decision-making process. This game plays with planning, summarizing, decision-making, and information-synthesizing skills. In addition, they get to learn about poverty, unemployment, the Affordable Care Act, etc.

2. Air Traffic Controller Game

As the name might suggest, the air traffic controller is an online simulation game that lets a player direct and guide various aircraft on the ground, on runways, and via the medium of controlled airspace. The main purposes of the game are to manage a popular airport, ensure there are no delays in the landing or the take-off process, and see to it that there are no collisions.

In short, the player is responsible for maintaining the air traffic of that particular airport. In addition, the game also offers three levels of difficulty. At level one or Gate 1, the player needs to manage one airstrip where the difficulty level is very low. Once they are comfortable with the first one, they can move on to the second and third levels to stimulate their critical thinking skills.

3. Sudoku

Sudoku is a familiar and common game. The game is based on the concepts of basic logical thinking and a combinational number placement puzzle where a player needs to fill a 9×9 grid with digits ranging from 1 to 9. But the catch is that they need to fill in the blanks so that all of the columns, rows, and nine 3×3 subblocks present within the 9×9 grid contain all the digits, as mentioned earlier.

For example, if a player places ‘1’ in the first block of the first row, they cannot put it anywhere in that row and column again. They must use numbers 2-9 to complete that specific row and column. The game (or puzzle) requires one to stimulate their brain in a manner that involves their critical thinking skills and enables them to think logically while taking aid from numerical skills.

4. Good Game Empire

Similar to various other RPG and strategy games you will find online, Good Game Empire is based on an MMO strategy style, and the setting of the game is in Medieval times. The central theme of this game is that you need to build a thriving empire worldwide.

But, you will start the game with only a castle to your name, and you have to develop and make your empire strategically and fight opposing nations. This game pushes you to think critically and expand your strategic ideals to the best extent to make your empire spread throughout the world. The game will also offer you various choices from which you would need to select the option that works the best for you.

5. Chess

Chess is one of the board games played across the globe that requires analytical skills . There are always two players in this game, and the primary objective of the game is to capture the opponent’s king. However, it is not as simple as it sounds. White and black checkered board (64 squares) with different pieces (each piece symbolizes different positions like King, Rook, Bishop, Queen, Pawn, and Knight) arranged on it in specific positions- this is what a player gets on the screen while they choose to play chess. They can move one piece at a time, and each piece has a set pattern of movements that they must follow.

The same applies to the opponent too. Using specially designed and designated moves, the players are supposed to check their opponents (also known as Checkmate) and capture their king to win the game. It needs the players to practice critical thinking, for one cannot randomly move pieces and win the game. Well-calculated moves and timely yet quick decisions are what they need. Thus, chess highly stimulates the players’ brains, allowing them to think critically.

6. Minecraft

The objective of the game is to freely explore the Minecraft world, explore infinite possibilities, and create new setups. Starting from building a block to making an entire city as they see fit, one can do it all in this game. This game allows you to freely exercise your imaginative and creative side of the brain.

The game is an ideal option for students to practice math concepts and give them the experience of how those concepts are used in our day-to-day lives. Players critically analyze situations and draw conclusions all the while building and planning the entire city. The game not only offers the experience of endless fun but also helps individuals to use and practice their critical thinking abilities.

7. Brainstorm

Critical thinking is all about making decisions based on analytical observation and this game allows individuals to brainstorm and find answers to challenging questions. In this game, the players need to answer questions that come on the screen by choosing the correct answer from the given options. The game starts from a basic level named “Newborn.” Answering all questions enables the player to move to the next level. For example, this Newborn level has 18 questions.

A maximum of four players can join and compete with each other to complete small tasks and objectives ahead of every other player. The players would need to push their brains to their limits which means that this game will stimulate their brains and let them exercise critical thinking skills. In addition, this will allow them to improve their decision-making process.

8. 2048 game

2048 is a sliding puzzle video game where the primary objective is to slide the numbered tiles within the puzzle setting until the players have combined them to form a tile with the number 2048. Even though it sounds easy, the game requires one to think before moving a single tile as it could determine the outcome. One needs to actively think of the moves ahead of making to ensure a proper flow of movements. This game is ideal for stimulating one’s brain and keeping it on its toes.

9. Unolingo

Unolingo is an online crossword puzzle game where you need to fill in a 10×10 puzzle box. The player needs to fill the boxes by placing the words and letters precisely and completing the puzzle. Unlike a regular crossword puzzle, there are no clues as to which letter the player should put in to make a complete word.

They can ask for a hint but that will add 30 seconds to the elapsed time. Clicking on the “Solve” tab will show the solved puzzle. This game requires the players to think more critically and stimulate their brains further. It is a fun alternative to regular crossword puzzles and will keep a player occupied for longer as they have to think more critically as to what letter to put and what word to make.

10. Tangram puzzle

The Tangram puzzle is a fun game that helps one to exercise their brain. There are seven geometrical shapes in the game. Each level comes with a diagram where the players need to position the shapes such that it matches the diagram. There is a provision to rotate the shapes and place them wherever the player sees fit.

There will be 25 puzzles to solve with these seven shapes. The faster the player solves the puzzle, the faster they get access to the next puzzle. It requires creative and critical thinking for they have to recognize which shape will fit which part of the puzzle. Also, how to rotate it to match the puzzle needs deep thinking. It pushes the player to think creatively and use their critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking refers to understanding a piece of information, analyzing it, applying it to practical application, combining the information with other prior knowledge to draw conclusions, etc. Critical thinking is essential in all aspects of life, personal or professional.

These online games can help an individual use them in practical scenarios and draw effective conclusions. The games mentioned above help one to think critically and also to keep their brain active by stimulating it to its limit. These enjoyable games will keep a player occupied for longer, allowing them to explore and learn new things freely.

An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,

How video games can help people worry less

The mind state of flow is reached when you're completely absorbed in an activity that's challenging, but not too hard. An easy way to achieve flow is by playing video games.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:

There's a state of mind called flow, when you're completely absorbed in an activity that's challenging but not too hard.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Artists feel it when they paint or draw. Musicians feel it when they play an instrument. It's a sense of deep engagement with an activity where you might look up and suddenly notice a lot of time has passed.

ELLIOTT: And flow can help you feel less stressed, says Kate Sweeny, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside.

KATE SWEENY: Flow is really good for us. It gives us a lot of positive emotions, but it's also especially well-suited to times when we're really in our heads, when we're worried about the future, when we're ruminating about something and we just can't turn it off. Flow is a pretty good off switch for that kind of thinking.

FADEL: Sweeny says an easy way to achieve flow is by playing video games.

SWEENY: There's really two groups of people who know a lot about flow. That's psychologists and video game designers. And video games are really kind of, as a whole, built for exactly this purpose. They're getting harder as you get better. They're showing you when you're making progress.

ELLIOTT: Sweeny's studied how video games help people worry less. She recruited 300 college students and put them in a slightly stressful situation.

FADEL: They were unexpectedly photographed and made to believe that their peers would be rating their picture.

ELLIOTT: While the students waited, they played a game that was similar to Tetris.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FADEL: There were three versions of the classic game where players have to stack up falling blocks. There was a hard one where the blocks moved too quickly and frustrated the players.

ELLIOTT: And a slow one that was too boring.

FADEL: And a third version that was just right and allowed players to achieve flow.

SWEENY: And the folks who were in that state, that flow state that we created with the game, they had an easier time waiting for that news about their attractiveness than those who were in the other conditions.

ELLIOTT: Sweeny says flow can be a bit of a gateway to addiction, but anything can be addictive if you do it too much.

SWEENY: It's a great tool for flow, as long as you're not sort of overdoing it and checking out too much from your life.

FADEL: I need flow. I'm going to download that just right Tetris game.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

How to apply critical thinking in learning

Sometimes your university classes might feel like a maze of information. Consider critical thinking skills like a map that can lead the way.

Why do we need critical thinking?

Critical thinking is a type of thinking that requires continuous questioning, exploring answers, and making judgments. Critical thinking can help you:

analyze information to comprehend more thoroughly
approach problems systematically, identify root causes, and explore potential solutions
make informed decisions by weighing various perspectives
promote intellectual curiosity and self-reflection, leading to continuous learning, innovation, and personal development

What is the process of critical thinking?

1. understand .

Critical thinking starts with understanding the content that you are learning.

This step involves clarifying the logic and interrelations of the content by actively engaging with the materials (e.g., text, articles, and research papers). You can take notes, highlight key points, and make connections with prior knowledge to help you engage.

Ask yourself these questions to help you build your understanding:

What is the structure?
What is the main idea of the content?
What is the evidence that supports any arguments?
What is the conclusion?

2. Analyze

You need to assess the credibility, validity, and relevance of the information presented in the content. Consider the authors’ biases and potential limitations in the evidence.

Ask yourself questions in terms of why and how:

What is the supporting evidence?
Why do they use it as evidence?
How does the data present support the conclusions?
What method was used? Was it appropriate?

3. Evaluate

After analyzing the data and evidence you collected, make your evaluation of the evidence, results, and conclusions made in the content.

Consider the weaknesses and strengths of the ideas presented in the content to make informed decisions or suggest alternative solutions:

What is the gap between the evidence and the conclusion?
What is my position on the subject?
What other approaches can I use?

When do you apply critical thinking and how can you improve these skills?

1. reading academic texts, articles, and research papers.

analyze arguments
assess the credibility and validity of evidence
consider potential biases presented
question the assumptions, methodologies, and the way they generate conclusions

2. Writing essays and theses

demonstrate your understanding of the information, logic of evidence, and position on the topic
include evidence or examples to support your ideas
make your standing points clear by presenting information and providing reasons to support your arguments
address potential counterarguments or opposing viewpoints
explain why your perspective is more compelling than the opposing viewpoints

3. Attending lectures

understand the content by previewing, active listening , and taking notes
analyze your lecturer’s viewpoints by seeking whether sufficient data and resources are provided
think about whether the ideas presented by the lecturer align with your values and beliefs
talk about other perspectives with peers in discussions

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You have a high IQ if you can spot 5 differences in Easter picnic in 9 seconds

N ot only do brainteasers increase your critical-thinking skills, but they also help boost your brain age every time you put yourself to the test. So in the spirit of Easter, 1337.Games has created a brand new Easter-themed ‘Spot the Difference’ brainteaser. The game showcases a charming scene of two bunnies enjoying an Easter picnic, complete with Easter eggs.

‌Five subtle differences are hidden within this picnic setting, awaiting sharp-eyed players to discover them.‌ Created to entertain and stimulate the mind, this game provides a captivating pursuit for individuals eager to exercise their observational skills. It introduces a fun variation on the traditional challenge of spotting differences between two similar pictures, all within an Easter picnic setting.

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For all the latest on news, politics, sports, and showbiz from the USA, go to The Mirror US .

‌In this challenge, you are given two similar Easter scenes and must use your keen eye for detail to find their five differences. ‌All are welcome to enjoy this Easter to engage their intellects and hone their visual acuity.‌ Should you need help to spot all five differences, fear not. Solutions are provided to assist in discovering the changes that may have eluded you.

‌Commenting on the brain teaser, a spokesperson for 1337. Games said: “The game is accessible to everyone, encouraging players of all ages to engage their minds and improve their visual acuity this Easter. Solutions are readily available for those who may find the task challenging, ensuring everyone can enjoy the satisfaction of uncovering all the differences.”

Solutions: 1. The orange bird at the top of the picture is now green. 2. The pink flower in the tree has disappeared. 3. The purple bunny is now pink. 4. The picnic blanket is now purple. 5. The two Easter eggs have disappeared.

Do you have a story to share? Email [email protected].

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America succeeds partners with edmentum to teach durable skills, the digital education company edmentum will add curriculum materials from the nonprofit america succeeds to its career and technical education courses to help students build “soft skills” like critical thinking and creativity..

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IMAGES

7 Games for Critical Thinking that Add Play to Your Day
Critical Thinking Skills for Kids
12 Critical Thinking Activities for Kids
7 Critical Thinking Games Kids Will Beg to Keep Playing
💌 Critical thinking skills games. Games for Building Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking Games For Kids

COMMENTS

Developing critical thinking skills through gamification
7. Facilitating critical thinking in the game. Critical thinking is "a metacognitive process, consisting of a number of sub-skills (e.g., analysis, evaluation and inference) that, when used appropriately, increases the chances of producing a logical conclusion to an argument or solution to a problem" (Dwyer et al., 2014, p. 43). One of the ...
Effects of Game-Based Learning on Students' Critical Thinking: A Meta
Advocates of game-based learning (GBL) argue that it increases critical thinking, but studies show mixed results. "Reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do" (critical thinking, Ennis, 2018, p. 166) helps assess the reliability of available information, informs decisions, and affects students' current and future success.
Developing critical thinking skills through gamification
Facilitating critical thinking in the game. Critical thinking is "a metacognitive process, consisting of a number of sub-skills (e.g., analysis, evaluation and inference) that, when used appropriately, increases the chances of producing a logical conclusion to an argument or solution to a problem" (Dwyer et al., 2014, p. 43).
Research Roundup: Game-based Learning and Critical Thinking Skills
In this article, researchers document the integration of game-based learning as a tool to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills in students, particularly within the context of an online course on "Internet Applications.". By incorporating a role-playing game divided into two stages, the researchers aimed to create an engaging ...
What Are Critical Thinking Skills and Why Are They Important?
According to the University of the People in California, having critical thinking skills is important because they are [ 1 ]: Universal. Crucial for the economy. Essential for improving language and presentation skills. Very helpful in promoting creativity. Important for self-reflection.
Critical thinking skills: what they are and how to build them
Critical thinking skills will help you connect ideas, make reasonable decisions, and solve complex problems. 7 critical thinking skills to help you dig deeper. ... Play a game: Remember those riddles we mentioned at the beginning? As trivial as they might seem, games and exercises like those can help you boost your critical thinking skills. ...
Role of Educational Games in Developing Critical Thinking Skills
Development of Soft Skills: Educational games do more than sharpen critical thinking. They actively foster essential soft skills. Students develop better communication, learn to collaborate effectively, and adapt to new challenges. These skills are crucial for success both inside and outside the classroom.
Engaging Critical Thinking Games for Developing Analytical Skills
Problem-solving games are an excellent way to foster critical thinking skills. These games require players to analyze complex situations, think creatively, and come up with innovative solutions. By engaging in problem-solving games, individuals can develop their analytical skills and enhance their ability to think critically. These games often ...
Games for Building Critical-Thinking Skills
Flex alchemical muscles in amusing, discovery-based puzzler. Bottom Line: This amusing puzzle game encourages creativity, perseverance, and systems thinking, and with creative integration it can build interest in math, science, history, and literature. Grades: 6-12. Price:
How Video Games Can Help Children Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Some concrete examples of how video games can foster analytical thinking in kids are as follows: First, the ability to think critically and creatively is fostered by the problem-solving nature of many video games. Players will need to utilize critical thinking abilities like analysis, evaluation, and synthesis to overcome challenges.
Critical Thinking Games & Activities for Kids
Use your thinking skills to find out the correct answer! PLAY. MentalUP offers 150+ critical thinking games besides attention, concentration, logic, language, visual intelligence, and memory games! 🚀 . The best part of the multi-awarded app is all these gamified exercises are developed by pedagogues, academicians, and game designers. 🎓🙌.
5 Games for Building Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking skills help us solve problems, make good decisions, and understand the consequences of our actions. In this blog, we discuss five of our favorite games to improve critical thinking skills and sharpen the mind. 1. Chess. Chess is the most widely played board game of all time. Your goal in chess is to get a checkmate by getting ...
10 Team-Building Games That Promote Critical Thinking
3. Zoom. Zoom is a classic classroom cooperative game that never seems to go out of style. Simply form students into a circle and give each a unique picture of an object, animal, or whatever else suits your fancy. You begin a story that incorporates whatever happens to be on your assigned photo.
Using Critical Thinking in Essays and other Assignments
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 ...
7 Games for Critical Thinking that Add Play to Your Day
The student must rotate, flip, turn, or overlap the cards in order to get the dots on both cards to match up. This game is great for building and practicing logical thinking, spatial reasoning, and problem-solving. With 60 different puzzles to match up, On the Dot is a game that can stay in your bins for a long time!
Find Critical Thinking Games & Exercises
Group games are ideal for developing critical-thinking skills The link between critical thinking and one's education is obvious - you can't learn well unless you think well. Critical thinking is the ability to look at problems in new ways, to analyse how parts of a whole interact with one another and to interpret information and draw ...
The Critical Thinking Workbook: Games and Activities for Developing
The Critical Thinking Workbook helps you and your students develop mindful communication and problem-solving skills with exciting games and activities. It has activities that are adaptable to any grade level you want. The activity pages in the Critical Thinking Workbook are meant to be shared and explored.
5 Board Games to Develop Critical Thinking Skills
This board game develops problem-solving skills, cooperation, and teamwork. Pandemic is a great way to enhance your evaluation and explanation skills. Pandemic has several expansions and editions, including On the Brink, which includes a fifth player. 2. Chess.
11 Activities That Promote Critical Thinking In The Class
6. Start a Debate. In this activity, the teacher can act as a facilitator and spark an interesting conversation in the class on any given topic. Give a small introductory speech on an open-ended topic. The topic can be related to current affairs, technological development or a new discovery in the field of science.
Critical Thinking Games: 5 Engaging Activities for Children
4. Cultivate Curiosity. Encourage your child to ask questions and dig deep to find answers. Curiosity leads to challenging assumptions and gaining new information. Ultimately it helps your child develop complex thinking skills. 5. Encourage Open-Mindedness.
15 Fantastic Logic and Critical Thinking Games
Battleship - Coordinate graphing and logical thinking are required to sink all your opponent's ships in this classic game for two players. Mastermind - Another classic game for two players, Mastermind is truly a top pick for practicing logical thinking skills as you deduce a hidden code. ZooLogic - This is such a cute single player game.
10 Engaging Online Games To Test Your Critical Thinking Skills
7. Brainstorm. Critical thinking is all about making decisions based on analytical observation and this game allows individuals to brainstorm and find answers to challenging questions. In this game, the players need to answer questions that come on the screen by choosing the correct answer from the given options.
4 Games That Can Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills
The classic computer game about numbers and bombs, Minesweeper is a great way to teach yourself to analyze a board and think carefully before making your move. The object of the game is to clear the board of deadly mines by deducing where each mine is placed. By left-clicking a square on the board, you will be given numbers that will indicate ...
How video games can help people worry less : NPR
An easy way to achieve flow is by playing video games. Games. How video games can help people worry less. March 27, ... Flow is a pretty good off switch for that kind of thinking.
How to apply critical thinking in learning
1. Reading academic texts, articles, and research papers. 2. Writing essays and theses. 3. Attending lectures. Sometimes your university classes might feel like a maze of information. Consider critical thinking skills like a map that can lead the way.
Explained: Importance of critical thinking, problem-solving skills in
In a nutshell, critical thinking and problem-solving skills are a part of '21st Century Skills' that can help unlock valuable learning for life. Over the years, the education system has been ...
You have a high IQ if you can spot 5 differences in Easter picnic ...
N ot only do brainteasers increase your critical-thinking skills, but they also help boost your brain age every time you put yourself to the test. So in the spirit of Easter, 1337.Games has ...
America Succeeds Partners With Edmentum to Teach Durable Skills
According to a news release last week, America Succeeds worked with over 800 educators, professionals and policymakers to define some of the most essential "durable" or soft skills across ...
Revitalize Your Content Strategy with Critical Problem-Solving Skills
2 Encourage Dialogue. Encouraging dialogue within your team is a powerful way to inject critical thinking into your content strategy. Promote an environment where team members feel comfortable ...