critical thinking skills strategies

Classroom Q&A

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

Eight Instructional Strategies for Promoting Critical Thinking

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(This is the first post in a three-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

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

This three-part series will explore what critical thinking is, if it can be specifically taught and, if so, how can teachers do so in their classrooms.

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

You might also be interested in The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom .

Current Events

Dara Laws Savage is an English teacher at the Early College High School at Delaware State University, where she serves as a teacher and instructional coach and lead mentor. Dara has been teaching for 25 years (career preparation, English, photography, yearbook, newspaper, and graphic design) and has presented nationally on project-based learning and technology integration:

There is so much going on right now and there is an overload of information for us to process. Did you ever stop to think how our students are processing current events? They see news feeds, hear news reports, and scan photos and posts, but are they truly thinking about what they are hearing and seeing?

I tell my students that my job is not to give them answers but to teach them how to think about what they read and hear. So what is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom? There are just as many definitions of critical thinking as there are people trying to define it. However, the Critical Think Consortium focuses on the tools to create a thinking-based classroom rather than a definition: “Shape the climate to support thinking, create opportunities for thinking, build capacity to think, provide guidance to inform thinking.” Using these four criteria and pairing them with current events, teachers easily create learning spaces that thrive on thinking and keep students engaged.

One successful technique I use is the FIRE Write. Students are given a quote, a paragraph, an excerpt, or a photo from the headlines. Students are asked to F ocus and respond to the selection for three minutes. Next, students are asked to I dentify a phrase or section of the photo and write for two minutes. Third, students are asked to R eframe their response around a specific word, phrase, or section within their previous selection. Finally, students E xchange their thoughts with a classmate. Within the exchange, students also talk about how the selection connects to what we are covering in class.

There was a controversial Pepsi ad in 2017 involving Kylie Jenner and a protest with a police presence. The imagery in the photo was strikingly similar to a photo that went viral with a young lady standing opposite a police line. Using that image from a current event engaged my students and gave them the opportunity to critically think about events of the time.

Here are the two photos and a student response:

F - Focus on both photos and respond for three minutes

In the first picture, you see a strong and courageous black female, bravely standing in front of two officers in protest. She is risking her life to do so. Iesha Evans is simply proving to the world she does NOT mean less because she is black … and yet officers are there to stop her. She did not step down. In the picture below, you see Kendall Jenner handing a police officer a Pepsi. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal, except this was Pepsi’s weak, pathetic, and outrageous excuse of a commercial that belittles the whole movement of people fighting for their lives.

I - Identify a word or phrase, underline it, then write about it for two minutes

A white, privileged female in place of a fighting black woman was asking for trouble. A struggle we are continuously fighting every day, and they make a mockery of it. “I know what will work! Here Mr. Police Officer! Drink some Pepsi!” As if. Pepsi made a fool of themselves, and now their already dwindling fan base continues to ever shrink smaller.

R - Reframe your thoughts by choosing a different word, then write about that for one minute

You don’t know privilege until it’s gone. You don’t know privilege while it’s there—but you can and will be made accountable and aware. Don’t use it for evil. You are not stupid. Use it to do something. Kendall could’ve NOT done the commercial. Kendall could’ve released another commercial standing behind a black woman. Anything!

Exchange - Remember to discuss how this connects to our school song project and our previous discussions?

This connects two ways - 1) We want to convey a strong message. Be powerful. Show who we are. And Pepsi definitely tried. … Which leads to the second connection. 2) Not mess up and offend anyone, as had the one alma mater had been linked to black minstrels. We want to be amazing, but we have to be smart and careful and make sure we include everyone who goes to our school and everyone who may go to our school.

As a final step, students read and annotate the full article and compare it to their initial response.

Using current events and critical-thinking strategies like FIRE writing helps create a learning space where thinking is the goal rather than a score on a multiple-choice assessment. Critical-thinking skills can cross over to any of students’ other courses and into life outside the classroom. After all, we as teachers want to help the whole student be successful, and critical thinking is an important part of navigating life after they leave our classrooms.

‘Before-Explore-Explain’

Patrick Brown is the executive director of STEM and CTE for the Fort Zumwalt school district in Missouri and an experienced educator and author :

Planning for critical thinking focuses on teaching the most crucial science concepts, practices, and logical-thinking skills as well as the best use of instructional time. One way to ensure that lessons maintain a focus on critical thinking is to focus on the instructional sequence used to teach.

Explore-before-explain teaching is all about promoting critical thinking for learners to better prepare students for the reality of their world. What having an explore-before-explain mindset means is that in our planning, we prioritize giving students firsthand experiences with data, allow students to construct evidence-based claims that focus on conceptual understanding, and challenge students to discuss and think about the why behind phenomena.

Just think of the critical thinking that has to occur for students to construct a scientific claim. 1) They need the opportunity to collect data, analyze it, and determine how to make sense of what the data may mean. 2) With data in hand, students can begin thinking about the validity and reliability of their experience and information collected. 3) They can consider what differences, if any, they might have if they completed the investigation again. 4) They can scrutinize outlying data points for they may be an artifact of a true difference that merits further exploration of a misstep in the procedure, measuring device, or measurement. All of these intellectual activities help them form more robust understanding and are evidence of their critical thinking.

In explore-before-explain teaching, all of these hard critical-thinking tasks come before teacher explanations of content. Whether we use discovery experiences, problem-based learning, and or inquiry-based activities, strategies that are geared toward helping students construct understanding promote critical thinking because students learn content by doing the practices valued in the field to generate knowledge.

An Issue of Equity

Meg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at The Possible Project, an out-of-school program that collaborates with youth to build entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and provides pathways to careers and long-term economic prosperity. She has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a middle and high school teacher, school coach, college professor, regional director of N.Y.C. Outward Bound Schools, and director of external research with EL Education:

Although critical thinking often defies straightforward definition, most in the education field agree it consists of several components: reasoning, problem-solving, and decisionmaking, plus analysis and evaluation of information, such that multiple sides of an issue can be explored. It also includes dispositions and “the willingness to apply critical-thinking principles, rather than fall back on existing unexamined beliefs, or simply believe what you’re told by authority figures.”

Despite variation in definitions, critical thinking is nonetheless promoted as an essential outcome of students’ learning—we want to see students and adults demonstrate it across all fields, professions, and in their personal lives. Yet there is simultaneously a rationing of opportunities in schools for students of color, students from under-resourced communities, and other historically marginalized groups to deeply learn and practice critical thinking.

For example, many of our most underserved students often spend class time filling out worksheets, promoting high compliance but low engagement, inquiry, critical thinking, or creation of new ideas. At a time in our world when college and careers are critical for participation in society and the global, knowledge-based economy, far too many students struggle within classrooms and schools that reinforce low-expectations and inequity.

If educators aim to prepare all students for an ever-evolving marketplace and develop skills that will be valued no matter what tomorrow’s jobs are, then we must move critical thinking to the forefront of classroom experiences. And educators must design learning to cultivate it.

So, what does that really look like?

Unpack and define critical thinking

To understand critical thinking, educators need to first unpack and define its components. What exactly are we looking for when we speak about reasoning or exploring multiple perspectives on an issue? How does problem-solving show up in English, math, science, art, or other disciplines—and how is it assessed? At Two Rivers, an EL Education school, the faculty identified five constructs of critical thinking, defined each, and created rubrics to generate a shared picture of quality for teachers and students. The rubrics were then adapted across grade levels to indicate students’ learning progressions.

At Avenues World School, critical thinking is one of the Avenues World Elements and is an enduring outcome embedded in students’ early experiences through 12th grade. For instance, a kindergarten student may be expected to “identify cause and effect in familiar contexts,” while an 8th grader should demonstrate the ability to “seek out sufficient evidence before accepting a claim as true,” “identify bias in claims and evidence,” and “reconsider strongly held points of view in light of new evidence.”

When faculty and students embrace a common vision of what critical thinking looks and sounds like and how it is assessed, educators can then explicitly design learning experiences that call for students to employ critical-thinking skills. This kind of work must occur across all schools and programs, especially those serving large numbers of students of color. As Linda Darling-Hammond asserts , “Schools that serve large numbers of students of color are least likely to offer the kind of curriculum needed to ... help students attain the [critical-thinking] skills needed in a knowledge work economy. ”

So, what can it look like to create those kinds of learning experiences?

Designing experiences for critical thinking

After defining a shared understanding of “what” critical thinking is and “how” it shows up across multiple disciplines and grade levels, it is essential to create learning experiences that impel students to cultivate, practice, and apply these skills. There are several levers that offer pathways for teachers to promote critical thinking in lessons:

1.Choose Compelling Topics: Keep it relevant

A key Common Core State Standard asks for students to “write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” That might not sound exciting or culturally relevant. But a learning experience designed for a 12th grade humanities class engaged learners in a compelling topic— policing in America —to analyze and evaluate multiple texts (including primary sources) and share the reasoning for their perspectives through discussion and writing. Students grappled with ideas and their beliefs and employed deep critical-thinking skills to develop arguments for their claims. Embedding critical-thinking skills in curriculum that students care about and connect with can ignite powerful learning experiences.

2. Make Local Connections: Keep it real

At The Possible Project , an out-of-school-time program designed to promote entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, students in a recent summer online program (modified from in-person due to COVID-19) explored the impact of COVID-19 on their communities and local BIPOC-owned businesses. They learned interviewing skills through a partnership with Everyday Boston , conducted virtual interviews with entrepreneurs, evaluated information from their interviews and local data, and examined their previously held beliefs. They created blog posts and videos to reflect on their learning and consider how their mindsets had changed as a result of the experience. In this way, we can design powerful community-based learning and invite students into productive struggle with multiple perspectives.

3. Create Authentic Projects: Keep it rigorous

At Big Picture Learning schools, students engage in internship-based learning experiences as a central part of their schooling. Their school-based adviser and internship-based mentor support them in developing real-world projects that promote deeper learning and critical-thinking skills. Such authentic experiences teach “young people to be thinkers, to be curious, to get from curiosity to creation … and it helps students design a learning experience that answers their questions, [providing an] opportunity to communicate it to a larger audience—a major indicator of postsecondary success.” Even in a remote environment, we can design projects that ask more of students than rote memorization and that spark critical thinking.

Our call to action is this: As educators, we need to make opportunities for critical thinking available not only to the affluent or those fortunate enough to be placed in advanced courses. The tools are available, let’s use them. Let’s interrogate our current curriculum and design learning experiences that engage all students in real, relevant, and rigorous experiences that require critical thinking and prepare them for promising postsecondary pathways.

Critical Thinking & Student Engagement

Dr. PJ Caposey is an award-winning educator, keynote speaker, consultant, and author of seven books who currently serves as the superintendent of schools for the award-winning Meridian CUSD 223 in northwest Illinois. You can find PJ on most social-media platforms as MCUSDSupe:

When I start my keynote on student engagement, I invite two people up on stage and give them each five paper balls to shoot at a garbage can also conveniently placed on stage. Contestant One shoots their shot, and the audience gives approval. Four out of 5 is a heckuva score. Then just before Contestant Two shoots, I blindfold them and start moving the garbage can back and forth. I usually try to ensure that they can at least make one of their shots. Nobody is successful in this unfair environment.

I thank them and send them back to their seats and then explain that this little activity was akin to student engagement. While we all know we want student engagement, we are shooting at different targets. More importantly, for teachers, it is near impossible for them to hit a target that is moving and that they cannot see.

Within the world of education and particularly as educational leaders, we have failed to simplify what student engagement looks like, and it is impossible to define or articulate what student engagement looks like if we cannot clearly articulate what critical thinking is and looks like in a classroom. Because, simply, without critical thought, there is no engagement.

The good news here is that critical thought has been defined and placed into taxonomies for decades already. This is not something new and not something that needs to be redefined. I am a Bloom’s person, but there is nothing wrong with DOK or some of the other taxonomies, either. To be precise, I am a huge fan of Daggett’s Rigor and Relevance Framework. I have used that as a core element of my practice for years, and it has shaped who I am as an instructional leader.

So, in order to explain critical thought, a teacher or a leader must familiarize themselves with these tried and true taxonomies. Easy, right? Yes, sort of. The issue is not understanding what critical thought is; it is the ability to integrate it into the classrooms. In order to do so, there are a four key steps every educator must take.

• Integrating critical thought/rigor into a lesson does not happen by chance, it happens by design. Planning for critical thought and engagement is much different from planning for a traditional lesson. In order to plan for kids to think critically, you have to provide a base of knowledge and excellent prompts to allow them to explore their own thinking in order to analyze, evaluate, or synthesize information.
• SIDE NOTE – Bloom’s verbs are a great way to start when writing objectives, but true planning will take you deeper than this.

QUESTIONING

• If the questions and prompts given in a classroom have correct answers or if the teacher ends up answering their own questions, the lesson will lack critical thought and rigor.
• Script five questions forcing higher-order thought prior to every lesson. Experienced teachers may not feel they need this, but it helps to create an effective habit.
• If lessons are rigorous and assessments are not, students will do well on their assessments, and that may not be an accurate representation of the knowledge and skills they have mastered. If lessons are easy and assessments are rigorous, the exact opposite will happen. When deciding to increase critical thought, it must happen in all three phases of the game: planning, instruction, and assessment.

TALK TIME / CONTROL

• To increase rigor, the teacher must DO LESS. This feels counterintuitive but is accurate. Rigorous lessons involving tons of critical thought must allow for students to work on their own, collaborate with peers, and connect their ideas. This cannot happen in a silent room except for the teacher talking. In order to increase rigor, decrease talk time and become comfortable with less control. Asking questions and giving prompts that lead to no true correct answer also means less control. This is a tough ask for some teachers. Explained differently, if you assign one assignment and get 30 very similar products, you have most likely assigned a low-rigor recipe. If you assign one assignment and get multiple varied products, then the students have had a chance to think deeply, and you have successfully integrated critical thought into your classroom.

Thanks to Dara, Patrick, Meg, and PJ for their contributions!

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

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

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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How to develop critical thinking skills

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What are critical thinking skills?

How to develop critical thinking skills: 12 tips, how to practice critical thinking skills at work, become your own best critic.

A client requests a tight deadline on an intense project. Your childcare provider calls in sick on a day full of meetings. Payment from a contract gig is a month behind. 

Your day-to-day will always have challenges, big and small. And no matter the size and urgency, they all ask you to use critical thinking to analyze the situation and arrive at the right solution. 

Critical thinking includes a wide set of soft skills that encourage continuous learning, resilience , and self-reflection. The more you add to your professional toolbelt, the more equipped you’ll be to tackle whatever challenge presents itself. Here’s how to develop critical thinking, with examples explaining how to use it.

Critical thinking skills are the skills you use to analyze information, imagine scenarios holistically, and create rational solutions. It’s a type of emotional intelligence that stimulates effective problem-solving and decision-making . 

When you fine-tune your critical thinking skills, you seek beyond face-value observations and knee-jerk reactions. Instead, you harvest deeper insights and string together ideas and concepts in logical, sometimes out-of-the-box , ways. 

Imagine a team working on a marketing strategy for a new set of services. That team might use critical thinking to balance goals and key performance indicators , like new customer acquisition costs, average monthly sales, and net profit margins. They understand the connections between overlapping factors to build a strategy that stays within budget and attracts new sales. 

Looking for ways to improve critical thinking skills? Start by brushing up on the following soft skills that fall under this umbrella: 

• Analytical thinking: Approaching problems with an analytical eye includes breaking down complex issues into small chunks and examining their significance. An example could be organizing customer feedback to identify trends and improve your product offerings. 
• Open-mindedness: Push past cognitive biases and be receptive to different points of view and constructive feedback . Managers and team members who keep an open mind position themselves to hear new ideas that foster innovation . 
• Creative thinking: With creative thinking , you can develop several ideas to address a single problem, like brainstorming more efficient workflow best practices to boost productivity and employee morale . 
• Self-reflection: Self-reflection lets you examine your thinking and assumptions to stimulate healthier collaboration and thought processes. Maybe a bad first impression created a negative anchoring bias with a new coworker. Reflecting on your own behavior stirs up empathy and improves the relationship. 
• Evaluation: With evaluation skills, you tackle the pros and cons of a situation based on logic rather than emotion. When prioritizing tasks , you might be tempted to do the fun or easy ones first, but evaluating their urgency and importance can help you make better decisions. 

There’s no magic method to change your thinking processes. Improvement happens with small, intentional changes to your everyday habits until a more critical approach to thinking is automatic. 

Here are 12 tips for building stronger self-awareness and learning how to improve critical thinking: 

1. Be cautious

There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of skepticism. One of the core principles of critical thinking is asking questions and dissecting the available information. You might surprise yourself at what you find when you stop to think before taking action. 

Before making a decision, use evidence, logic, and deductive reasoning to support your own opinions or challenge ideas. It helps you and your team avoid falling prey to bad information or resistance to change .

2. Ask open-ended questions

“Yes” or “no” questions invite agreement rather than reflection. Instead, ask open-ended questions that force you to engage in analysis and rumination. Digging deeper can help you identify potential biases, uncover assumptions, and arrive at new hypotheses and possible solutions. 

3. Do your research

No matter your proficiency, you can always learn more. Turning to different points of view and information is a great way to develop a comprehensive understanding of a topic and make informed decisions. You’ll prioritize reliable information rather than fall into emotional or automatic decision-making. 

4. Consider several opinions

You might spend so much time on your work that it’s easy to get stuck in your own perspective, especially if you work independently on a remote team . Make an effort to reach out to colleagues to hear different ideas and thought patterns. Their input might surprise you.

If or when you disagree, remember that you and your team share a common goal. Divergent opinions are constructive, so shift the focus to finding solutions rather than defending disagreements. 

5. Learn to be quiet

Active listening is the intentional practice of concentrating on a conversation partner instead of your own thoughts. It’s about paying attention to detail and letting people know you value their opinions, which can open your mind to new perspectives and thought processes.

If you’re brainstorming with your team or having a 1:1 with a coworker , listen, ask clarifying questions, and work to understand other peoples’ viewpoints. Listening to your team will help you find fallacies in arguments to improve possible solutions.

6. Schedule reflection

Whether waking up at 5 am or using a procrastination hack, scheduling time to think puts you in a growth mindset . Your mind has natural cognitive biases to help you simplify decision-making, but squashing them is key to thinking critically and finding new solutions besides the ones you might gravitate toward. Creating time and calm space in your day gives you the chance to step back and visualize the biases that impact your decision-making. 

7. Cultivate curiosity

With so many demands and job responsibilities, it’s easy to seek solace in routine. But getting out of your comfort zone helps spark critical thinking and find more solutions than you usually might.

If curiosity doesn’t come naturally to you, cultivate a thirst for knowledge by reskilling and upskilling . Not only will you add a new skill to your resume , but expanding the limits of your professional knowledge might motivate you to ask more questions. 

You don’t have to develop critical thinking skills exclusively in the office. Whether on your break or finding a hobby to do after work, playing strategic games or filling out crosswords can prime your brain for problem-solving. 

9. Write it down

Recording your thoughts with pen and paper can lead to stronger brain activity than typing them out on a keyboard. If you’re stuck and want to think more critically about a problem, writing your ideas can help you process information more deeply.

The act of recording ideas on paper can also improve your memory . Ideas are more likely to linger in the background of your mind, leading to deeper thinking that informs your decision-making process. 

10. Speak up

Take opportunities to share your opinion, even if it intimidates you. Whether at a networking event with new people or a meeting with close colleagues, try to engage with people who challenge or help you develop your ideas. Having conversations that force you to support your position encourages you to refine your argument and think critically. 

11. Stay humble

Ideas and concepts aren’t the same as real-life actions. There may be such a thing as negative outcomes, but there’s no such thing as a bad idea. At the brainstorming stage , don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

Sometimes the best solutions come from off-the-wall, unorthodox decisions. Sit in your creativity , let ideas flow, and don’t be afraid to share them with your colleagues. Putting yourself in a creative mindset helps you see situations from new perspectives and arrive at innovative conclusions. 

12. Embrace discomfort

Get comfortable feeling uncomfortable . It isn’t easy when others challenge your ideas, but sometimes, it’s the only way to see new perspectives and think critically.

By willingly stepping into unfamiliar territory, you foster the resilience and flexibility you need to become a better thinker. You’ll learn how to pick yourself up from failure and approach problems from fresh angles. 

Thinking critically is easier said than done. To help you understand its impact (and how to use it), here are two scenarios that require critical thinking skills and provide teachable moments. 

Scenario #1: Unexpected delays and budget

Imagine your team is working on producing an event. Unexpectedly, a vendor explains they’ll be a week behind on delivering materials. Then another vendor sends a quote that’s more than you can afford. Unless you develop a creative solution, the team will have to push back deadlines and go over budget, potentially costing the client’s trust. 

Here’s how you could approach the situation with creative thinking:

• Analyze the situation holistically: Determine how the delayed materials and over-budget quote will impact the rest of your timeline and financial resources . That way, you can identify whether you need to build an entirely new plan with new vendors, or if it’s worth it to readjust time and resources. 
• Identify your alternative options: With careful assessment, your team decides that another vendor can’t provide the same materials in a quicker time frame. You’ll need to rearrange assignment schedules to complete everything on time. 
• Collaborate and adapt: Your team has an emergency meeting to rearrange your project schedule. You write down each deliverable and determine which ones you can and can’t complete by the deadline. To compensate for lost time, you rearrange your task schedule to complete everything that doesn’t need the delayed materials first, then advance as far as you can on the tasks that do. 
• Check different resources: In the meantime, you scour through your contact sheet to find alternative vendors that fit your budget. Accounting helps by providing old invoices to determine which vendors have quoted less for previous jobs. After pulling all your sources, you find a vendor that fits your budget. 
• Maintain open communication: You create a special Slack channel to keep everyone up to date on changes, challenges, and additional delays. Keeping an open line encourages transparency on the team’s progress and boosts everyone’s confidence. 

Scenario #2: Differing opinions 

A conflict arises between two team members on the best approach for a new strategy for a gaming app. One believes that small tweaks to the current content are necessary to maintain user engagement and stay within budget. The other believes a bold revamp is needed to encourage new followers and stronger sales revenue. 

Here’s how critical thinking could help this conflict:

• Listen actively: Give both team members the opportunity to present their ideas free of interruption. Encourage the entire team to ask open-ended questions to more fully understand and develop each argument. 
• Flex your analytical skills: After learning more about both ideas, everyone should objectively assess the benefits and drawbacks of each approach. Analyze each idea's risk, merits, and feasibility based on available data and the app’s goals and objectives. 
• Identify common ground: The team discusses similarities between each approach and brainstorms ways to integrate both idea s, like making small but eye-catching modifications to existing content or using the same visual design in new media formats. 
• Test new strategy: To test out the potential of a bolder strategy, the team decides to A/B test both approaches. You create a set of criteria to evenly distribute users by different demographics to analyze engagement, revenue, and customer turnover. 
• Monitor and adapt: After implementing the A/B test, the team closely monitors the results of each strategy. You regroup and optimize the changes that provide stronger results after the testing. That way, all team members understand why you’re making the changes you decide to make.

You can’t think your problems away. But you can equip yourself with skills that help you move through your biggest challenges and find innovative solutions. Learning how to develop critical thinking is the start of honing an adaptable growth mindset. 

Now that you have resources to increase critical thinking skills in your professional development, you can identify whether you embrace change or routine, are open or resistant to feedback, or turn to research or emotion will build self-awareness. From there, tweak and incorporate techniques to be a critical thinker when life presents you with a problem.

Cultivate your creativity

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Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

How to improve your creative skills for effective problem-solving

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Article • 8 min read

Critical Thinking

Developing the right mindset and skills.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

We make hundreds of decisions every day and, whether we realize it or not, we're all critical thinkers.

We use critical thinking each time we weigh up our options, prioritize our responsibilities, or think about the likely effects of our actions. It's a crucial skill that helps us to cut out misinformation and make wise decisions. The trouble is, we're not always very good at it!

In this article, we'll explore the key skills that you need to develop your critical thinking skills, and how to adopt a critical thinking mindset, so that you can make well-informed decisions.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skillfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions, and beliefs. You'll need to actively question every step of your thinking process to do it well.

Collecting, analyzing and evaluating information is an important skill in life, and a highly valued asset in the workplace. People who score highly in critical thinking assessments are also rated by their managers as having good problem-solving skills, creativity, strong decision-making skills, and good overall performance. [1]

Key Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinkers possess a set of key characteristics which help them to question information and their own thinking. Focus on the following areas to develop your critical thinking skills:

Being willing and able to explore alternative approaches and experimental ideas is crucial. Can you think through "what if" scenarios, create plausible options, and test out your theories? If not, you'll tend to write off ideas and options too soon, so you may miss the best answer to your situation.

To nurture your curiosity, stay up to date with facts and trends. You'll overlook important information if you allow yourself to become "blinkered," so always be open to new information.

But don't stop there! Look for opposing views or evidence to challenge your information, and seek clarification when things are unclear. This will help you to reassess your beliefs and make a well-informed decision later. Read our article, Opening Closed Minds , for more ways to stay receptive.

Logical Thinking

You must be skilled at reasoning and extending logic to come up with plausible options or outcomes.

It's also important to emphasize logic over emotion. Emotion can be motivating but it can also lead you to take hasty and unwise action, so control your emotions and be cautious in your judgments. Know when a conclusion is "fact" and when it is not. "Could-be-true" conclusions are based on assumptions and must be tested further. Read our article, Logical Fallacies , for help with this.

Use creative problem solving to balance cold logic. By thinking outside of the box you can identify new possible outcomes by using pieces of information that you already have.

Self-Awareness

Many of the decisions we make in life are subtly informed by our values and beliefs. These influences are called cognitive biases and it can be difficult to identify them in ourselves because they're often subconscious.

Practicing self-awareness will allow you to reflect on the beliefs you have and the choices you make. You'll then be better equipped to challenge your own thinking and make improved, unbiased decisions.

One particularly useful tool for critical thinking is the Ladder of Inference . It allows you to test and validate your thinking process, rather than jumping to poorly supported conclusions.

Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset

Combine the above skills with the right mindset so that you can make better decisions and adopt more effective courses of action. You can develop your critical thinking mindset by following this process:

Gather Information

First, collect data, opinions and facts on the issue that you need to solve. Draw on what you already know, and turn to new sources of information to help inform your understanding. Consider what gaps there are in your knowledge and seek to fill them. And look for information that challenges your assumptions and beliefs.

Be sure to verify the authority and authenticity of your sources. Not everything you read is true! Use this checklist to ensure that your information is valid:

• Are your information sources trustworthy ? (For example, well-respected authors, trusted colleagues or peers, recognized industry publications, websites, blogs, etc.)
• Is the information you have gathered up to date ?
• Has the information received any direct criticism ?
• Does the information have any errors or inaccuracies ?
• Is there any evidence to support or corroborate the information you have gathered?
• Is the information you have gathered subjective or biased in any way? (For example, is it based on opinion, rather than fact? Is any of the information you have gathered designed to promote a particular service or organization?)

If any information appears to be irrelevant or invalid, don't include it in your decision making. But don't omit information just because you disagree with it, or your final decision will be flawed and bias.

Now observe the information you have gathered, and interpret it. What are the key findings and main takeaways? What does the evidence point to? Start to build one or two possible arguments based on what you have found.

You'll need to look for the details within the mass of information, so use your powers of observation to identify any patterns or similarities. You can then analyze and extend these trends to make sensible predictions about the future.

To help you to sift through the multiple ideas and theories, it can be useful to group and order items according to their characteristics. From here, you can compare and contrast the different items. And once you've determined how similar or different things are from one another, Paired Comparison Analysis can help you to analyze them.

The final step involves challenging the information and rationalizing its arguments.

Apply the laws of reason (induction, deduction, analogy) to judge an argument and determine its merits. To do this, it's essential that you can determine the significance and validity of an argument to put it in the correct perspective. Take a look at our article, Rational Thinking , for more information about how to do this.

Once you have considered all of the arguments and options rationally, you can finally make an informed decision.

Afterward, take time to reflect on what you have learned and what you found challenging. Step back from the detail of your decision or problem, and look at the bigger picture. Record what you've learned from your observations and experience.

Critical thinking involves rigorously and skilfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs. It's a useful skill in the workplace and in life.

You'll need to be curious and creative to explore alternative possibilities, but rational to apply logic, and self-aware to identify when your beliefs could affect your decisions or actions.

You can demonstrate a high level of critical thinking by validating your information, analyzing its meaning, and finally evaluating the argument.

Critical Thinking Infographic

See Critical Thinking represented in our infographic: An Elementary Guide to Critical Thinking .

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Helping Students Hone Their Critical Thinking Skills

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

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

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

Make Time for Metacognitive Reflection

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

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

Teach Reasoning Skills 

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

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

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

Ask Open-Ended Questions 

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

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

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

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

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

Teach Information Literacy 

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

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

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

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

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

Provide Diverse Perspectives 

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

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

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

Practice Makes Perfect 

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

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

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

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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Senior Quantitative Researcher, People Insights

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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.

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What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas.  Critical thinking has been the subject of much debate and thought since the time of early Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates and has continued to be a subject of discussion into the modern age, for example the ability to recognise fake news .

Critical thinking might be described as the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.

In essence, critical thinking requires you to use your ability to reason. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.

Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments and findings represent the entire picture and are open to finding that they do not.

Critical thinkers will identify, analyse and solve problems systematically rather than by intuition or instinct.

Someone with critical thinking skills can:

Understand the links between ideas.

Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.

Recognise, build and appraise arguments.

Identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.

Approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.

Reflect on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs and values.

Critical thinking is thinking about things in certain ways so as to arrive at the best possible solution in the circumstances that the thinker is aware of. In more everyday language, it is a way of thinking about whatever is presently occupying your mind so that you come to the best possible conclusion.

Critical Thinking is:

A way of thinking about particular things at a particular time; it is not the accumulation of facts and knowledge or something that you can learn once and then use in that form forever, such as the nine times table you learn and use in school.

The Skills We Need for Critical Thinking

The skills that we need in order to be able to think critically are varied and include observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making.

Specifically we need to be able to:

Think about a topic or issue in an objective and critical way.

Identify the different arguments there are in relation to a particular issue.

Evaluate a point of view to determine how strong or valid it is.

Recognise any weaknesses or negative points that there are in the evidence or argument.

Notice what implications there might be behind a statement or argument.

Provide structured reasoning and support for an argument that we wish to make.

The Critical Thinking Process

You should be aware that none of us think critically all the time.

Sometimes we think in almost any way but critically, for example when our self-control is affected by anger, grief or joy or when we are feeling just plain ‘bloody minded’.

On the other hand, the good news is that, since our critical thinking ability varies according to our current mindset, most of the time we can learn to improve our critical thinking ability by developing certain routine activities and applying them to all problems that present themselves.

Once you understand the theory of critical thinking, improving your critical thinking skills takes persistence and practice.

Try this simple exercise to help you to start thinking critically.

Think of something that someone has recently told you. Then ask yourself the following questions:

Who said it?

Someone you know? Someone in a position of authority or power? Does it matter who told you this?

What did they say?

Did they give facts or opinions? Did they provide all the facts? Did they leave anything out?

Where did they say it?

Was it in public or in private? Did other people have a chance to respond an provide an alternative account?

When did they say it?

Was it before, during or after an important event? Is timing important?

Why did they say it?

Did they explain the reasoning behind their opinion? Were they trying to make someone look good or bad?

How did they say it?

Were they happy or sad, angry or indifferent? Did they write it or say it? Could you understand what was said?

What are you Aiming to Achieve?

One of the most important aspects of critical thinking is to decide what you are aiming to achieve and then make a decision based on a range of possibilities.

Once you have clarified that aim for yourself you should use it as the starting point in all future situations requiring thought and, possibly, further decision making. Where needed, make your workmates, family or those around you aware of your intention to pursue this goal. You must then discipline yourself to keep on track until changing circumstances mean you have to revisit the start of the decision making process.

However, there are things that get in the way of simple decision making. We all carry with us a range of likes and dislikes, learnt behaviours and personal preferences developed throughout our lives; they are the hallmarks of being human. A major contribution to ensuring we think critically is to be aware of these personal characteristics, preferences and biases and make allowance for them when considering possible next steps, whether they are at the pre-action consideration stage or as part of a rethink caused by unexpected or unforeseen impediments to continued progress.

The more clearly we are aware of ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, the more likely our critical thinking will be productive.

The Benefit of Foresight

Perhaps the most important element of thinking critically is foresight.

Almost all decisions we make and implement don’t prove disastrous if we find reasons to abandon them. However, our decision making will be infinitely better and more likely to lead to success if, when we reach a tentative conclusion, we pause and consider the impact on the people and activities around us.

The elements needing consideration are generally numerous and varied. In many cases, consideration of one element from a different perspective will reveal potential dangers in pursuing our decision.

For instance, moving a business activity to a new location may improve potential output considerably but it may also lead to the loss of skilled workers if the distance moved is too great. Which of these is the more important consideration? Is there some way of lessening the conflict?

These are the sort of problems that may arise from incomplete critical thinking, a demonstration perhaps of the critical importance of good critical thinking.

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In Summary:

Critical thinking is aimed at achieving the best possible outcomes in any situation. In order to achieve this it must involve gathering and evaluating information from as many different sources possible.

Critical thinking requires a clear, often uncomfortable, assessment of your personal strengths, weaknesses and preferences and their possible impact on decisions you may make.

Critical thinking requires the development and use of foresight as far as this is possible. As Doris Day sang, “the future’s not ours to see”.

Implementing the decisions made arising from critical thinking must take into account an assessment of possible outcomes and ways of avoiding potentially negative outcomes, or at least lessening their impact.

• Critical thinking involves reviewing the results of the application of decisions made and implementing change where possible.

It might be thought that we are overextending our demands on critical thinking in expecting that it can help to construct focused meaning rather than examining the information given and the knowledge we have acquired to see if we can, if necessary, construct a meaning that will be acceptable and useful.

After all, almost no information we have available to us, either externally or internally, carries any guarantee of its life or appropriateness.  Neat step-by-step instructions may provide some sort of trellis on which our basic understanding of critical thinking can blossom but it doesn’t and cannot provide any assurance of certainty, utility or longevity.

Continue to: Critical Thinking and Fake News Critical Reading

See also: Analytical Skills Understanding and Addressing Conspiracy Theories Introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

How to Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills

Traditional tools and new technologies..

Posted September 29, 2023 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

Technology provides access to vast information and makes daily life easier. Yet, too much reliance on technology potentially interferes with the acquisition and maintenance of critical thinking skills in several ways:

1. Information Overload : The constant influx of data can discourage deep critical thinking as we may come to rely on quick, surface-level information rather than delving deeply into a subject.

2. Shortened Attention Span: Frequent digital distractions can disrupt our ability for the sustained focus and concentration required for critical thinking.

3. Confirmatory Bias and Echo Chambers: Technology, including social media and personalized content algorithms, can reinforce confirmation bias . People are often exposed to information that aligns with their beliefs and opinions, making them less likely to encounter diverse perspectives and engage in critical thinking about opposing views.

4. Reduced Problem-Solving Opportunities: Technology often provides quick solutions to problems. While this benefits efficiency, it may discourage individuals from engaging in complex problem-solving, a fundamental aspect of critical thinking.

5. Loss of Research Skills: The ease of accessing information online can diminish traditional research skills, such as library research or in-depth reading. These skills are essential for critical thinking, as they involve evaluating sources, synthesizing information, and analyzing complex texts.

While technology can pose challenges to developing critical thinking skills, it's important to note that technology can also be a valuable tool for learning and skill development. It can provide access to educational resources, facilitate collaboration , and support critical thinking when used thoughtfully and intentionally. Balancing technology use with activities that encourage deep thinking and analysis is vital to lessening its potential adverse effects on critical thinking.

Writing is a traditional and powerful tool to exercise and improve your critical thinking skills. Consider these ways writing can help enhance critical thinking:

1. Clarity of Thought: Writing requires that you articulate your thoughts clearly and coherently. When you need to put your ideas on paper, you must organize them logically, which requires a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

2. Analysis and Evaluation: Critical thinking involves analyzing and evaluating information. When you write, you often need to assess the validity and relevance of different sources, arguments, or pieces of evidence, which hone your critical thinking skills.

3. Problem-Solving: Writing can be a problem-solving exercise in itself. Whether crafting an argument, developing a thesis, or finding the right words to express your ideas, writing requires thinking critically about approaching these challenges effectively.

4. Research Skills: Good writing often involves research, and research requires critical thinking. You need to assess the credibility of sources, synthesize information, and draw conclusions based on the evidence you gather.

5. Argumentation: Constructing a persuasive argument in writing is a complex process requiring critical thinking. You must anticipate counterarguments, provide evidence to support your claims, and address potential weaknesses in your reasoning.

6. Revision and Editing: To be an influential writer, you must learn to read your work critically. Editing and revising requires evaluating your writing objectively, identifying areas that need improvement, and refining your ideas and arguments.

7. Problem Identification: In some cases, writing can help you identify problems or gaps in your thinking. As you write, you might realize that your arguments are not as strong as you initially thought or that you need more information to support your claims. This recognition of limitations is a crucial aspect of critical thinking.

Writing is a dynamic process that engages multiple facets of critical thinking. It has been a valuable tool used in education , business, and personal development for centuries.

Yet, this traditional approach of self-generated written thoughts is rapidly being supplanted by AI -generated writing tools like Chat GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer. With over 100 million users of Chat GPT alone, we cannot ignore its potential impact. How might the increasing reliance on AI-generated writing tools influence our critical thinking skills? The impact can vary depending on how the tools are used and the context in which they are employed.

Critical thinking involves evaluating information sources for credibility, relevance, and bias. If individuals consistently trust the information provided by chatbots without critically assessing its quality, it can hinder their development of critical thinking skills. This is especially true if they depend on the chatbot to provide answers without questioning or verifying the information. Relying solely on chatbots for answers may also reduce people's effort in problem-solving. Critical thinking often requires wrestling with complex problems, considering multiple perspectives, and generating creative solutions. If we default to chatbots for quick answers, we may miss opportunities to develop these skills.

However, it's essential to note that the impact of chatbots on critical thinking skills may not be entirely negative. These tools can also have positive effects:

1. Chatbots provide quick access to vast information, which can benefit research and problem-solving. When used as a supplement to critical thinking, they can enhance the efficiency of information retrieval.

2. Chatbots can sometimes assist in complex tasks by providing relevant data or suggestions. When individuals critically evaluate and integrate this information into their decision-making process, it can enhance their critical thinking.

3. Chatbots can be used as learning aids. They can provide explanations, examples, and guidance, which can support skill development and, when used effectively, encourage critical thinking.

In summary, the impact of chatbots on critical thinking skills depends on how we use them. The effect will be harmful if they become a crutch to avoid independent thought or analysis. However, they can be valuable resources when used as tools to facilitate and augment critical thinking and writing processes. Individuals must balance leveraging the convenience of chatbots and actively engaging in independent critical thinking and problem-solving to maintain and enhance their cognitive abilities. You can do that effectively through writing regularly.

Copyright 2023 Tara Well, PhD

Tara Well, Ph.D. , is a professor in the department of psychology at Barnard College of Columbia University.

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Strategies to Increase Critical Thinking Skills in students

Matthew Joseph October 2, 2019 Blog , Engage Better , Lesson Plan Better , Personalize Student Learning Better

In This Post:

• The importance of helping students increase critical thinking skills.
• Ways to promote the essential skills needed to analyze and evaluate.
• Strategies to incorporate critical thinking into your instruction.

We ask our teachers to be “future-ready” or say that we are teaching “for jobs that don’t exist yet.” These are powerful statements. At the same time, they give teachers the impression that we have to drastically change what we are doing .

So how do we plan education for an unknown job market or unknown needs?

My answer: We can’t predict the jobs, but whatever they are, students will need to think critically to do them. So, our job is to teach our students HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Helping Students Become Critical Thinkers

My answer is rooted in the call to empower our students to be critical thinkers. I believe that to be critical thinkers, educators need to provide students with the strategies they need. And we need to ask more than just surface-level questions.

Questions to students must motivate them to dig up background knowledge. They should inspire them to make connections to real-world scenarios. These make the learning more memorable and meaningful.

Critical thinking is a general term. I believe this term means that students effectively identify, analyze, and evaluate content or skills. In this process, they (the students) will discover and present convincing reasons in support of their answers or thinking.

You can look up critical thinking and get many definitions like this one from Wikipedia: “ Critical thinking consists of a mental process of analyzing or evaluating information, particularly statements or propositions that people have offered as true. ”

Essential Skills for Critical Thinking

In my current role as director of curriculum and instruction, I work to promote the use of 21st-century tools and, more importantly, thinking skills. Some essential skills that are the basis for critical thinking are:

• Communication and Information skills
• Thinking and Problem-Solving skills
• Interpersonal and Self- Directional skills
• Collaboration skills

These four bullets are skills students are going to need in any field and in all levels of education. Hence my answer to the question. We need to teach our students to think critically and for themselves.

One of the goals of education is to prepare students to learn through discovery . Providing opportunities to practice being critical thinkers will assist students in analyzing others’ thinking and examining the logic of others.

Understanding others is an essential skill in collaboration and in everyday life. Critical thinking will allow students to do more than just memorize knowledge.

Ask Questions

So how do we do this? One recommendation is for educators to work in-depth questioning strategies into a lesson launch.

Ask thoughtful questions to allow for answers with sound reasoning. Then, word conversations and communication to shape students’ thinking. Quick answers often result in very few words and no eye contact, which are skills we don’t want to promote.

When you are asking students questions and they provide a solution, try some of these to promote further thinking:

• Could you elaborate further on that point?
• Will you express that point in another way?
• Can you give me an illustration?
• Would you give me an example?
• Will you you provide more details?
• Could you be more specific?
• Do we need to consider another point of view?
• Is there another way to look at this question?

Utilizing critical thinking skills could be seen as a change in the paradigm of teaching and learning. Engagement in education will enhance the collaboration among teachers and students. It will also provide a way for students to succeed even if the school system had to start over.

[scroll down to keep reading]

Promoting critical thinking into all aspects of instruction.

Engagement, application, and collaboration are skills that withstand the test of time. I also promote the integration of critical thinking into every aspect of instruction.

In my experience, I’ve found a few ways to make this happen.

Begin lessons/units with a probing question: It shouldn’t be a question you can answer with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ These questions should inspire discovery learning and problem-solving.

Encourage Creativity: I have seen teachers prepare projects before they give it to their students many times. For example, designing snowmen or other “creative” projects. By doing the design work or by cutting all the circles out beforehand, it removes creativity options.

It may help the classroom run more smoothly if every child’s material is already cut out, but then every student’s project looks the same. Students don’t have to think on their own or problem solve.

Not having everything “glue ready” in advance is a good thing. Instead, give students all the supplies needed to create a snowman, and let them do it on their own.

Giving independence will allow students to become critical thinkers because they will have to create their own product with the supplies you give them. This might be an elementary example, but it’s one we can relate to any grade level or project.

Try not to jump to help too fast – let the students work through a productive struggle .

Build in opportunities for students to find connections in learning.  Encouraging students to make connections to a real-life situation and identify patterns is a great way to practice their critical thinking skills. The use of real-world scenarios will increase rigor, relevance, and critical thinking.

A few other techniques to encourage critical thinking are:

• Use analogies
• Promote interaction among students
• Ask open-ended questions
• Allow reflection time
• Use real-life problems
• Allow for thinking practice

Critical thinking prepares students to think for themselves for the rest of their lives. I also believe critical thinkers are less likely to go along with the crowd because they think for themselves.

About Matthew X. Joseph, Ed.D.

Dr. Matthew X. Joseph has been a school and district leader in many capacities in public education over his 25 years in the field. Experiences such as the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation in Milford Public Schools (MA), elementary school principal in Natick, MA and Attleboro, MA, classroom teacher, and district professional development specialist have provided Matt incredible insights on how to best support teaching and learning. This experience has led to nationally publishing articles and opportunities to speak at multiple state and national events. He is the author of Power of Us: Creating Collaborative Schools and co-author of Modern Mentoring , Reimagining Teacher Mentorship (Due out, fall 2019). His master’s degree is in special education and his Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Boston College.

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WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY

Developing your critical thinking skills, critical thinking skills, critical thinking skills are the navigational tools needed for everyday life and in any professional journey. they enable you to analyze and solve complex problems effectively, allowing you to gain a competitive edge and empowering you to make smarter decisions.    .

With these skills, you’ll be able to think outside the box, adapt to change, and handle risks with greater efficiency. By improving your critical thinking abilities, you're setting yourself up to succeed in any field. 

This guide explores different types of critical thinking skills and how you can learn and apply them in your everyday life.

What Are Critical Thinking Skills?

Critical thinking skills refer to your ability to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information in a logical and systematic manner to determine possible solutions. Think of it as employing objective reasoning and sound judgment to assess situations, solve problems, make decisions, and draw meaningful conclusions.

These skills assist you in thinking clearly and making sensible decisions when needed to solve problems, make better choices, think independently, consider multiple viewpoints, and apply thoughtful analysis to complex issues.

Why Are Critical Thinking Skills Important?

Critical thinking skills are highly valued by employers and are crucial in today's job market for several reasons. Let’s have a look at why these skills are important:

• Decision-making: You can make informed decisions based on careful analysis, which leads to more effective decision-making, minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities. 
• Effective problem-solving: These skills provide the foundation for effective problem-solving in different professional contexts. These skills equip you to effectively identify, define, and analyze problems from different perspectives.
• Promote open-mindedness: Critical thinking leads to innovative ideas and approaches that will make you challenge assumptions. These challenges lead to innovative ideas and approaches. 
• Effective communication: By enabling you to clearly organize your thoughts and articulate ideas, critical thinking skills promote effective communication.

What are the Benefits of Having Critical Thinking Skills?

As mentioned above, critical thinking skills are crucial in every profession and enable you to stand out and succeed in your field. Let’s explore some of the benefits of critical thinking skills and how they add value to your profession:

Stronger analytical abilities: You enhance your analytical thinking capabilities, allowing you to gather, assess, and interpret data effectively. Using logical reasoning, you can identify patterns, extract relevant insights, and draw meaningful conclusions from complex information. This skill is valuable in problem-solving, decision-making, and strategic planning.  

Flexibility: Being flexible enables you to adapt to changing circumstances and swiftly navigate uncertainties. By considering multiple perspectives, evaluating information gathered, and adjusting your thinking, you can adapt your strategies and approaches to respond effectively to evolving situations. This adaptability is crucial in today's fast-changing work environments. 

Lifelong learning: By embracing a growth mindset and engaging in lifelong learning, you can acquire new skills, question assumptions, seek new knowledge, critically evaluate your beliefs, and stay relevant in your chosen field.  

Vision clarity: Having a clear vision enables you to forecast situations and goals. Critical thinking skills provide a framework for purposeful action. This concept also guarantees that your efforts are consistently directed toward achieving the desired outcomes.

Endless possibilities: Solid critical thinking skills allow you to uncover an array of potential outcomes, ideas, and opportunities to go beyond the familiar. 

Examples of Critical Thinking Skills in the Workplace

Critical thinking skills can be applied in many ways across various professions. Here are some practical examples:

Analysis: You can ask relevant questions, evaluate evidence, and draw logical conclusions based on available information. You can uncover a trend or problem through analysis and make a well-informed decision based on your findings. 

Evaluation: You can weigh different perspectives, consider biases or limitations, and make informed judgments about the quality and validity of information or claims presented. You can distinguish between credible and unreliable sources by evaluating evidence, claims, or proposals and determining the best cause of action.

Creative thinking: Thinking creatively means being innovative, embracing new perspectives, and engaging in divergent thinking to discover fresh insights and possibilities.  

Inference: You can draw logical conclusions based on available evidence, observations, or patterns. By making reasoned judgments and connecting pieces of information, you can delve deeper into complex situations leading to better solutions. 

Reflection: You can critically examine your thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. By displaying self-awareness and introspection, you enhance self-directed learning and promote continuous improvement.  

How Will I Use Critical Thinking Skills?

By developing and applying critical thinking skills, you will be better equipped to navigate complex work environments, contribute to organizational success, and excel in your chosen career path. 

These skills are applicable across various professional roles and industries. For example, with IT careers, you can use critical thinking skills in the following fields:

IT Career: In the IT industry, critical thinking skills are essential for problem-solving and troubleshooting. For example, you’ll be able to analyze the symptoms, gather relevant information, and evaluate potential causes. IT careers such as risk analysts , information manager and IT manager require solid critical thinking skills.

With health careers you can use critical thinking skills in the workplace. This includes:

Accurate diagnoses and treatment decisions: Critical thinking skills are crucial for the hospital environment and beyond.  For instance, as a nurse or doctor with strong critical thinking skills, you will carefully assess a patient's symptoms, review medical history, and analyze test results. Most careers in healthcare such as community health workers , ICU nurses , medical records manager , etc., require these skills.

With education careers, you’ll discover how critical thinking skills are useful in the classroom and beyond:

Designing engaging classroom activities: As a teacher with strong critical thinking skills, you’ll design engaging classroom activities and questions. You can promote problem-solving and creative learning. Most careers in education such as teaching assistants , preschool teachers , and even high school teachers need these skills.

With business professions you incorporate critical thinking skills into everyday decisions in the workplace:

Evaluating market trends: As a decision-maker in business, critical thinking skills help you evaluate market trends, analyze financial data, and assess potential risks and opportunities. You’ll use logical reasoning and sound judgment to make informed business-related decisions such as product development, resource allocation, and business strategies. Most business-related careers such as project management, actuary , human resources management , etc., need these skills.

Critical thinking skills provide a foundation for thoughtful approaches in each field.

How Can I Learn Critical Thinking Skills?

At WGU, our curriculum is designed to foster critical thinking skills by incorporating interactive and thought-provoking course content. 

Our courses are structured to encourage active learning and provide opportunities to apply critical thinking skills in different subject areas.  

For example, in the Leavitt School of Health , the following degree programs teach critical thinking as part of the coursework:

• BS Nursing (BSRN) 
• BS Nursing (RN- to BSN Degree), BSNU
• BS Nursing-Prelicensure (BSPRN) 

In nursing and other health-related degrees, you’ll learn to:

• Identify reliable and credible sources of information. 
• Identify different academic arguments concerning a particular issue.
• Identify potential sources of bias when analyzing a given issue. 
• Gather relevant facts to form a judgment.
• Analyze data from various sources and contexts. 

In critical thinking courses, you’ll encounter challenging concepts, case studies, and real-world scenarios that require critical analysis and problem-solving. 

You’ll be able to engage in collaborative learning activities, such as group projects, discussions, and simulations. You’ll also complete a capstone project that integrates and applies the knowledge and skills you’ve acquired. 

These activities encourage you to share ideas, consider diverse perspectives, and provide an opportunity to demonstrate your proficiency in critical thinking while also showcasing your ability to apply it practically. 

Our goal at WGU is to provide a comprehensive learning experience that enhances your critical thinking skills.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is critical thinking used in everyday life?

You can apply critical thinking to various aspects of everyday life, such as:

• Making logical decisions when solving problems. 
• Assessing the credibility of the information you encounter online to avoid being misled or scammed.
• Understanding and questioning norms, biases, and stereotypes leading to a change in policies and social justice. 

How do you say you’re good at critical thinking in your résumé?

You must provide concrete examples to demonstrate your abilities as a critical thinker in your résumé. 

For example, you can describe situations where you successfully applied critical thinking to solve problems or make decisions. 

You can also provide relevant certifications or coursework if you’ve completed any courses or certifications related to critical thinking. Make sure that you highlight them in the education section of your résumé.

What are the barriers to critical thinking?

There are various factors that can limit your ability to think critically:

• Allowing emotions to influence your thinking process.
• Conforming to cultural and social norms.
• Lacking access to accurate information about a subject. 
• Having insufficient time to thoroughly evaluate information.
• Lacking exposure to situations that require critical thinking.

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3 critical thinking strategies to enhance your problem-solving skills

Think back to the last time you made a big decision.

Maybe you were choosing between two jobs or whether to move across the country.

How did you make your choice? Most likely, you analyzed the pros and cons of each option and chose the one that made the most sense for you.

This decision-making process relied on an important skill we all need: critical thinking.

Critical thinking is usually associated with analyzing complex problems in a corporate boardroom or sitting through a tedious philosophy lecture. While those are undoubtedly valid applications of critical thinking skills, the truth is that everyone thinks critically every day — often without even realizing it.

Critical thinking strategies allow us to objectively evaluate information and make informed decisions based on logic and reason. The critical thinking process is essential for success in many areas, from business to academia to parenting. No matter your profession or lifestyle, learning how to think critically can improve your life in countless ways.

In this article, you'll learn more about critical thinking skills and how to enhance them by following specific, actionable critical thinking strategies.

What is critical thinking?

There are many ways to interpret the concept of critical thinking. Science, academia, and business all have their own viewpoints. An official definition of critical thinking is difficult to label, and that's logical. After all, the critical thinking process isn't about memorizing generic definitions — it's about asking questions for yourself.

At its simplest, the Foundation for Critical Thinking (FCT) Model defines critical thinking as "...the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it." The critical thinking process is about being objective — seeing different points of view and keeping an open mind when new information contradicts your beliefs and opinions. Critical thinkers prioritize facts over emotions, remove biases, verify information, and use logical reasoning to solve problems.

When is a critical thinking strategy essential?

Sound reasoning is essential to making good decisions. Since we all make thousands of decisions every day, it can be beneficial to strengthen our reasoning and problem-solving skills.

However, critical thinking skills can be more than just helpful in some situations — they're vital. These instances include:

• Interpreting the news . Social networking has changed the way we receive information. About half of U.S. adults get their news from social media , and more than a third regularly turn to Facebook as their source. Since anyone can share anything on social networks, fake news spreads quickly , so it's essential to think critically to discern fake news from accurate reporting.
• In the workplace . According to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking skills are one of the top two skills needed for the future of work as the Fourth Industrial Revolution develops). Indeed, 93% of executives say "a candidate's demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major."
• Formal education and self-learning . Critical thinking skills help learners engage in the learning process. Thinking critically encourages curiosity, leading us to ask tough questions when faced with challenging situations or material and delve deeper into the new subject matter. As a result, we better understand the information and discover practical ways to integrate it.
• Parenting . Parenting involves various critical thinking skills, from managing discipline to making care decisions. A constant stream of opinions and trends on social media makes decision-making even more challenging for a modern parent. Asking open-ended questions, researching claims, becoming aware of critical thinking barriers , and being skeptical of trends are necessary to make informed decisions about children's care.

These are just a few examples of situations where critical thinking can be helpful. There are many other areas of life in which critical thinking strategies are beneficial. To use them properly, you'll need to develop a few key critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking skills

Applying critical thinking strategies requires the use of a few essential skills. Experts identify the core critical thinking skills as:

• Interpretation is the ability to understand and make sense of information. When we interpret something, we use subskills like categorization and significance to help us clarify the meaning.
• Analysis refers to breaking down complex ideas and concepts into smaller chunks that can be better understood. This skill requires effectively examining ideas to identify the critical components or problems.
• Evaluation is the ability to determine whether or not a particular claim or piece of evidence is valid and credible. Subskills like logic and reasoning help us judge the quality or value of something.
• Inference is the process of drawing logical conclusions from the presented information. This skill helps critical thinkers understand new ideas by looking for patterns and connections between different pieces of information.
• Explanation refers to effectively communicating in a way that others can easily understand. This entails simplifying complex information to present the findings of your reasoning in a clear way with well-reasoned arguments that look at the big picture.
• Self-regulation is the ability to monitor your own thinking and behavior to improve performance over time. This skill allows critical thinkers to reflect on their progress and make adjustments to achieve better results.

Developing these skills will lead to better critical thinking. Skill development can occur in a wide variety of situations by practicing specific strategies.

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3 critical thinking strategies to try

Developing and refining critical thinking skills takes time and practice. If you want to sharpen your problem-solving skills, here are a few critical thinking strategies you can use as a starting point.

Strategy 1: Comprehensive Analysis

A critical approach to any argument should begin with a detailed and systematic examination. When you break down the claim into elements, you can evaluate each segment separately to determine its legitimacy.

Start by analyzing the language of the argument. Analyze the following factors:

• Make sure that words are used in the correct context by checking their meaning
• The definition of words within the context of the argument should be accurate
• Make sure the language being used has clarity and makes sense
• Verify the accuracy of the language in the statement to ensure it is fair and factual

Evaluating an argument's words and phrases is an essential first step to determining validity.

The next step is to examine the claim's structure. There is a basic structure to all arguments — one or more premises lead to a conclusion. The premise is the statement(s) that provides evidence supporting the conclusion. The conclusion is the claim that is made in the argument, usually highlighted by words like "so" or "therefore." Understanding this basic structure is essential to identify each piece for assessment.

Standardization

Consider standardizing the argument if necessary. A few situations may require restructuring into a standard structure. When a statement isn't logically arranged, extracting premises and conclusions and rearranging them make them easier to comprehend.

When more than one premise exists for a single conclusion, making two separate assertions with the conclusion makes it easier to assess each assumption separately.

Sometimes, an argument is missing its conclusion because the author implied it. It's often easier to understand an implied conclusion when the structure is broken down into a standardized format. In the same way, a missing premise can occur when part of the element is common knowledge or assumed.

Classification

As a final step, classify the argument. All arguments are either deductive or non-deductive. The strategies you will use to evaluate your argument will vary depending on whether your argument is deductive. Deductive arguments contain premises that guarantee their conclusions. The premises of non-deductive arguments cannot guarantee the truth of their findings.

Strategy 2: Utilize Bloom's Taxonomy

Another strategy that can develop the critical thinking process is Bloom's Taxonomy . Educators worldwide have used the framework created by Benjamin Bloom to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition, like reasoning, learning, and comprehension.

In the original model, there were six main categories:

• Comprehension
• Application

In 2001, researchers, educators, and psychologists revised the taxonomy to reflect a more dynamic approach to education, changing the labels to represent the actions taken at each step of the system:

The six levels are arranged in hierarchical form, moving from the simplest level of cognition — thinking — to the highest, most complex level — evaluation.

Bloom's Taxonomy can serve as a useful critical thinking strategy in two ways. Teachers can use the taxonomy to promote critical thinking in their teaching strategies. By assessing the cognition level of their students, teachers can plan and deliver instruction at the appropriate level, ensuring that tasks and assessments align with the objective. Most importantly, they can tailor the types of questions they ask in classroom discussion by using strategic words that challenge students on different levels of cognition.

For classroom students and self-learners, the taxonomy provides a structured framework for decision-making. Students are guided through the process of critical analysis, starting with acquiring knowledge. As learners progress through the steps, they are encouraged to gather more information and examine it analytically before evaluating it to reach a decision.

Strategy 3: Apply the Falsification Theory

The Falsification Theory is an approach that aims to separate science from non-science proposed by 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper. In short, it implies that a scientific theory or hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be logically refuted by an empirical test. For example, observing a white duck can falsify the hypothesis that "all ducks are yellow."

It can be helpful to use falsification as a critical thinking strategy when evaluating new information or scientific claims. This encourages us to test our assumptions and seek disconfirming evidence. When we actively seek out information that contradicts our beliefs, we can more accurately assess the validity of our ideas by avoiding narrow thinking and removing bias.

The theory isn't without criticism, however. Skeptics argue that it's too simplistic. Some cite scientific theories (like Einstein's theory of relativity) that haven't been proven false yet are still considered scientific. Other people argue that some theories (such as Darwin's theory of evolution) have been tested and found true yet are still being tested and critiqued.

Whether or not the Falsification Theory is a perfect way of distinguishing science from non-science may be debated. Still, it remains a valuable tool for thinking critically about the information we encounter in everyday life.

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Enhance your higher-order thinking skills

Developing higher-order thinking skills and refining the critical thinking process are essential for those who seek personal and professional development. Enhancing your decision-making abilities requires developing essential critical thinking skills and learning how you can apply them.

The three critical thinking strategies shared here are just a sample of the many strategic ways you can use the critical thinking process. Higher-order thinking takes practice, so don't get discouraged if it feels difficult at first. With time and patience, you can become a master critical thinker.

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Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies

In this article, we will explain 9 strategies that any motivated person can use to develop as a thinker. As we explain the strategy, we will describe it as if we were talking directly to such a person. Further details to our descriptions may need to be added for those who know little about critical thinking. Here are the 9:

There is nothing magical about our ideas. No one of them is essential. Nevertheless, each represents a plausible way to begin to do something concrete to improve thinking in a regular way. Though you probably can’t do all of these at the same time, we recommend an approach in which you experiment with all of these over an extended period of time.

First Strategy: Use “Wasted” Time. All humans waste some time; that is, fail to use all of their time productively or even pleasurably. Sometimes we jump from one diversion to another, without enjoying any of them. Sometimes we become irritated about matters beyond our control. Sometimes we fail to plan well causing us negative consequences we could easily have avoided (for example, we spend time unnecessarily trapped in traffic — though we could have left a half hour earlier and avoided the rush). Sometimes we worry unproductively. Sometimes we spend time regretting what is past. Sometimes we just stare off blankly into space.

The key is that the time is “gone” even though, if we had thought about it and considered our options, we would never have deliberately spent our time in the way we did. So why not take advantage of the time you normally waste by practicing your critical thinking during that otherwise wasted time? For example, instead of sitting in front of the TV at the end of the day flicking from channel to channel in a vain search for a program worth watching, spend that time, or at least part of it, thinking back over your day and evaluating your strengths and weaknesses. For example, you might ask yourself questions like these:

When did I do my worst thinking today? When did I do my best? What in fact did I think about today? Did I figure anything out? Did I allow any negative thinking to frustrate me unnecessarily? If I had to repeat today what would I do differently? Why? Did I do anything today to further my long-term goals? Did I act in accordance with my own expressed values? If I spent every day this way for 10 years, would I at the end have accomplished something worthy of that time?

It would be important of course to take a little time with each question. It would also be useful to record your observations so that you are forced to spell out details and be explicit in what you recognize and see. As time passes, you will notice patterns in your thinking. Second Strategy: A Problem A Day. At the beginning of each day (perhaps driving to work or going to school) choose a problem to work on when you have free moments. Figure out the logic of the problem by identifying its elements. In other words, systematically think through the questions: What exactly is the problem? How can I put it into the form of a question. How does it relate to my goals, purposes, and needs?

Third Strategy: Internalize Intellectual Standards. Each week, develop a heightened awareness of one of the universal intellectual standards (clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, logicalness, significance). Focus one week on clarity, the next on accuracy, etc. For example, if you are focusing on clarity for the week, try to notice when you are being unclear in communicating with others. Notice when others are unclear in what they are saying.

When you are reading, notice whether you are clear about what you are reading. When you orally express or write out your views (for whatever reason), ask yourself whether you are clear about what you are trying to say. In doing this, of course, focus on four techniques of clarification : 1) Stating what you are saying explicitly and precisely (with careful consideration given to your choice of words), 2) Elaborating on your meaning in other words, 3) Giving examples of what you mean from experiences you have had, and 4) Using analogies , metaphors, pictures, or diagrams to illustrate what you mean. In other words, you will frequently STATE, ELABORATE, ILLUSTRATE, AND EXEMPLIFY your points. You will regularly ask others to do the same.

Fourth Strategy: Keep An Intellectual Journal. Each week, write out a certain number of journal entries. Use the following format (keeping each numbered stage separate):

Strategy Five: Reshape Your Character. Choose one intellectual trait---intellectual perseverance, autonomy, empathy, courage, humility, etc.--- to strive for each month, focusing on how you can develop that trait in yourself. For example, concentrating on intellectual humility, begin to notice when you admit you are wrong. Notice when you refuse to admit you are wrong, even in the face of glaring evidence that you are in fact wrong. Notice when you become defensive when another person tries to point out a deficiency in your work, or your thinking. Notice when your intellectual arrogance keeps you from learning, for example, when you say to yourself “I already know everything I need to know about this subject.” Or, “I know as much as he does. Who does he think he is forcing his opinions on me?” By owning your “ignorance,” you can begin to deal with it.

Strategy Six: Deal with Your Egocentrism. Egocentric thinking is found in the disposition in human nature to think with an automatic subconscious bias in favor of oneself. On a daily basis, you can begin to observe your egocentric thinking in action by contemplating questions like these: Under what circumstances do I think with a bias in favor of myself? Did I ever become irritable over small things? Did I do or say anything “irrational” to get my way? Did I try to impose my will upon others? Did I ever fail to speak my mind when I felt strongly about something, and then later feel resentment? Once you identify egocentric thinking in operation, you can then work to replace it with more rational thought through systematic self-reflection, thinking along the lines of: What would a rational person feel in this or that situation? What would a rational person do? How does that compare with what I want to do? (Hint: If you find that you continually conclude that a rational person would behave just as you behaved you are probably engaging in self-deception.)

Strategy Seven: Redefine the Way You See Things . We live in a world, both personal and social, in which every situation is “defined,” that is, given a meaning. How a situation is defined determines not only how we feel about it, but also how we act in it, and what implications it has for us. However, virtually every situation can be defined in more than one way. This fact carries with it tremendous opportunities. In principle, it lies within your power and mine to make our lives more happy and fulfilling than they are. Many of the negative definitions that we give to situations in our lives could in principle be transformed into positive ones. We can be happy when otherwise we would have been sad.

We can be fulfilled when otherwise we would have been frustrated. In this strategy, we practice redefining the way we see things, turning negatives into positives, dead-ends into new beginnings, mistakes into opportunities to learn. To make this strategy practical, we should create some specific guidelines for ourselves. For example, we might make ourselves a list of five to ten recurrent negative contexts in which we feel frustrated, angry, unhappy, or worried. We could then identify the definition in each case that is at the root of the negative emotion. We would then choose a plausible alternative definition for each and then plan for our new responses as well as new emotions. For example, if you tend to worry about all problems, both the ones you can do something about and those that you can’t; you can review the thinking in this nursery rhyme: “For every problem under the sun, there is a solution or there is none. If there be one, think til you find it. If there be none, then never mind it.”

Let’s look at another example. You do not have to define your initial approach to a member of the opposite sex in terms of the definition “his/her response will determine whether or not I am an attractive person.” Alternatively, you could define it in terms of the definition “let me test to see if this person is initially drawn to me—given the way they perceive me.” With the first definition in mind, you feel personally put down if the person is not “interested” in you; with the second definition you explicitly recognize that people respond not to the way a stranger is, but the way they look to them subjectively. You therefore do not take a failure to show interest in you (on the part of another) as a “defect” in you.

Strategy Eight: Get in touch with your emotions: Whenever you feel some negative emotion, systematically ask yourself: What, exactly, is the thinking leading to this emotion? For example, if you are angry, ask yourself, what is the thinking that is making me angry? What other ways could I think about this situation? For example, can you think about the situation so as to see the humor in it and what is pitiable in it? If you can, concentrate on that thinking and your emotions will (eventually) shift to match it.

Strategy Nine: Analyze group influences on your life: Closely analyze the behavior that is encouraged, and discouraged, in the groups to which you belong. For any given group, what are you "required" to believe? What are you "forbidden" to do? Every group enforces some level of conformity. Most people live much too much within the view of themselves projected by others. Discover what pressure you are bowing to and think explicitly about whether or not to reject that pressure.

Conclusion: The key point to keep in mind when devising strategies is that you are engaged in a personal experiment. You are testing ideas in your everyday life. You are integrating them, and building on them, in the light of your actual experience. For example, suppose you find the strategy “Redefine the Way You See Things” to be intuitive to you. So you use it to begin. Pretty soon you find yourself noticing the social definitions that rule many situations in your life. You recognize how your behavior is shaped and controlled by the definitions in use:

• “I’m giving a party,” (Everyone therefore knows to act in a “partying” way)
• “The funeral is Tuesday,” (There are specific social behaviors expected at a funeral)
• “Jack is an acquaintance, not really a friend.” (We behave very differently in the two cases)

You begin to see how important and pervasive social definitions are. You begin to redefine situations in ways that run contrary to some commonly accepted definitions. You notice then how redefining situations (and relationships) enables you to “Get in Touch With Your Emotions.” You recognize that the way you think (that is, define things) generates the emotions you experience. When you think you are threatened (i.e., define a situation as “threatening”), you feel fear. If you define a situation as a “failure,” you may feel depressed. On the other hand, if you define that same situation as a “lesson or opportunity to learn” you feel empowered to learn. When you recognize this control that you are capable of exercising, the two strategies begin to work together and reinforce each other.

Next consider how you could integrate strategy #9 (“Analyze group influences on your life”) into your practice. One of the main things that groups do is control us by controlling the definitions we are allowed to operate with. When a group defines some things as “cool” and some as “dumb, ” the members of the group try to appear “cool” and not appear “dumb.” When the boss of a business says, “That makes a lot of sense,” his subordinates know they are not to say, “No, it is ridiculous.” And they know this because defining someone as the “boss” gives him/her special privileges to define situations and relationships.

You now have three interwoven strategies: you “Redefine the Way You See Things,” “Get in touch with your emotions,” and “Analyze group influences on your life.” The three strategies are integrated into one. You can now experiment with any of the other strategies, looking for opportunities to integrate them into your thinking and your life. If you follow through on some plan analogous to what we have described, you are developing as a thinker. More precisely, you are becoming a “Practicing” Thinker. Your practice will bring advancement. And with advancement, skilled and insightful thinking may becomes more and more natural to you.

Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2001). Modified from the book by Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2001). Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life .

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How to build your critical thinking skills in 7 steps (with examples)

Critical thinking is, well, critical. By building these skills, you improve your ability to analyze information and come to the best decision possible. In this article, we cover the basics of critical thinking, as well as the seven steps you can use to implement the full critical thinking process. 

Critical thinking comes from asking the right questions to come to the best conclusion possible. Strong critical thinkers analyze information from a variety of viewpoints in order to identify the best course of action.

Don’t worry if you don’t think you have strong critical thinking abilities. In this article, we’ll help you build a foundation for critical thinking so you can absorb, analyze, and make informed decisions. 

What is critical thinking? 

Critical thinking is the ability to collect and analyze information to come to a conclusion. Being able to think critically is important in virtually every industry and applicable across a wide range of positions. That’s because critical thinking isn’t subject-specific—rather, it’s your ability to parse through information, data, statistics, and other details in order to identify a satisfactory solution. 

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Top 8 critical thinking skills

Like most soft skills, critical thinking isn’t something you can take a class to learn. Rather, this skill consists of a variety of interpersonal and analytical skills. Developing critical thinking is more about learning to embrace open-mindedness and bringing analytical thinking to your problem framing process. 

In no particular order, the eight most important critical thinking skills are:

Analytical thinking: Part of critical thinking is evaluating data from multiple sources in order to come to the best conclusions. Analytical thinking allows people to reject bias and strive to gather and consume information to come to the best conclusion. 

Open-mindedness: This critical thinking skill helps you analyze and process information to come to an unbiased conclusion. Part of the critical thinking process is letting your personal biases go and coming to a conclusion based on all of the information. 

Problem solving : Because critical thinking emphasizes coming to the best conclusion based on all of the available information, it’s a key part of problem solving. When used correctly, critical thinking helps you solve any problem—from a workplace challenge to difficulties in everyday life. 

Self-regulation: Self-regulation refers to the ability to regulate your thoughts and set aside any personal biases to come to the best conclusion. In order to be an effective critical thinker, you need to question the information you have and the decisions you favor—only then can you come to the best conclusion. 

Observation: Observation skills help critical thinkers look for things beyond face value. To be a critical thinker you need to embrace multiple points of view, and you can use observation skills to identify potential problems.

Interpretation: Not all data is made equal—and critical thinkers know this. In addition to gathering information, it’s important to evaluate which information is important and relevant to your situation. That way, you can draw the best conclusions from the data you’ve collected. 

Evaluation: When you attempt to answer a hard question, there is rarely an obvious answer. Even though critical thinking emphasizes putting your biases aside, you need to be able to confidently make a decision based on the data you have available. 

Communication: Once a decision has been made, you also need to share this decision with other stakeholders. Effective workplace communication includes presenting evidence and supporting your conclusion—especially if there are a variety of different possible solutions. 

7 steps to critical thinking

Critical thinking is a skill that you can build by following these seven steps. The seven steps to critical thinking help you ensure you’re approaching a problem from the right angle, considering every alternative, and coming to an unbiased conclusion.

 First things first: When to use the 7 step critical thinking process

There’s a lot that goes into the full critical thinking process, and not every decision needs to be this thought out. Sometimes, it’s enough to put aside bias and approach a process logically. In other, more complex cases, the best way to identify the ideal outcome is to go through the entire critical thinking process. 

The seven-step critical thinking process is useful for complex decisions in areas you are less familiar with. Alternatively, the seven critical thinking steps can help you look at a problem you’re familiar with from a different angle, without any bias. 

If you need to make a less complex decision, consider another problem solving strategy instead. Decision matrices are a great way to identify the best option between different choices. Check out our article on 7 steps to creating a decision matrix .

1. Identify the problem

Before you put those critical thinking skills to work, you first need to identify the problem you’re solving. This step includes taking a look at the problem from a few different perspectives and asking questions like: 

What’s happening? 

Why is this happening? 

What assumptions am I making? 

At first glance, how do I think we can solve this problem? 

A big part of developing your critical thinking skills is learning how to come to unbiased conclusions. In order to do that, you first need to acknowledge the biases that you currently have. Does someone on your team think they know the answer? Are you making assumptions that aren’t necessarily true? Identifying these details helps you later on in the process. 

2. Research

At this point, you likely have a general idea of the problem—but in order to come up with the best solution, you need to dig deeper. 

During the research process, collect information relating to the problem, including data, statistics, historical project information, team input, and more. Make sure you gather information from a variety of sources, especially if those sources go against your personal ideas about what the problem is or how to solve it.

Gathering varied information is essential for your ability to apply the critical thinking process. If you don’t get enough information, your ability to make a final decision will be skewed. Remember that critical thinking is about helping you identify the objective best conclusion. You aren’t going with your gut—you’re doing research to find the best option

3. Determine data relevance

Just as it’s important to gather a variety of information, it is also important to determine how relevant the different information sources are. After all, just because there is data doesn’t mean it’s relevant. 

Once you’ve gathered all of the information, sift through the noise and identify what information is relevant and what information isn’t. Synthesizing all of this information and establishing significance helps you weigh different data sources and come to the best conclusion later on in the critical thinking process. 

To determine data relevance, ask yourself:

How reliable is this information? 

How significant is this information? 

Is this information outdated? Is it specialized in a specific field? 

4. Ask questions

One of the most useful parts of the critical thinking process is coming to a decision without bias. In order to do so, you need to take a step back from the process and challenge the assumptions you’re making. 

We all have bias—and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unconscious biases (also known as cognitive biases) often serve as mental shortcuts to simplify problem solving and aid decision making. But even when biases aren’t inherently bad, you must be aware of your biases in order to put them aside when necessary. 

Before coming to a solution, ask yourself:

Am I making any assumptions about this information? 

Are there additional variables I haven’t considered? 

Have I evaluated the information from every perspective? 

Are there any viewpoints I missed? 

5. Identify the best solution

Finally, you’re ready to come to a conclusion. To identify the best solution, draw connections between causes and effects. Use the facts you’ve gathered to evaluate the most objective conclusion. 

Keep in mind that there may be more than one solution. Often, the problems you’re facing are complex and intricate. The critical thinking process doesn’t necessarily lead to a cut-and-dry solution—instead, the process helps you understand the different variables at play so you can make an informed decision. 

6. Present your solution

Communication is a key skill for critical thinkers. It isn’t enough to think for yourself—you also need to share your conclusion with other project stakeholders. If there are multiple solutions, present them all. There may be a case where you implement one solution, then test to see if it works before implementing another solution. 

7. Analyze your decision

The seven-step critical thinking process yields a result—and you then need to put that solution into place. After you’ve implemented your decision, evaluate whether or not it was effective. Did it solve the initial problem? What lessons—whether positive or negative—can you learn from this experience to improve your critical thinking for next time? 

Depending on how your team shares information, consider documenting lessons learned in a central source of truth. That way, team members that are making similar or related decisions in the future can understand why you made the decision you made and what the outcome was. 

Example of critical thinking in the workplace

Imagine you work in user experience design (UX). Your team is focused on pricing and packaging and ensuring customers have a clear understanding of the different services your company offers. Here’s how to apply the critical thinking process in the workplace in seven steps: 

Start by identifying the problem

Your current pricing page isn’t performing as well as you want. You’ve heard from customers that your services aren’t clear, and that the page doesn’t answer the questions they have. This page is really important for your company, since it’s where your customers sign up for your service. You and your team have a few theories about why your current page isn’t performing well, but you decide to apply the critical thinking process to ensure you come to the best decision for the page. 

Gather information about how the problem started

Part of identifying the problem includes understanding how the problem started. The pricing and packaging page is important—so when your team initially designed the page, they certainly put a lot of thought into it. Before you begin researching how to improve the page, ask yourself: 

Why did you design the pricing page the way you did? 

Which stakeholders need to be involved in the decision making process? 

Where are users getting stuck on the page?

Are any features currently working?

Then, you research

In addition to understanding the history of the pricing and packaging page, it’s important to understand what works well. Part of this research means taking a look at what your competitor’s pricing pages look like. 

Ask yourself: 

How have our competitors set up their pricing pages?

Are there any pricing page best practices? 

How does color, positioning, and animation impact navigation? 

Are there any standard page layouts customers expect to see? 

Organize and analyze information

You’ve gathered all of the information you need—now you need to organize and analyze it. What trends, if any, are you noticing? Is there any particularly relevant or important information that you have to consider? 

Ask open-ended questions to reduce bias

In the case of critical thinking, it’s important to address and set bias aside as much as possible. Ask yourself: 

Is there anything I’m missing? 

Have I connected with the right stakeholders? 

Are there any other viewpoints I should consider? 

Determine the best solution for your team

You now have all of the information you need to design the best pricing page. Depending on the complexity of the design, you may want to design a few options to present to a small group of customers or A/B test on the live website.

Present your solution to stakeholders

Critical thinking can help you in every element of your life, but in the workplace, you must also involve key project stakeholders . Stakeholders help you determine next steps, like whether you’ll A/B test the page first. Depending on the complexity of the issue, consider hosting a meeting or sharing a status report to get everyone on the same page. 

Analyze the results

No process is complete without evaluating the results. Once the new page has been live for some time, evaluate whether it did better than the previous page. What worked? What didn’t? This also helps you make better critical decisions later on.

Critically successful 

Critical thinking takes time to build, but with effort and patience you can apply an unbiased, analytical mind to any situation. Critical thinking makes up one of many soft skills that makes you an effective team member, manager, and worker. If you’re looking to hone your skills further, read our article on the 25 project management skills you need to succeed . 

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A Short Guide to Building Your Team’s Critical Thinking Skills

• Matt Plummer

Critical thinking isn’t an innate skill. It can be learned.

Most employers lack an effective way to objectively assess critical thinking skills and most managers don’t know how to provide specific instruction to team members in need of becoming better thinkers. Instead, most managers employ a sink-or-swim approach, ultimately creating work-arounds to keep those who can’t figure out how to “swim” from making important decisions. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To demystify what critical thinking is and how it is developed, the author’s team turned to three research-backed models: The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment, Pearson’s RED Critical Thinking Model, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Using these models, they developed the Critical Thinking Roadmap, a framework that breaks critical thinking down into four measurable phases: the ability to execute, synthesize, recommend, and generate.

With critical thinking ranking among the most in-demand skills for job candidates , you would think that educational institutions would prepare candidates well to be exceptional thinkers, and employers would be adept at developing such skills in existing employees. Unfortunately, both are largely untrue.

• Matt Plummer (@mtplummer) is the founder of Zarvana, which offers online programs and coaching services to help working professionals become more productive by developing time-saving habits. Before starting Zarvana, Matt spent six years at Bain & Company spin-out, The Bridgespan Group, a strategy and management consulting firm for nonprofits, foundations, and philanthropists.  

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Home > Books > Instructional Strategies for Active Learning [Working Title]

Unveiling Critical Thinking: Instructional Strategies to Enhance Argumentation

Submitted: 28 January 2024 Reviewed: 20 March 2024 Published: 24 April 2024

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.114878

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Argumentative writing serves as a stage where students showcase their critical thinking, a skill they already possess and have cultivated throughout their lives. However, it is argued that learners need instances within the classroom to activate this thinking, enriching it under the guidance of their teachers. It is the teacher who shapes and adapts the pedagogical environment, enabling students to respond naturally and spontaneously to meet class objectives. In the upcoming chapter, the implementation of a didactic sequence designed to enhance the argumentation skills of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) students. This approach provided opportunities for students to, through reading and writing, interpret situations, analyze messages, evaluate options, infer conclusions, take positions, and explain them, actively monitoring their argumentation and writing process. This strategy embodies active learning in an environment facilitated by the teacher, where students forge their critical thinking.

• critical thinking
• didactic sequence
• argumentative writing
• active learning

Author Information

Diana lozano *.

• Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

A foreign language learner, considered a social agent, develops comprehension and expression skills that enable effective communication and assertive action in social interactions. The communicative tasks they fulfill are not solely related to language usage but are connected to goal-oriented actions that require critical thinking to respond, as they are associated with reflection and, above all, action in the face of social issues. This implies the need to adopt an alternative and humanistic attitude toward language education, as the critical dimension aligns with humanistic rather than technical approaches. These social acts lead the learner to make decisions that necessitate critical thinking and action.

Critical thinking comes into play in all language learner interactions due to the immediate information processing they are exposed to. Therefore, the descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) [ 1 ] envision a recognition of proficiency in the use of linguistic repertoire and knowledge appropriate to social situations. Learners enhance their language proficiency in an integrated manner, based on the development of their reactive and mediating capacity, as determined by foreign language curricula and teachers. The teacher guides students to apply their learning in real-life situations, ensuring that learning is activity-based. In the context of learning a foreign language in a classroom, the teacher facilitates the empowerment of students’ thinking and skills, preparing them to independently address situations beyond the classroom.

This implies that critical thinking should not be understood as something individuals can acquire through the practice of specific materials, nor is it something teachers provide to their students for use. The idea of capitalizing on the critical thinking learners already possess also implies that as it is put into practice to address social issues, this thinking will find alternatives for development and qualification. This chapter describes the scope of research conducted to obtain the Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics of Spanish as a Foreign Language at the Pontifical Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia. The objective was to observe and interpret how, through the implementation of a didactic sequence centered around the analysis of editorial cartoons, students of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) create their own argumentative texts [ 2 ].

This didactic proposal, called ArguméntELE, illustrates how students actively engaged in their learning process to write an argumentative text in a foreign language, considering the teacher’s role in promoting activities that developed critical thinking skills in students through a didactic sequence. Students actively participated in constructing arguments, collaborating with peers, and applying language skills in practical, real-world contexts. Regarding the activities and exercises in the didactic sequence, it is interpreted that they constantly encourage the use of the different critical thinking skills described by Facione [ 3 ]. These skills are activated by designing and implementing activities that include the characteristics of each cognitive skill and emphasize a situation that allows its use. Therefore, it is expected that the activities in the didactic sequence will serve as supporting material for language teachers to include and adapt them in their classes to strengthen the student’s critical dimension as a social, intercultural, and autonomous actor.

2. Theoretical contextualization: critical thinking in communicative tasks

Understanding the context within which communication takes place requires the activation and use of critical thinking. In a social interaction, explicit aspects, such as language and its structure, and implicit aspects, such as the speakers’ intentions or hidden cultural traits, are reflected. Foreign language learners are expected to participate appropriately and effectively based on their performance within the framework of their proficiency level. According to Facione [ 3 ], critical thinking is vital for society. It is essential for individuals facing situations where they must act to contribute assertively to improvement or transformation within immediate social and intercultural contexts. As social actors, individuals are involved in economic, political, and cultural processes, and each action impacts society. Therefore, the ability to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer, explain, and self-reflect results in reasoned actions as ways for a critical thinker to effectively intervene in each situation.

In a consensus on critical thinking [ 3 ], experts agreed that several cognitive skills share characteristics with the core skills of critical thinking, such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. Consequently, a learner proficient in these skills is considered an expert in critical thinking. It is crucial to foster critical thinking in teaching and learning processes through activities that include real situations (social, cultural, political, and educational) from the immersion context and its specific realities. This consideration arises first from the understanding that a student, when not a critical thinker, may be easily persuaded in their immediate context. Second, it ensures that SFL students need to be critical thinkers to function as social agents within a community, seeking improvement in any social or intercultural situation. As suggested by Pascale et al. [ 4 ] as a social agent, the learner must be able, according to their needs in the public, personal, professional, and/or educational sphere, to engage in transactions requiring immediate participation. This response implies that the learner must consider and interpret the entire situation, necessitating critical thinking skills such as interpretation, analysis, and inference to explain their ideas, evaluate, and reflect on results and their implications.

While these skills are innate, they need to be strengthened in a foreign language learning context. Thus, if a learner can successfully complete specific communicative tasks according to their proficiency level, they should also be able to demonstrate their cognitive abilities. This involves awareness of natural processing in their first language and reflection on how to express and understand information. Strengthening critical thinking is not only important in general education, as stated in Refs. [ 5 , 6 ], but also in teaching a foreign language. Through the voices of these authors, it is emphasized that students need to use critical thinking skills to evaluate not only simple and everyday situations critically but also to wisely address situations that arise in other cultures. Learning a foreign language distinguishes language as a resource that allows the development of critical thinking by serving as both a means of communication and an instrument for constructing thought. As a result, active learning serves as a foundational framework by integrating engaging communicative tasks, enhancing cognitive skills, and emphasizing critical thinking, thus enriching the learning experience in foreign language education.

The student is considered a critical thinker in the context in which they operate and in their own learning processes. Consequently, it is advisable for the SFL teacher to recognize the importance of conducting activities that promote critical thinking skills as a complement to their classes. Teachers could also use the activities proposed in this research as a model to activate, strengthen, and improve critical thinking for students to achieve a high level of argumentation.

In a guided learning context where teachers propose activities with a learner-centered approach, it is recognized that active learning enhances critical thinking through activities developed by learners. Bonwell and Eison [ 7 ] state that students’ involvement can be increased by using strategies such as leading discussions and questioning techniques skillfully to engage students in a personal exploration of the subject matter. Students can engage in short writing activities in class, share what they have written in small groups, and participate in presentations, debates, and role-playing activities.

Materials for Spanish as a second language courses and even other languages must challenge claims, myths, and prejudices embedded in everyday discourse to counter-argue, disarm, review, and analyze one’s own perspectives and conceptions [ 8 ]. For learners of SFL, the target language of the conducted research, this skill is crucial during communication. Language communication involves a discourse where information is constantly given and received, influenced by language recognition, speaker gestures, tone of voice, intention, implicit messages, among other communicative aspects. Thus, it is essential to employ critical thinking skills to recognize the strengths or weaknesses of certain ideas. It is not just about expressing ideas but also about persuading others and drawing their conclusions based on the information received. According to Centro Virtual Cervantes [ 9 ], argumentation refers to the reasoned expression of a point of view through a word, a statement, or a text. Fostering argumentation becomes relevant within the teaching and learning processes of SFL, as it seeks to influence the opinions and persuasion of recipients.

By using interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation skills within activities in the class, a significant improvement in the level of argumentation when writing an argumentative text can be achieved, thereby enhancing critical thinking. Similarly, when arguing about a situation or problem, the use of these skills is necessary to ensure that the presented premises are strong, relevant, and well-founded. If an instructor’s goals include not only imparting information but also developing cognitive skills and changing attitudes, alternative teaching strategies should be interwoven with the lecture method during classroom presentations [ 7 ]. This recognizes the need to activate deeper cognitive skills for understanding and analyzing information to interact or act in response to it. From a linguistic perspective, pragmatics reveals the enrichment of language comprehension beyond literal expressions, facilitating the understanding of implicit meanings and activating deep cognitive skills by considering context, inferring implicit meanings, and understanding cultural and social nuances of language. Teachers can incorporate these aspects into their class activities. With active learning, for a successful discussion to take place, instructors must set specific objectives for the class period, structure questions appropriate for the material under consideration, and demonstrate techniques to extend students while maintaining a supportive environment [ 7 ].

Active learning is guided by specific objectives established according to cognitive skills, as Kosslyn [ 10 ] estimates that it is not just about learning by doing, but activities need to be designed with a specific objective and keep students engaged. Kosslyn [ 10 ] also asserts that the key is to design activities appropriate to a set of knowledge and skills that students are aware of to achieve learning outcomes. This notion reinforces the activities proposed in the didactic sequence of this research, where each task aims to activate a critical thinking skill to develop communicative tasks.

2.1 Pragmatics and communicative competence

Pragmatics is defined as the discipline that studies language use, considering the relationship between the statement, the interlocutors, and the context in which the communication process unfolds. Therefore, its level of analysis focuses on how speakers interpret and produce messages in specific contexts [ 11 ]. For this reason, the research considered that the interpretation of editorial cartoons, as material in the classroom, should be based on the critical reading of extralinguistic elements, such as the author’s communicative intention or the social and cultural context it represents.

From the dimensions of written comprehension and expression, it is relevant to consider aspects of foreign language learning and teaching, such as the competencies that learners must develop. In a general framework, communicative competence is related, defined by Instituto Cervantes [ 11 ] as the ability of a person to behave effectively and appropriately in a specific speech community. This competence involves complying with a series of rules from a linguistic level, considering grammar, vocabulary, and semantics, etc., and from the level of language use, considering the sociocultural contexts where the communicative process unfolds. In other words, communicative competence is the ability to express linguistically correct messages without creating misunderstandings in specific intercultural contexts.

From communicative competence, several components emerge, such as linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic competences. According to Instituto Cervantes [ 1 ], linguistic competence refers to the formal knowledge of the language as a system and involves syntactic, lexical, and phonological skills independent of sociocultural contexts. Sociolinguistic competence involves sociocultural values or social conventions related to language use (courtesy norms, etc.). Finally, pragmatic competence refers to the speaker’s ability to make communicative use of language, considering not only the relationships between linguistic signs but also those between the communication context and the interlocutors.

From all the above, it can be suggested that effective understanding and analysis of hidden realities implied in editorial cartoons, for example, require the learner to develop the ability to identify these described extralinguistic elements. In many cases, these elements do not reflect the learner’s sociocultural context of origin. Therefore, with the design of the didactic sequence, activities were planned for the learner to have opportunities in the classroom to develop pragmatic competence together with linguistic and sociolinguistic competencies. In this way, their level of argumentation could improve, as they were able to generate linguistically correct messages, which are relevant and well-justified arguments avoiding possible misunderstandings.

In the chosen population of the conducted research and based on the authors’ teaching experience primarily, it was found that in SFL courses in a school in Bogotá, Colombia, students demonstrated a low level of argumentation for their proficiency level, according to the descriptors of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages [ 1 ]. This issue was evident with The Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test [ 12 ], which assesses critical thinking skills in a written argumentative text, although critical thinking in this test is reduced to an instrumental dimension, as it demands predetermined argumentative writing skills proposed by the CEFR descriptors [ 1 ].

This type of research provides fundamental theoretical foundations to enrich the practices of the researching teachers in the school under study and, in turn, benefit the learning processes of SFL students. Critical thinking skills must be put into practice in an SFL class because they are present in all students. However, the aim is for both the teacher and the student to be aware of their mental processes to increase their level of argumentation. This way, aspects that need improvement during class activities can be discovered to address the identified phenomenon. It is not about recognizing that the pedagogical practices applied are wrong but rather analyzing different ways and strategies to encourage the use of critical thinking skills in students.

3. Proposal and research methodology

This proposal and the research results were analyzed from a qualitative approach with an observation of students’ participation in the creation of their own texts within the environment created in the didactic sequence around cartoons, which was carried out during the application of the didactic material. For the implementation of the didactic sequence, there was an evaluation by a materials expert to confirm the methodology, and finally, an evaluation of the argumentative text they wrote to assess the use of arguments. This analysis allowed recognizing that students’ argumentation about controversial topics, such as the work environment exposed through cartoons, is mediated by their practice, and writing process, as revealed during the development of the didactic sequence. This sequence creates an active learning environment and is recognized as an engaging environment, which according to Narváez Pérez [ 13 ], is one where critical thinking is promoted through learning experiences that include exercises to ask and answer questions, synthesize, evaluate, compare, reflect, contextualize, make inferences, summarize, and solve problems. As advocated by the outlined didactic sequence.

3.1 Teaching strategy to promote argumentation

To enhance the argumentative skills of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) students from a methodological and didactic perspective, a series of activities must be planned within a didactic sequence. The initial step involves the planning of activities, which stems from an analysis of the needs of the participating population. According to Woodward [ 14 ], class and course planning requires educators to think about their learners, content, materials, and activities, reflecting constantly on how to provide opportunities for students to enhance their learning. In other words, effective planning requires teachers to be aware of how to create a good class that aims to achieve the proposed cognitive goals. The teacher creates an active learning environment, which, according to Kosslyn [ 10 ], “improves how well students understand material, remember it, and know how to apply it across a wide range of situations.” Furthermore, it enhances the learning environment where the learner is the center, as Narváez Pérez [ 13 ] states, “creative activities are developed, points of view are explored, conclusions are drawn, deductive reasoning is practiced, hypotheses are questioned and formulated, analysis is carried out, comparisons are performed, new ideas are proposed, analysis is performed, and reflection is carried out.” Student-centered learning in the foreign language learning context enhances critical thinking, where the teacher plays the role of a mediator and facilitator of learning through applied strategies and resource utilization.

Regardless, it can be affirmed that for class planning to be effective, activities must be related to both learning objectives and student interests. These activities can be logically designed within a sequence. The Dictionary of Key Terms in SFL defines didactic sequence as a series of interconnected activities that aim to teach specific linguistic content within specific learning objectives. A set of activities may constitute a task, a complete lesson, or part of it. Depending on the type of activities, their characteristics, and their functions, the phases within the didactic sequence can be diversified. Also, the didactic sequence can incorporate principles of activity-based learning to ensure that these activities are not only interconnected but also designed to actively engage students, fostering a more dynamic and participatory learning experience through active learning.

Regarding these phases, Harmer [ 15 ] asserts that students need exposure, motivation, and opportunities to use language appropriately. Similarly, he acknowledges that students may react differently to stimuli, suggesting that most teaching sequences should integrate a series of characteristics or elements (hereinafter referred to as phases) that can last for minutes, hours, lessons, etc. In this regard, Harmer [ 15 ] proposes a series of phases that can ensure successful language learning. These phases include Motivation, Practice (controlled or free), and Interactive Explanation.

The didactic sequence of the research followed a communicative approach with a task-based methodology that presents a final task to set students in an active learning lesson where they are involved in higher-order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) [ 7 ], which involves writing an argumentative text about the work environment, as this is the central theme of the designed material. It is considered that certain characteristics of this type of text and the exercises proposed as facilitating tasks work in favor of metacognition when writing. For this reason, the didactic sequence is named ArguméntELE, as it is essential to promote good argumentation. Each of the activities proposed in this material responds to the theoretical contributions considered in the research, the needs of the students and their context, and the linguistic and functional contents of the PCIC (Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes) [ 11 ].

Furthermore, exercises that activate critical thinking skills relevant to argumentation processes must be proposed, and students are constantly asked for their opinions. With the completion of this research, the intention is to encourage teachers to activate the described critical thinking skills to increase their students’ level of argumentation. During the sequence, students are asked to express their opinions and justify them; but in the end, a comprehensive opinion is expected, considering aspects such as interpreting a problem in a situation, analyzing the factors involved in the situation, evaluating different options or points of view, hypothesizing about the inferred possibilities, explaining whether they agree or disagree, and also asking them to review their writing before submitting the final version.

Likewise, it is expected that students emphasize functional aspects for argumentation, as they are considered to have a great linguistic knowledge of their proficiency level, allowing them to understand instructions, statements, and express themselves to complete activities. According to the PCIC [ 11 ], students as social actors at this level have sufficient linguistic ability to present the details of a problem, make claims, and resolve conflicting situations by resorting to their ability to argue and persuasive language.

Thus, a total of 18 facilitating tasks are presented, allowing students to recognize various factors to enhance their level of argumentation, and they are tailored to each of the phases. Additionally, they are provided based on the four language skills for language learning (reading and listening comprehension, oral and written production). The didactic sequence comprises the following contents reflecting active learning:

Communicative Resources: Engage in problem interpretation, analyze factors, evaluate various options, propose hypotheses with inferred consequences, express agreement, or disagreement, and monitor the argumentation process. Active learning is exemplified as students participate actively in higher-order thinking processes like analysis, evaluation, and synthesis during problem-solving and argumentation.

Linguistic Resources: In accordance with PCIC [ 11 ], encompass expressions for opinions, assessments, agreement, disagreement, discourse organization, possibilities, and argumentation at the students’ language level. Active learning is apparent as students actively express opinions, assess information, and organize discourse, promoting language acquisition through practical application and interaction.

Lexical Resources: Utilize vocabulary for discussing work activities, unemployment, job search, and worker characteristics. Active learning is showcased through students’ exploration of pertinent vocabulary in real-world contexts, enhancing comprehension and retention through active engagement in discussions and exercises.

This sequence is characterized by starting with motivational activities related to the topic to be addressed within the proposed learning objectives. As explained earlier, these activities should be aligned with the learner’s interests and preferences to encourage their participation in the rest of the phases and activities. For the material designed to enhance the argumentation level of students, the exercises in the motivation phase provided an initial approach to reading and interpreting Quino’s cartoons. Then, with the free practice phase, the teacher could identify the students’ weaknesses to address them in the next phase. The free practice activities include exercises where students must give their initial perception of what they can interpret and analyze from the cartoons used. Regarding this phase, the designed material will integrate exercises of both oral and written productions without any restrictions regarding the interpretation of opinion cartoons. From their production, the aspects that need to be addressed in the Interactive Explanation phase can be defined.

Now, the material guiding the learning environment of the research is divided into the different moments of the boomerang didactic sequence proposed by Harmer [ 15 ], which was designed listing the following phases:

¡Involúcrate! (Get involved): In this phase, a motivation activity is presented that allows an analysis of the context of the situation proposed in the exercises. It involves sensitizing the student to approach the central themes of the material, which consist of different situations in the work environment.

The first activity involves reading a cartoon by Quino. As seen in Figure 1 , the sign behind the characters says “El valor del trabajo” in Spanish, which means the value of work, and the questions: what do you see in this picture, what do you get when you do a job? Students must justify their answers. To do this, first, the student must read, recognizing each aspect of the image, such as the location of the characters, the possible relationship between them; second, a reading of the text accompanying the cartoon, which is a statement by one of the characters. It is expected that the student begins to relate to the topic of the work environment and the aspects found in a cartoon, such as the relationship between characters, the characteristics that describe that relationship, the theme, the author’s implicit message, the hidden reality reflected, and that the student identifies with the situation or can identify if that reality is present in their country or context.

Cartoon to contextualize in the motivation activity.

¡Actívate! (Activate Yourself): In this phase, the student is allowed to engage in free practice to demonstrate their knowledge and seek, from their linguistic repertoire, to respond to the proposed language situation. Students are asked to take on the role of the person in charge of selecting a candidate for a job. This is illustrated in Figure 2 , where the material replicates the webpage of a job portal to immerse the student in this real-life situation.

Image to provide a role for the students in the practice activity.

The free practice phase aims for the student to identify how to argue by exploring and exploiting their prior knowledge. In the first step, students must identify aspects related to a job offer within an announcement based on candidate requirements. Then, with this information and two cover letters, they will decide which candidate is more suitable for the position and express it through an email justifying their opinion. In each activity of this phase, the student is free to respond from their linguistic repertoire, and aspects to be worked on in the next phase will be identified from their writing.

¡Aprende más! (Learn More): This is the central section of grammar presented with an interactive explanation. Discourse organizers (additive, consecutive, justificatory, information structuring, and counter-argumentative connectors) are exposed along with expressions useful when giving opinions, assessing, arguing, or counter-arguing an opinion. Figure 3 demonstrates how, in the material, the characters’ images are displayed, and linguistic resources that students can use to express themselves are highlighted in bold.

Activity with linguistic resources as a reference in the interactive explanation.

With all the contextualization from the previous exercises, students are presented with the phase that allows them to focus on useful strategies to increase their level of argumentation, linguistic resources, and the specific activation of each of the critical thinking skills presented in the objectives. For this reason, the phase consists of a topic divided into six situations and exercises, one to emphasize the use of each skill. Also, each includes a red box explicitly describing each linguistic resource with examples.

The first point activates the interpretation skill. In this, the student must comprehend a text about the relationship between money and happiness in a specific context. Then, the student must identify the main idea of this article and each of its paragraphs to choose the appropriate discourse connector according to its function until completing it.

The second point encourages the use of analysis skills. This is developed by asking the student to identify the relationships between two important factors within a specific work environment: depression and the type of work. This information is presented in a graph showing that most workers with unpaid jobs show more symptoms of depression. Then, students must describe if this situation also occurs in their home countries.

The third point stimulates the use of the evaluation skill, as when making assessments about the opinions of the interlocutors, in this case, the characters of the Mafalda series, students must express opinions considering different options or points of view. The exercise aims for students to recognize and use the linguistic elements that allow them to give opinions and make evaluations, which are presented in a table with their respective examples.

Now, with the fourth point, the use of the inference skill is activated by establishing possible consequences of an action in any situation and its implications. Through linguistic resources, such as ways to express possibilities, students can infer and express consequences or implications of hiring employees with depressive tendencies or symptoms.

With the fifth point, the use of the explanation skill is encouraged, where the student must have recognized the other skills to indicate whether they agree or disagree with some opinions presented through audios about one of the Mafalda cartoons. Similarly, some expressions are presented in a box, which students can use to respond to this activity.

Finally, in the last point of this phase, the self-regulation skill is activated by inviting the student to perform a conscious self-evaluation, to remember the linguistic resources they have learned throughout the development of the material and classify them according to their communicative function. These resources will be very useful to achieve the communicative objective proposed for the didactic sequence. During the development of the didactic sequence, students should be informed that these points present strategies that should be considered to strengthen an argument.

¡Practica! (Practice): With controlled practice exercises, students can follow rules and structures that allow them to approach the correct use of language to fulfill the proposed learning objectives. In Figure 4 , the character descriptions provide insight into their worldview, and students are required to complete the texts with expressions to articulate a point of view. However, critical thinking is engaged by intentionally using these messages with implicit cultural information, as the cartoon’s author critiques the social classes of Latin America, with each character embodying a particular perspective.

Practice activity to analyze the characters.

This phase is the controlled practice phase, which seeks for students to consider aspects of different cartoons, such as the personalities of the characters that also represent many of the thoughts of Latin Americans, and the message that the author conveys through them by using linguistic resources to give opinions that they recognized in the previous phase.

¡Escribe! (Write): In this phase, students are presented with exercises for free practice. Through this practice, students engage in written production exercises to integrate the knowledge acquired through the previous phases. In the final phase of free practice, the ultimate task is introduced, in which students are required to express their opinions on one of the themes covering the work environment in their country. For instance, salary, unemployment, job search, characteristics of a worker, the relationship between money and happiness, and paid and unpaid work. In this task, they must incorporate the aspects they learned in the “Learn More!” phase and consider the argumentation factors addressed in each point of the sequence.

4. Reflections

4.1 reflections on the natural and spontaneous use of critical thinking within a pedagogical environment mediated using cartoons.

Based on the observation of the implementation of the designed material, it was considered that the cartoons by Joaquín Salvador Lavado (Quino) encouraged students to use critical thinking skills such as analysis, interpretation, and inference when reading them. This was analyzed because many of the cartoons used contain implicit criticisms of the Latin American reality related to the work environment. Students recognized that these situations were not only specific to Latin America but also present in their home countries. Each participating student, from the first exercise, indicated that some of the situations presented in the exercises and depicted in the cartoons also occur in their countries, depending on their profession and working conditions.

This allows us to confirm that, as mentioned earlier, cartoons include implicit conventions that allow the creator to express a denial using symbols, juxtaposing incongruent images or images and incongruent words, or blatantly violating or reversing visual conventions [ 16 ]. The understanding of this implicit information is achieved through the stimulation of critical thinking skills. This is the case with the first exercise of the ArguméntELE didactic sequence, in which the teacher presented the initial exercise as a discussion activity between two students who had to discuss the meaning of that cartoon ( Figure 1 ). To understand this cartoon, students had to analyze and infer the meaning of both the graphic and linguistic elements, so the observer interprets that this cartoon served to encourage the use of analytical, interpretive, and inferential skills, leading students to describe and express an opinion and evaluation about it. This information confirms what Vásquez [ 17 ] states that learning can be developed involving thinking skills, seeking for the student to access the reality shown in the cartoon through the identification of the context, the characters that compose it, etc., culminating in an interpretation of the facts or ideas expressed by its author (p. 2). In this way, the student recognized the reality represented by the cartoon because, even though it may be different in their context, they interpreted and presented it from their experience throughout the sequence.

During the observation, it was noted that the cartoons invited them to consider their own context and make comparisons about the reality they presented. This leads to the affirmation that the use of cartoons was favorable for students to understand the main ideas of the author and to understand the complex, concrete, and abstract themes implicit in his works. When discussing and expressing an opinion about a cartoon, the activation of the skills of evaluation and explanation was observed again. This could be observed again since Quino’s cartoons allow students to recognize some of the realities in their own context by identifying what each of his works and characters represents. To understand the cartoons used in the didactic sequence, students used interpretation skills because, with this, meaning could be found in the characters’ comments. After this, they were able to activate the evaluation and explanation skills because, after assessing and considering what each character in the cartoon expressed, they could give an opinion with reasoned examples. As the teacher placed more emphasis on the arguments and presented aspects to consider for doing so, students included them in their oral and written discourse.

Throughout the development of the didactic sequence, it was evident that students considered and used the linguistic and non-linguistic inputs indicated by both the material and the teacher to improve their arguments in each response. This demonstrated the activation of self-regulation skills because students were aware of their own learning process and monitored how they interpreted each cartoon to express opinions about the situations the author wants to reflect. They also showed that these aspects were considered when rereading the points in the “Learn More!” phase when they were writing their final text.

However, it is important to clarify that the teacher should guide the reading of some of the cartoons used because it is not certain that the student can recognize all their graphic and linguistic elements with a first attempt. The teacher’s role is crucial in facilitating active learning, ensuring students navigate the complexities of visual and linguistic nuances within the cartoons for a more comprehensive understanding.

4.2 Reflections on the design of ArguméntELE from a methodological perspective

This research aimed to analyze and reflect on how, through the implementation of a didactic sequence based on the use of opinion cartoons, the argumentative writing of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL) students was strengthened. It is relevant to recognize how the activities developed allow students to argue and promote their learning by activating critical thinking skills. Simultaneously, an evaluation was conducted on how the design and presentation of each topic played a significant role in student motivation and the ease of performing activities. The reflections presented in this section are based on the observation of the material implementation.

In the design of the didactic sequence, the characteristics, and phases of the Boomerang didactic sequence [ 15 ], the students’ level, activities to encourage critical thinking skills, and linguistic elements related to expressing opinions, evaluating, expressing agreement and disagreement, suggesting possibilities, organizing a discourse, and arguing, according to the PCIC [ 11 ], were considered. Methodologically, the design of communicative and facilitating tasks was considered to reach the final task following the characteristics of the task-based approach. These tasks aimed to stimulate the use of critical thinking skills (interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation) using Quino’s cartoons as a motive for reading.

The Boomerang didactic sequence proposed by Harmer [ 15 ] integrates activities that activate the mentioned critical thinking skills and constantly invite students to express opinions and argue. This sequence is suitable for advanced levels and addresses the students’ needs. In each phase of the sequence, activities related to the students’ topic of interest and the use of Quino’s cartoons were integrated to reinforce the students’ level of argumentation through the writing of argumentative texts and the activation of the mentioned skills.

Through the observation of the material implementation, it was concluded that the exercises were relevant to each stage of the Boomerang didactic sequence. Although students indicated that it was extensive, they could recognize that there are many aspects to consider when arguing. Initially, the exercises in the motivation phase (¡Involúcrate!) succeeded in involving and motivating students with the sequence’s theme and the reading of cartoons. This activity opened a discussion within the class about the work reality of the participating students’ places of origin, as each one shared their experiences regarding their jobs. It also helped generate a discussion about how to read a cartoon and interpret the gestures of characters and other graphic elements present.

When students presented an example of the work situation in their places of origin, they indicated what their jobs were like and the forms of remuneration or subsidies they received. This demonstrates their ability to analyze situations that demand an immediate response as social actors. They also expressed that it was interesting to recognize connections between cultures because they recognized who Quino was but were not aware of his impact on the Hispanic world. Regarding the description of the work situation in their home countries, this provided an opportunity to break stereotypes.

Regarding the first free practice (¡Actívate!), it served to identify the linguistic aspects to be addressed in the Interactive Explanation phase. The ¡Actívate! section contains reading exercises that encourage students to deduce, evaluate, and compare information to reach a justified conclusion to be reported in writing. In the production of the final written texts, it is noticeable that students attempted to meet the criteria of the instruction in their established order; they expressed this while completing the final task. Therefore, it is considered that to carry out a more effective argumentation exercise, students should have more time to do it. With these actions, students unconsciously put into practice critical thinking skills useful for further developing their level of argumentation.

Although the use of critical thinking skills has been encouraged in previous phases, in the ¡Learn more! phase, six exercises are presented that emphasize the six specific critical thinking skills aimed at activating the didactic sequence while linguistic aspects for each skill are considered. Facione [ 3 ] indicates that there are activities that demonstrate each thinking skill. For example, the interpretation skill is evident from categorization; analysis from the examination of ideas; evaluation when assessing the quality of arguments; inference by making conjectures about alternatives; explanation through justification; and self-regulation through self-examination. These activities were presented in the didactic sequence, and it was observed that participating students were ready to develop them using these skills and the linguistic contents integrated into the other phases of the sequence.

On the other hand, in the ¡Practice! phase, controlled practice exercises are presented in which students must follow established patterns and then express themselves freely in the second free practice (¡Escribe!), which is the final task. During the controlled practice phase, students indicated that they knew people with traits like Mafalda’s characters. However, in the final task, students could not apply everything they had learned through the didactic sequence. This can be attributed to time, which probably was not sufficient to write the text. Therefore, the development of the didactic sequence should have been done in several class sessions, about three or four, to provide students with the opportunities and time needed to carry out the activities effectively. In their final writings, they used some discourse markers to organize their ideas (To begin with, however, also, etc.), expressions to give opinions and assess (For me, I think, it seems to me, etc.), but expressions to indicate possibilities or express agreement or disagreement were not recognized.

5. Conclusion

When designing material for a class, the logical sequence of learning is considered to organize activities. This sequence should consider, in the case of foreign languages, the students’ performance level, their motivations, and their experience or mastery of the topic to be addressed. Connecting students with the learning objectives of the class would lead them to active learning. According to Bonwell and Eison [ 7 ], if active learning is to be promoted, students must be engaged; they should be able to develop their skills, think critically, and explore their own attitudes. Therefore, it is crucial for the teacher to carefully select resources or activities to fulfill their objectives with active learning.

The ArguméntELE didactic sequence highlights active learning as a fundamental framework that propels language education beyond traditional boundaries. Throughout the sequence, active learning is not simply a pedagogical concept but a lived experience for students. Immersion in Quino’s cartoons, along with critical thinking exercises, actively engages students in interpreting, analyzing, and expressing opinions on real-world scenarios, fostering a deeper understanding of language in context. Active learning, as manifested in the sequence, goes beyond mere participation; it becomes a catalyst for cognitive processes such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The motivation phase, involving discussions sparked by cartoons, actively involves students in relating personal experiences, establishing connections, and setting the stage for the journey ahead. The subsequent phases—free practice, interactive explanation, and controlled practice—mirror active learning principles by encouraging students to actively apply linguistic elements and critical thinking skills in progressively challenging and personally relevant tasks.

Furthermore, the ArguméntELE sequence embodies activity-based learning by structuring a series of purposeful activities within a didactic sequence, forming a cohesive and dynamic educational framework. The interconnected activities strategically guide students through a learning trajectory, ensuring that each task contributes to a holistic language learning experience. In this approach, students actively shape their learning path, enhancing their engagement and sense of ownership in the educational process.

Additionally, the ArguméntELE sequence reflects the principles of active learning by prioritizing student involvement in higher-order thinking and exploration of their attitudes and values. The practice and writing phases actively encourage students to express opinions, evaluate, and engage in argumentation, aligning with active learning’s emphasis on fostering skills beyond mechanical memorization. In this way, active learning in the ArguméntELE sequence is not just a methodology—it is a transformative force that empowers students to be active participants, critical thinkers, and effective communicators. The sequence serves as a testament to the potential of active learning as a robust framework, shaping a language learning experience that transcends traditional paradigms and prepares students for the dynamic challenges of a globalized world.

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© 2024 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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5 strategies to grow critical thinking skills

Through continuous learning and reasoned but rapid analysis, professionals can become better critical thinkers..

• Professional Development

Critical thinking skills are often mentioned as a key trait employers seek in potential hires. But what exactly is critical thinking? Conversations with other professionals show that not everyone is certain about the definition.

Critical thinking can be described as disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence. While that seems to describe the ability of many accounting professionals, some leaders in organizations today have a strong feeling that this ability is fading. Here are strategies that will help you and your team grow critical thinking skills:

Strategy 1: Be a continuous learner . Learners have a natural sense of curiosity about the world and their profession. They read and talk to people. Basically, they educate themselves without being told to. This can come from reading, talking to subject matter experts, listening to lectures online, or attending conferences. The more workers know, the more evidence they have to consider when making a decision.

Strategy 2: Make the right decision for the majority . Critical thinkers put their egos aside and think about what is best for the overall organization, even if that is not the best solution for the individual. Their goal is seeking to understand and then making a clear and rational decision that is best for the majority.

Strategy 3: Listen and consider unconventional opinions. Critical thinkers have a tendency to seek out new solutions to old problems. They don’t like the phrase “that is the way we have always done it.” They also see that collaboration with their team, their profession, and sometimes their competitors will bring about the best solutions, and they are OK with that. 

Strategy 4: Avoid analysis paralysis. Critical thinkers will avoid the trap of too much information and getting stuck in the decision-making process by looking at the big picture and the details. They recognize they will never have 100% of the information they might be able to gather, but they also know they can move forward and adjust a decision later if necessary.

Strategy 5: Analyze yourself . Critical thinkers develop a skill for explaining to others why they came to a specific conclusion. Others can follow their reasoning and can understand their thinking. They are willing to change their views when they are provided with more information that allows greater understanding.

While the skills associated with these strategies come naturally to some, the skills can also be developed. This development won’t happen quickly, but practicing the strategies can improve critical thinking and everyday decision-making.

Sandra Wiley is the COO of Boomer Consulting in Manhattan, Kan., and is a speaker on topics such as team building, talent development, and performance improvement.

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What You Can Do To Improve Critical-Thinking Skills

In a technology-driven world where we are overwhelmed with information, people often make decisions without thinking things through – and then rue what they have done.

This is because decisions made without data, analysis and facts are decisions made in the dark.

People seem to have forgotten how to check credible sources, access and understand data and look at the facts.

One  study  of millennial and Gen Z workers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan found that people have so much on their minds, so many distractions overwhelming them, that they struggle to think deeply and reflectively.

But poorly thought-out plans and decisions aren’t good for business or for the career prospects of individuals.

Critical thinking is as important as ever – in business and in life – and here are a few things worth knowing about it:

• It’s possible to train yourself to become a critical thinker, and there are steps you can take that will help. Start with challenging the norm, “We have always done it this way.” Ask these questions: “Why?” “What data supports a different way to look at a problem and come up with a solution?” “How much time have I actually set aside to think?” “How can I look for a solution with the data that I see?”
• When you have mastered critical thinking, you can apply it to your current career, job and company — or to the next one. Critical thinking allows you to replicate success. Once I am working toward a new goal, I look back on the strategy that made me successful and replicate it.
• Stepping back and looking at the big picture is an important part of critical thinking — but so is delving into the details and coming up with a plan, especially as it relates to work. Your plan should rely on four key components.  Data : What is it showing me, and where does the success exist?  Total addressable market : How much of the market can I capture?  Competition : Who are my top competitors, and how do I win against them? And finally,  identifying the breaks : Where am I winning and losing, and how can I get better?
•  In a hectic world, it’s important to carve out time to think, so people should set aside an hour each day when they can be alone without distractions. Without time to think, you are on a hamster wheel, spinning and spinning but never getting ahead. This time to think should happen daily, shutting out all distractions so you can consider such things as: “What worked, what didn’t, and how do I improve?”

The bottom line is when you start to think in terms of data and solutions and strategies, you can start to see patterns and trends elsewhere in your life — and make changes to win at both your career and life.

Puja Bhola Rios  is the author of “ Get It Together: A Winning Formula for Success from the Boss You Need ” and the chief revenue officer for Frame.io, an Adobe company and the world’s premier video review and collaboration platform. Rios previously spent seven years working at Xerox and 13 years at CareerBuilder as senior vice president of Enterprise Sales and Customer Success. She also has been a chronic pain advocate and blogger, and is author of the Huffington Post feature blog, “ Me vs. Fibromyalgia .”

Critical thinking definition

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

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

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

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

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

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

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