online courses to improve critical thinking

16 Best Free Online Critical Thinking Courses

Written by Argumentful

Critical thinking is one of the most fundamental skills you could focus on. In fact, these skills are so important that many educational institutions have listed them among their central goals. Critical thinking helps you sort the true from the false.

The bad news is that not many people own these skills. Einstein famously said:

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

The good news though is that you can improve your thinking and you can do it without breaking the bank.

Below are listed 16 of the best free online critical thinking courses with details regarding their contents.

Go on, choose your preferred course and take action today! (You can thank me later😉!)

P.S. Apart from the general critical thinking courses, I’ve included 5 specific ones which focus on today’s burning issues- fake news and climate change , as well as correctly interpreting randomized clinical trials and screening trials. See numbers 12 to 16 below.

Jump to Section

Critical reasoning for beginners, critical thinking classes at fayetteville state university, logical and critical thinking, critical thinking: fundamentals of good reasoning, philosophy and critical thinking, critical thinking & problem solving, introduction to critical thinking and logic, teaching critical thinking through art with the national gallery of art.

• Critical thinking: Reasoned Decision Making

The Science of Everyday Thinking

Critical thinking at university: an introduction, making sense of news, sorting truth from fiction: civic online reasoning, making sense of climate science denial, thinking critically: interpreting randomized clinical trials, thinking critically series: interpreting screening trials.

Offered by : University of Oxford

Description :

4 hours, 6 modules

1: The Nature of Arguments

How to recognise arguments and what the nature of an argument is

2: Different Types of Arguments

Different types of arguments, in particular deductive and inductive arguments

3: Setting Out Arguments Logic Book Style

How to identify and analyse arguments, and how to set arguments out logic book-style to make them easier to evaluate

4: What is a  Good Argument? Validity and Truth

How to evaluate arguments and how to tell whether an argument is good or bad, focusing specifically on inductive arguments

5: Evaluating Arguments Part One

Evaluation of arguments – this time deductive arguments – focusing in particular on the notion of validity

6: Evaluating Arguments Part Two

Fallacies: bad arguments that can easily be mistaken for good arguments

Also available on YouTube and iTunes

Offered by : Fayetteville State University

24 videos, 24 hours

Lectures from Spring 2011 Critical Thinking classes at Fayetteville State University held by Gregory B. Sadler. The textbook used was Moore And Parker’s Critical Thinking 9th edition .

• Issues, claims, arguments
• Arguments and non-arguments
• Value Judgments
• Complex arguments, unstated premises
• Deductive and inductive arguments with implicit premises
• Deductive and inductive arguments
• Information sources
• Experts and appeal to authority
• Critical thinking and advertising
• Rhetorical devices

Offered by : University Of Auckland

8 Weeks of study, 4 hours weekly

• Identify common flaws in belief construction
• Recognise and reconstruct arguments
• Evaluate arguments as being good or bad
• Analyse arguments using basic logical tools
• Apply basic logical strategies in areas such as science, moral theories and law

Offered by : IsraelX

9 weeks, 4-6 hours per week

You can create a free account on edx.org and have access to the course for 2 months. After 2 months, you can pay £37 to get unlimited access to the course.

The objective of the course is to improve the student’s ability in the basic skills of critical thinking:

• how to recognize arguments,
• how to interpret them,
• how to evaluate them,
• how to construct them.

Lesson 1. What’s “Critical Thinking?” Lesson 2. What are Arguments Made Of? Lesson 3. From Premises to Conclusions Lesson 4. Recognizing Arguments: Introduction Lesson 5. Argument vs. The Text Containing It Lesson 6. Recognizing Conclusions Lesson 7. Arguments vs. Explanations Lesson 8. Argument Diagrams: Introduction Lesson 9. More about Argument Diagrams Lesson 10. Argument Diagrams: Examples Lesson 11. Hedges Lesson 12. Disclaimers Lesson 13. Examples Lesson 14. Rhetorical Language Lesson 15. Referential Attribution Lesson 16. Principles of Interpretation Lesson 17. Implicit Premises Lesson 18. What’s a Good Argument? Lesson 19. More Virtues of Arguments Lesson 20. Argument Ad Hominem Lesson 21. Argument Ad Verecundiam Lesson 22. Argument Ad Populum Lesson 23. Argument Ad Ignorantiam Lesson 24. Argument Ad Baculum and Ad Misericordiam Lesson 25. Venn Diagrams Lesson 26. Beyond Venn Lesson 27. Modus Ponens Lesson 28. Modus Tollens Lesson 29. Conditionals Lesson 30. Reductio Ad Absurdum Lesson 31. Process of Elimination Lesson 32. Separation of Cases Lesson 33. Truth Trees: An Example Lesson 34. How to Grow Truth Trees Lesson 35. Truth Trees: Another Example Lesson 36. Reflexive Relations Lesson 37. Symmetric Relations Lesson 38. Transitive Relations Lesson 39. Inductive Generalization Lesson 40. What’s a Good Sample? Lesson 41. The New Riddle of Induction Lesson 42. From Induction to Causation Lesson 43. Evaluating Causal Generalizations Lesson 44. Argument from Analogy: Basics Lesson 45. Argument from Analogy: Examples Lesson 46. Who Needs Analogues? Lesson 47. Inference to the Best Explanation Lesson 48. Experimentation Lesson 49. Building an Argument Lesson 50. Writing Up an Argument

Offered by : The University of Queensland

6 weeks, 1-4 hours per week

• How to think with clarity and rigour
• How to identify, analyse and construct cogent arguments
• How to think of solutions to the central problems of philosophy
• How to engage in philosophical conversations with others about topics that matter

Offered by : Rochester Institute of Technology

3 weeks, 4-6 hours per week

• How to perform strategic analysis and assessment
• How to perceive and assess a critical need and design a tailored solution
• How to identify key stakeholders and ensure their needs are met
• How to employ adaptive problem-solving
• How to work through obstacles collaboratively
• How to analyse failure to improve future performance

Offered by : Saylor.org Academy

This course will introduce you to critical thinking, informal logic, and a small amount of formal logic. Its purpose is to provide you with the basic tools of analytical reasoning, which will give you a distinctive edge in a wide variety of careers and courses of study. While many university courses focus on the presentation of content knowledge, the emphasis here is on learning how to think effectively. Although the techniques and concepts covered here are classified as philosophical, they are essential to the practice of nearly every major discipline, from the physical sciences and medicine to politics, law, and the humanities.

• Unit 1: Introduction and Meaning Analysis
• Unit 2: Argument Analysis
• Unit 3: Basic Sentential Logic
• Unit 4: Venn Diagrams
• Unit 5: Fallacies
• Unit 6: Scientific Reasoning
• Unit 7: Strategic Reasoning and Creativity

Offered by : Smithsonian Institution

16 weeks, 3-4 hours per week

• How to use Artful Thinking Routines to strengthen thinking.
• How to facilitate meaningful conversations in your classroom using art for artful learning and artful teaching.
• How to help learners of all levels develop more discerning descriptions, evidence-based reasoning, and meaningful questioning habits.
• Key strategies for using content information to push original thinking deeper.
• Exciting, immersive activities for any type of classroom.
• How to use online teaching resources from the National Gallery of Art, including downloadable Artful Thinking lesson plans
• Unit 0: Welcome (2 hours)
• Unit 1: Diving into Thinking Routines (3-4 hours)
• Unit 2: Observing and Describing (3-4 hours)
• Unit 3: Reasoning with Evidence (3-4 hours)
• Unit 4: Questioning and Investigating (3-4 hours)

Critical thinking: reasoned decision making

Offered by : Tecnológico de Monterrey

4 weeks, 5-8 hours per week

• Identify the theories that support critical thinking
• Employ a methodology for the application of critical thinking
• Relate the elements that make up the stages of critical thinking
• Analyse the standards of critical thinking practice
• Assess the responsibility of perpetuating the intellectual values of the resolution analysis
• Distinguish the vices of thought in decision making
• Apply critical thinking to groups

1. Thinking according to our times

1.1 Why critical thinking?

1.2 The exciting world of thinking and criticism

2. Evaluating our modes of thought

2.1 Intellectual values of a good thinker

2.2 Evaluating our critical thinking skills. Avoiding vices and biased thinking

3. Elements and standards of critical thinking

3.1 Elements of a critical thinking process

3.2 Standards to apply to our thinking modes

4. Articulating our decisions making process

4.1 The logic of our decisions and the behaviour derived from them

4.2 How to improve our critical thinking skills and become a fair-minded thinker

12 weeks, 2-3 hours per week

The course explores the psychology of our everyday thinking: why people believe weird things, how we form and change our opinions, why our expectations skew our judgments, and how we can make better decisions. We’ll discuss and debate topics such as placebos, the paranormal, medicine, miracles, and more.

You will use the scientific method to evaluate claims, make sense of evidence, and understand why we so often make irrational choices. You will begin to rely on slow, effortful, deliberative, analytic, and logical thinking rather than fast, automatic, instinctive, emotional, and stereotypical thinking.

• tools for how to think independently, how to be skeptical, and how to value data over personal experience.
• examining the mental shortcuts that people use and misuse, and apply this knowledge to help make better decisions, and improve critical thinking.

Offered by : University of Leeds

2 weeks, 4 hours weekly

• What is critical thinking?
• A model for critical thinking
• Why is critical thinking important at university?
• Challenges to thinking critically at university
• How can you improve your critical thinking?
• How will critical thinking help you at university?

Offered by : University of Hong Kong

4 weeks, 2-3 hours per week

This course will help you identify reliable information in news reports and become better informed about the world we live in. A discussion on journalism from the viewpoint of the news audience.

• What makes news? The blurred lines between news, promotion and entertainment.
• Why does news matter? Social sharing and the dynamics of the news cycles.
• Who provides information? How to evaluate sources in news reports.
• Where is the evidence? The process of verification.
• When should we act? Recognizing our own biases.
• How do we know what we know? Becoming an active news audience.

You’ll learn to:

• Distinguish news from opinion; media bias from audience bias; assertion from verification
• Apply critical thinking skills to examine the validity of information
• Contextualize the knowledge gained from news report
• Respond quickly to daily news events and make an informed decision

Offered by : Massachusetts Institute of Technology

9 weeks, 2-4 hours per week

Course aimed at fighting fake news and misinformation

Educators—from teachers to librarians—will learn about:

• New knowledge that can be applied in your lessons and resources for your own students.
• How to shift from ineffective information literacy practices towards the kinds of strategies employed by professional fact-checkers.

Unit 1: Search Like a Fact Checker

Unit 2: The Two Big Fact Checker Moves: Lateral Reading & Click Restraint

Unit 3: Evaluating Different Types of Evidence

Unit 4: Adapting Civic Online Reasoning

7 weeks, 2-4 hours per week

WEEK 1: Understanding The Climate Controversy During the first week of the course, we introduce the course content, interact with each other and complete an introductory survey. The week continues with an exploration of political consensus, the drivers and psychology of climate science denial and an overview of the controversy surrounding this topic.

WEEK 2: Global Warming Is Happening In week two, we will look at the indicators of global warming and myths related to temperature and glaciers.

WEEK 3: We Are Causing Global Warming Week three focuses on the ways in which humans cause climate change and the myths associated with the greenhouse effect and the rise in carbon dioxide.

WEEK 4: The Past Tells Us About The Future This week looks at the history of climate change in order to model future climate change. We also address myths related to models.

WEEK 5: We Are Feeling The Impacts Of Climate Change Week five covers climate feedbacks and the impacts of climate change on the environment, society and the weather.

WEEK 6 and 7: Responding to Denial The final weeks of the course look more closely at the psychology of science denial and debunking techniques. We also complete a peer assessment that asks students to practice debunking strategies on real myths that can be found in today’s media.

Approach: mini-lectures, video interviews, quizzes, activities, a peer assessed writing assignment, and readings.

Offered by : Stanford University

1 week, 2-3 hours

This course seeks to fulfil the clinical community’s need to improve skills in the critical evaluation of clinical research papers. Competency in critical appraisal skills can have a significant impact by improving clinical practice, quality of research projects, and peer-review of manuscripts and grants. The course will utilize efficient and engaging videos with relevant clinical examples to cover essential research methodology principles.

• Analyse the concepts of randomization and blinding in reducing bias.
• Develop strategies to critically appraise randomized clinical trials and determine if study results are valid.
• Analyse the key design features of screening studies.
• Develop strategies to critically appraise screening studies and determine if study results are valid.

You May Also Like…

The Importance of Critical Thinking when Using ChatGPT (and Other Large Language Models)

Artificial intelligence has made tremendous strides in recent years, allowing for the creation of conversational AI...

How to Critically Evaluate News and Media Sources

I think we all agree that access to information has never been easier. With the click of a button, we can access an...

Critical Thinking in the Workplace

Imagine that you're in a job interview and the interviewer asks you to describe a time when you had to solve a complex...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

100 Most Popular Courses For September

Harvard and MIT’s $800 Million Mistake: The Triple Failure of 2U, edX, and Axim Collaborative

The future of Coursera’s only credible alternative for universities rests in the hands of 2U’s creditors.

• 1000s of Free Digital Marketing Courses
• 10 Best Data Analysis Courses for 2024: From Data to Insights
• Replacing Bad Study Habits with Effective Learning Techniques
• [2024] 1800+ Coursera Courses Still Completely Free
• 7 Best Autodesk Maya Courses for 2024: Exploring 3D Animation

600 Free Google Certifications

Most common

• graphic design

Popular subjects

Data Analysis

Communication Skills

Software Development

Popular courses

The Science of Happiness

Cybersecurity Fundamentals

Max MSP Programming Course: Structuring Interactive Software for Digital Arts

Organize and share your learning with Class Central Lists.

View our Lists Showcase

Critical Thinking Courses and Certifications

Learn Critical Thinking, earn certificates with paid and free online courses from Harvard, Stanford, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and other top universities around the world. Read reviews to decide if a class is right for you.

• Logic Courses
• Argumentation Courses
• Philosophy Courses
• Cognitive Biases Courses
• Scientific Method Courses
• Data Analysis Courses
• Epistemology Courses
• With certificate (737)
• Free course (1742)
• With free certificate (79)
• University course only (543)
• Beginner (336)
• Intermediate (93)
• Advanced (32)
• < 30 mins (645)
• 30 - 60 mins (332)
• 1 - 2 hours (191)
• 2 - 5 hours (131)
• 5 - 10 hours (152)
• 10+ hours (487)
• English (1875)
• Albanian (1)
• Arabic (12)
• Bengali (2)
• Catalan (1)
• Chinese (10)
• French (19)
• German (10)
• Hungarian (2)
• Indonesian (1)
• Italian (15)
• Japanese (13)
• Malayalam (1)
• Portuguese (9)
• Romanian (2)
• Russian (17)
• Spanish (72)
• Turkish (19)

Critical Thinking at University: An Introduction

Critical thinking is a vital skill for university study whatever your discipline. Prepare for university now.

• FutureLearn
• 2 weeks, 4 hours a week
• Free Online Course (Audit)

Effective Problem-Solving and Decision-Making

Learn systematic approaches to identify problems, generate solutions, make decisions, and implement effective solutions in the workplace. Gain confidence in problem-solving and decision-making skills.

• 8 hours 22 minutes

Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend is Wrong

How can you tell if the bold headlines seen on social media are truly touting the next big thing or if the article isn't worth the paper it's printed on?

• 16 hours 53 minutes

The Digital Marketing Revolution

Explore the impact of digital technologies on marketing, examining how analog and digital worlds interact through domination, resistance, synergy, and transformation in the modern business landscape.

• 1 day 1 hour 55 minutes

Elements of AI

The elements of AI is a free online course for everyone interested in learning what AI is, what is possible (and not possible) with AI, and how it affects our lives – with no complicated math or programming required.

• Independent
• 6 weeks, 5-10 hours a week
• Free Online Course

Mathematical Economics

After completing this course, you will have learnt: # How to build models by expressing words in symbols, numbers and equations # New techniques to solve complex problems # To measure the effect of change and discover techniques to improve your decision-…

Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age

Enhance critical thinking skills for the Information Age through statistics, probability, cognitive psychology, and cost-benefit analysis. Apply these concepts to everyday decisions and media interpretation.

• 13 hours 24 minutes

Transformando la educación con IA: ChatGPT

Descubre cómo la inteligencia artificial, especialmente el modelo de lenguaje ChatGPT, puede ser utilizado para potenciar el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje.

• 4 weeks, 4-5 hours a week

Futures Thinking

Explore futures thinking techniques to imagine scenarios, ask strategic questions, and make informed decisions. Gain tools for innovative problem-solving and strategic planning in uncertain times.

• 7 hours 13 minutes

Strategic Thinking for Everyone

Develop foresight, analyze scenarios, gather data, and understand perspectives to enhance decision-making and strategic planning skills for personal and professional growth.

• 26 weeks, 1 hour a week
• Paid Course

Strategic Thinking

Develop strategic thinking skills to analyze insights, evaluate scenarios, and make informed decisions. Learn from Dr. Aganaba to apply strategic tools in real-world situations and plan for future uncertainties.

• 7 hours 12 minutes

Critical thinking: reasoned decision making

Learn to analyze events with intellectual rigor. Identify how reasoned decisions help cope with change.

• 4 weeks, 5-8 hours a week

Decision Making - How to Choose the Right Problem to Solve

Develop analytical skills to identify, evaluate, and solve workplace problems effectively. Learn techniques for defining issues, assessing solutions, and creating persuasive action plans.

• 10 hours 36 minutes

Develop critical thinking skills to improve decision-making in complex environments. Learn to challenge assumptions, identify real problems, and make reasoned choices in business and social contexts.

• 1 day 41 minutes

Critical Thinking Strategies For Better Decisions

Upgrade your problem solving skills and optimize business outcomes by applying the critical thinking process.

Never Stop Learning.

Get personalized course recommendations, track subjects and courses with reminders, and more.

How To Think Clearly With The Top 11 Best Online Critical Thinking Courses & Classes [Free Guide]

Looking for a game-changer in the way you think about the world around you? Well, you’re exactly where you need to be to get started!

In this guide, I cover some of the best online critical thinking courses for developing your skills. With courses ranging from under an hour in length to 16-week programs, there’s something for everyone.  

Also, all of these online courses will equip you with the tools and techniques you need to become a great critical thinker, so let’s get into them!

Table of Contents

Top 11 Best Online Critical Thinking Courses & Classes 2024

1.  how to think differently & critically (skillshare).

In 7 easy steps, this online critical thinking course, for beginners and advanced thinkers alike, will help you see the world differently by examining different perspectives and using logic and critical reasoning to expand your mind. 

Troye Bates is your instructor for this course online class, who writes a popular online blog on brain-training, and began teaching several years ago, sparked by his passion for enhancing our mental capabilities.

Through the 7-step process, students learn how to become a mental master of critical thinking, logic, and reasoning, strategy, abundance, big-picture thinking, reflecting before they act, and tons more!

Global online learning platform Skillshare is where you will find this online course.   There are over 29,000 other courses available on the platform and you even get a 1-month free trial!   Overall, this is one of the best critical thinking classes you can find online!

• 10 video lessons
• 1 hour and 26 minutes of content
• 271 students have taken the course
• Suited to all levels

Activate FREE Skillshare Trial

2.  Critical Thinking: How to Find Out What Really Works (Skillshare)

Keen to level-up your critical thinking skills at work, school, or in day-to-day life? Critical thinking is an essential life skill, and this online course teaches you key strategies to make better life decisions.  

Andre Klapper , Ph.D., is your teacher, who is a researcher, psychologist, and neuroscientist with decades of experience in working with the mind and understanding cognitive processes. This is also 1 of 9 courses Andre currently has on Skillshare.

Spread across 14 lessons over 1-hour, students will learn the reasoning fallacy, everyday examples, how to eliminate alternative explanations, how to rule out coincidences, how to draw conclusions efficiently, the scientific thinking blueprint, and tons more!

Currently, you can find this online course hosted on the global online learning platform, Skillshare. There are over 29,000 other courses available on the platform, plus you get a 1-month free trial as a new user! Overall, this is a great introductory class to enroll in.

• 14 video lessons
• 1 hour and 11 minutes
• 211 students have taken the course
• Suited to beginners

3.  Welcome to critical thinking (LinkedIn Learning)

Learn how to make more thoughtful and effective decisions in every area of your life with this online critical-thinking course designed to challenge and expand your current level of thinking.   Clocking in at an hour, this introductory critical thinking course is just the right length to get some learning in on your commute or while out for a run!

Leading this online course is   Mike Figliuolo , the Managing Director of Thought LEADERS LLC, and an author at LinkedIn Learning. Mike is also a nationally renowned speaker, blogger, author, and teacher.

Throughout the course’s one-hour running time, students explore a series of techniques to assist with developing critical thinking skills by sharing how to redefine problems and use specific strategies such as the ‘5 Whys’, the ‘7 So Whats’, and the 80/20 rule.

You can find this online critical thinking course hosted on LinkedIn Learning, offering over 150,000 courses on a range of topics, all available to students worldwide! The expert teaching and quality content make this a not-to-miss online course!

• Approx. 1 hour of content
• Downloadable on Apple and GooglePlay for offline learning
• 312,745 people have viewed the course

Visit LinkedIn.con

4.  Critical Thinking In The Workplace (Skillshare)

Next up on my list is a critical-thinking course designed specifically for the workplace. Whether you’re looking to enhance your own skills, or you’re a manager or CEO aiming to increase staff productivity,   this short 50-minute course is highly recommended.

Katie Hall is your instructor, a representative of Talent Zoom, which is a company that helps businesses identify their unique workplace talents. Katie also has 3 courses on Skillshare and is dedicated to helping people succeed in their professional lives.

Some of the many topics covered in this online critical thinking course include the foundations of critical thinking, as well as understanding left, right, whole-brain thinking, consistency of ideas, building an explanation, active listening, and tons more!

For those interested, this online course is hosted on the global online learning platform, Skillshare. There are over 29,000 other courses available on the platform, plus a 1-month free trial! Overall, this is one of the best online critical thinking classes out there!

• 50 minutes of content
• 429 students have taken the course
• 2 downloadable resources

5.  Critical Thinking for Better Judgment and Decision-Making (Skillshare)

Did you know that having solid critical-thinking skills leads to better decision-making and a higher quality of life as a result? This online course empowers you to make the right decisions for your life by teaching you objective and rational analysis techniques to apply to any situation you might find yourself in.  

Taught by Becki Saltzman , this class is expertly led in short-format video lectures. Becki is an author, speaker, and founder of the Applied Curiosity Lab. She is focused on teaching skills to companies to improve their operations, and how their teams innovate, tackle challenges, and respond to change.

Each module of this critical thinking course covers topics such as the foundational aspect of critical thinking, how to minimize bad judgment, improving vision quality, and creating a culture of curiosity.  

Hosted on LinkedIn Learning, you can access this course and then choose from more than 150,000 others taught by industry experts once you’ve completed it! Definitely a recommended short class that you can access from anywhere.

• Approx. 55 minutes of content
• 78,641 people have viewed the course
• Suited to advanced level

6.  Master Cognitive Biases and Improve Your Critical Thinking (Udemy)

My next standout pick is an online critical-thinking course to fast-track your mental upgrade. Master your understanding of cognitive biases and learn the most effective strategies to improve the quality of your thinking in just under 2.5 hours!

Kevin DeLaplante Ph.D. is your course instructor, who is a philosopher and the founder of the Critical Thinker Academy. Kevin has taught more than 62,000 students in his 4 online courses on Udemy and works with groups, universities, and in 1-1 coaching for improving critical thinking.

In over 50 von-demand video lectures, students are guided through an explanation of cognitive bias is and how it relates to critical thinking. Lessons include confirmation bias, pattern-seeking, hindsight bias, and the anchoring effect, ending with some helpful strategies for debasing ideas.

Udemy is where you can access this critical thinking course, a great online course platform that offers its students over 150,000 on-demand online courses from beginner to advanced level!

• 50 video lectures
• 2 hours and 26 minutes of content
• Lifetime access
• Certificate of Completion
• 4.4/5 from 4,812 ratings
• 13,803 students have taken the course

Visit Udemy.com

7.  Teaching Critical Thinking through Art with the National Gallery of Art (edX)

Are you an artist or an art enthusiast? Next up is a specialist online course examining critical thinking through an artistic lens.   You’ll learn how to strengthen your thinking and facilitate meaningful conversations by applying artistic critical-thinking techniques.

As for your instructor, this online critical thinking course is offered by The Smithsonian Institute with Julie Carmean , the Museum Educator and Coordinator of Professional Development at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, United States, as your leading you.

Through 4 content units, which will take up to 20 hours to complete via self-paced learning, students investigate thinking routines, observing and describing tactics, reasoning with evidence, and questioning and investigating, receiving downloadable artful thinking lesson plans as a bonus!

You can find this online critical thinking course can be found on the nonprofit education platform edX, founded by Harvard and MIT, and offering courses form the leading worldwide universities to more than 20 million students! This particular course is one of the best online critical thinking classes I’ve found.

• 18,073 students have enrolled
• Takes 16 weeks to complete
• 3-4 hours a week of work
• Great for all levels

Visit edX.org

8.  Master your Decision-Making, and Critical Thinking Skills (Udemy)

Are you looking for a comprehensive online course to improve your decision-making? You can work towards mastering good decision-making in this 4-hour online critical-thinking course that comes highly recommended with a 4.4/5 rating!  

Your course instructor is Sivakami S , an experienced business leader and research/doctoral scholar who has taught over 20,000 students in his 12 online courses on Udemy. With nearly 2 decades of experience, she has led many initiatives in large corporations such as Verizon and Microsoft.

Spanning 45 video lectures presented in just over 4 hours, students learn how humans think, judge, and decide key cognitive biases, irrationality versus rationality, de-biasing techniques, logical fallacies, and so much more.  

Head to Udemy to check this course out, a global online learning platform that offers more than 150,000 on-demand courses on a whole range of topics no matter your level! Overall, this online course is a great deep-dive into critical-thinking!.

• 45 video lectures
• 4 hours and 3 minutes of content
• 4.4/5 from 1,183 ratings
• 5,129 students have taken the course
• 15 downloadable resources

9. Philosophy and Critical Thinking (edX)

Another online critical thinking course that I’m excited to show you is a totally free, university-led offering for anyone who wants to improve their critical thinking skills. Over a period of 6 weeks, students learn how to use philosophical inquiry to improve your personal and professional decision-making.  

Two instructors share the teaching of this online course, Professor Deborah Brown and Dr. Peter Ellerton , both lecturers and Directors of the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project who  

Students are led through critical thinking content that teaches them how to identify, analyze, and construct cogent arguments, and how to think of solutions to the central philosophical problems. There is also an option to add a verified certificate for an extra fee, for students looking for this proof of completion of the course.

edX hosts this online critical thinking course,   offering more than 20 million students incredible access to online courses at leading universities across the globe. Plus, as a nonprofit, it’s totally free! Overall, a high-quality course for anyone wanting to develop critical thinking.  

• 95,967 students have enrolled
• 6 weeks long
• 1-4 hours of work per week

10.  Critical Thinking (Udemy)

If you’re keen to study an online critical thinking course that’s both broad and detailed, this could be the one for you! In just 3 hours, you’ll have a greater grasp of logic and reasoning to apply to every area of your life.

Presented by Joss Colchester of Systems Innovation , an eLearning platform that is focused on complex systems and system change, this course is an entry into this subject. This course is led in an accessible way, making complex ideas feel easy to understand.

Joss takes students through course content covering cognition, including evolutionary psychology, as well as informal and formal logic examples and explanations, the different types of reasoning, the elements of reasoning, and argumentation rules and strategies.

One of the best online critical thinking courses around, you can find it on Udemy, which offers its students over 150,000 on-demand online courses on critical thinking and more, from beginner to advanced level!

• 21 video lectures
• 3 hours and 5 minutes of content
• 4.3/5 from 118 ratings
• 427 students have taken the course

11. Introduction to Critical Thinking (Udemy)

If you’re a critical-thinking newbie looking to get your decision-making off to a good start, this is a brilliant beginner’s course to help you process information and make thoughtful decisions.  

Teaching duo Gorden Bonne t and Carol Bloomgarden are your instructors. Golden is the author of the blog Skeptophilio, which looks at science and media through a skeptical lens. He is also a novelist and teacher of critical thinking, and various other science topics. Carol is Gorden’s wife, and she is responsible for the video production and graphic design at Skeptophilia. They both lead this course with patience and passion.

Throughout 39 on-demand video lectures, students will explore the fundamentals of critical thinking, skepticism, learn how to recognize fallacies in the media, identify questionable statistics, construct arguments, and know when scientific terms are not being used correctly.

Udemy is where you will find this critical thinking hosted, a great online course platform which offers its students over 150,000 on-demand online courses from beginner to advanced level!

Udemy was founded in 2010 and has risen to the forefront of online learning in just a decade, to become the leader in skill-based and professional online education. To learn more, also check out my other posts on NLP and CBT !

• 39 video lectures
• 1 hour and 19 minutes of content
• Course: Introduction to Critical Thinking
• 4.5/5 from 34 ratings
• 46 students have taken the course

My name is Lewis Keegan and I am the writer and editor of SkillScouter.com. I'm extremely passionate about online education and what it can do for those to better their lives. I spend most of my time blogging, hiking, and drinking coffee. I also have a Bachelor's Degree in Education and Teaching.

12 Best Critical Thinking Courses & Training - Learn Critical Thinking Online

Are you interested in critical thinking courses that will help you in improving your skills in the field of the brain and neurology? Then this list is for you.

Coursesity Team

The Best Critical Thinking Courses and Training online for beginners to learn Critical Thinking in 2024.

Critical thinking is a skill that enables you to make logical and informed decisions to the best of your abilities. The ability to think critically is called higher thinking, as is the ability to retrieve information. Critical thinking is crucial for those who seek a successful college career and a fruitful professional life after graduation.

This will help you develop balanced arguments, express yourself and read and absorb important information. On the other hand, the good news is that our ability to think critically varies according to our current mindset, and we can most of the time learn to improve it by developing certain routine activities and applying them to problems that arise.

Keeping this in mind, here at Coursesity, we have curated some of the Best Online Critical Thinking Tutorials and Courses with certification. Hoping that you will find the best Critical thinking course for you that will help in enhancing your knowledge & skills in the field of brain and neurology.

Disclosure: We're supported by the learners and may earn from purchases through links.

Top Critical Thinking Courses & Training List

Master your Decision-Making, and Critical Thinking Skills !

Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking - An Upgrade For Your Mind

Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age

Master Cognitive Biases and Improve Your Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking Online Class

Critical Thinking Strategies For Better Decisions

Critical Thinking for Better Judgment and Decision-Making Online Class

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Online Class

Critical Thinking: Fundamentals of Good Reasoning

Develop Conceptual Thinking for Problem-Solving - Online Course - FutureLearn

1. Master your Decision-Making, and Critical Thinking Skills !

Research-based decision making, problem-solving & Critical Thinking strategies; for leaders, managers, & everyone else!

In this course, you will learn how to:

• improve the Return on ALL your key decisions, with some great strategies and de-biasing techniques.
• Understand the process of how the brain thinks, judges, make decisions, and improves your Critical Thinking skills.
• understand the typical irrationalities and biases, that derail your judgments & decisions.

During this Critical Thinking course, you will learn to use the insights obtained from the latest research in Psychology, Cognitive Science, Behavioral Economics, and other related fields to analyze and solve problems more accurately.

Discover how to optimize the Paleolithic brain to optimize your decision-making process in today's world, including heuristics, biases, logical fallacies, and how to overcome irrationality's costs and benefits.

You can take Master your Decision-Making, and Critical Thinking Skills! certification course on Udemy.

Course rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 (15,669 Ratings total) Duration: 4 h Certificate: Certificate on completion

2. Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

Offered by Duke University. Learn how to recognize and make well-reasoned arguments.

• understand and appreciate arguments that you and other people present to determine whether or not an argument is deductively valid.
• analyze and assess five common forms of inductive arguments recognize fallacies.
• break an argument into its essential parts.
• put arguments to reveal its connections.
• fill in gaps in an argument by adding suppressed premises.

By taking Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking, you will learn to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments presented by others (such as politicians, car salesmen, and teachers), and you will construct arguments of your own to help convince others and decide what to believe.

In addition to providing tools for improving critical thinking skills, the course introduces general standards of good reasoning. Additionally, you will learn how to apply deductive and inductive standards for assessing arguments, as well as how to detect and avoid fallacies.

Here, you will learn what an argument is. The definition of argument will enable you to identify when speakers are giving arguments and when they are not. After completing this course, you will be better able to understand and appreciate arguments that you and others present.

You can take the Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking certification course on Coursera.

Course rating: 4.6 out of 5.0 (579 Ratings total) Certificate: Certificate on completion

3. Critical Thinking - An Upgrade For Your Mind

• Critical thinking skills for a career, education, and life.

In this course, you will learn:

• the ability to think and argue more clearly and effectively.
• become a more rigorous, effective, and creative thinker.

This course distills the techniques which sharpen up the thinking skills that you can then usefully apply in your career, your education, and your personal life too. This specialization develops skills and habits we all need to become more reliable judges of what's true.

For example, skills that develop our ability to both figure out and rationally convince others of what's true; or skills that help us to immunize ourselves against the influence of bad arguments, propaganda, psychological manipulation, prejudice, fake news, and bullshit.

Being able to think critically is more than just a matter of intellectual ability. In addition to that, it's about becoming aware - especially of one's own biases and prejudices that skew one's judgment.

You can take Critical Thinking - An Upgrade For Your Mind certification course on Udemy.

Course rating: 4.4 out of 5.0 (320 Ratings total) Duration: 2 h 5 m Certificate: Certificate on completion

4. Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age

Offered by the University of Michigan.

The course includes:

• The Law of Large Numbers
• Correlation
• Experiments
• Cognitive Biases
• Choosing and Deciding
• Logic and Dialectical Reasoning

In this Critical thinking course, you will learn some basic concepts from statistics, probability, scientific methodology, cognitive psychology, and cost-benefit theory and show how they can be applied to everything from picking one product over another to critiquing media accounts of scientific research.

You can take Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age certification course on Coursera.

Course rating: 4.8 out of 5.0 (1,377 Ratings total) Duration: 13 h Certificate: Certificate on completion

5. Master Cognitive Biases and Improve Your Critical Thinking

Upgrade your Mindware! Master Cognitive Biases and learn new strategies to improve the quality of your thinking.

• what cognitive biases are and why they're so important for critical thinking.
• the concept of "mindware" as a component of improving critical thinking and reasoning.
• how ignoring cognitive biases can open the door to disastrous decisions, reduced performance, and social injustice.
• why many businesses and industries are offering cognitive bias training to their managers and employees.
• several important cognitive biases -- such as confirmation bias, pattern-seeking, anchoring, and hindsight bias.
• what "debiasing" is, and be able to describe several effective strategies for reducing the harmful effects of cognitive biases.
• why many businesses and organizations resist implementing debiasing strategies.

The presence of cognitive biases can lead to poor judgment and erroneous reasoning. Cognitive bias training is motivated by a desire to avoid disasters, improve performance, and promote social justice.

This course will provide you with an overview of cognitive biases, why they are important for critical thinking, why bias training has become popular, and what sorts of debiasing techniques are effective in improving the quality of thinking and decision-making.

You can take Master Cognitive Biases and Improve Your Critical Thinking certification course on Udemy.

Course rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 (28,454 Ratings total) Duration: 2 h 5 m Certificate: Certificate on completion

6. Critical Thinking

Learn the basics of critical thinking, an essential skill for problem-solving and decision-making.

• think reflectively and independently to make thoughtful decisions.
• focus on root-cause issues critical thinking and avoid future problems that can result from your actions.
• What Is Critical Thinking?
• Thinking the Problem Through
• Using Critical Thinking Tools
• Practice Critical Thinking

In this course, you will learn a series of techniques to help you develop your critical thinking skills. It reveals how to define the problem you're trying to solve and then provides several critical thinking tools such as blowing up the business, asking the 5 whys and the 7 so whats, exploring the 80/20 rule, and more.

Plus, the course also guides how to develop this skill across your whole team.

You can take a Critical Thinking certification course on LinkedIn Learning.

Course rating: 686,876 total enrollments Duration: 1 h 1 m Certificate: Certificate on completion

7. Critical Thinking Strategies For Better Decisions

Upgrade your problem-solving skills and optimize business outcomes by applying the critical thinking process.

• understand the concept of critical thinking, its value, and how it works.
• discover what goes into critical thinking to create effective critical thinking.
• determine what stands in the way of critical thinking and how to tear down these barriers.
• master critical thinking by applying its components and processes.
• develop your personal critical thinking action plan.

This course provides an in-depth look at the concept of critical thinking, its benefits, and the challenges involved with being good at it. It’ll walk you through the critical thinking process of today’s successful leaders. In this course, you will:

As a first step, you will learn what critical thinking is and how it works. The course will then explain what a critical thinking process looks like in action.

You will learn how to identify and understand potential barriers (both those we create and those that come from other sources) to critical thinking. Plus, the course will help you in recognizing and describing the approaches to critical thinking and understanding the external and internal processes that can be used to leverage critical thinking.

You can take the Critical Thinking Strategies For Better Decisions certification course on Udemy.

Course rating: 4.4 out of 5.0 (40,589 Ratings total) Certificate: Certificate on completion

8. Critical Thinking for Better Judgment and Decision-Making Online Class

Teach your team how to think critically. Learn how to use critical thinking to avoid fallacies, spot biases, craft better arguments, hone judgment, and improve decision-making.

• The Critical Thinking Difference
• Minimizing Bad Judgment
• Improving Decision Quality
• Critical Thinking Fallacies
• Creating the Critical Thinking Culture of Curiosity

This Critical thinking course prepares leaders to hone the critical thinking skills of their entire organization. Learn how to upgrade critical thinking to avoid deceiving fallacies, spot misleading cognitive biases, craft better arguments, hone judgment, and improve decision-making.

Plus, the course will teach you skills that will improve how your company or team innovates, tackles challenges, and responds to change.

You can take the Critical Thinking for Better Judgment and Decision-Making Online Class certification course on LinkedIn Learning.

Course rating: 323,573 total enrollments Duration: 56 m Certificate: Certificate on completion

9. Critical Thinking & Problem Solving

The most successful professionals can assess the environment, analyze a situation, design a solution, and ultimately win in a competitive scenario.

• perform strategic analysis and assessment.
• perceive and assess a critical need and design a tailored solution.
• identify key stakeholders and ensure their needs are met.
• employ adaptive problem-solving.
• work through obstacles collaboratively.
• analyze failure to improve future performance.

This Critical thinking will demystify, discuss, and provide application techniques for critical thinking and problem-solving in a business context. You will learn how to draw connections to your work experience by analyzing and critiquing case studies.

Best practices for problem-solving will be discussed and illustrated including how to weigh alternative solutions, incorporate feedback from stakeholders, and how and when to start over.

You can take the Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving certification course on Edx.

Course rating: 16,943 total enrollments Duration: 12 - 18 h Certificate: Certificate on completion

10. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Online Class

Learn how to improve your problem-solving and critical thinking skills to become a more decisive leader.

• How to Think Critically?
• Problem-Solving Basics
• A Functional Approach
• Avoiding Traps

The course teaches how to critically assess the sources of information and how to determine the best approach to take. It also demonstrates strategies for approaching both simple and complex problems, and details taking your team through the entire life cycle of a challenging decision.

Additionally, you will learn about common mistakes people make when solving problems, both individually and as a team. In the end, you will be able to solve your next problem more effectively and critically after completing this course.

You can take the Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Online Class certification course on LinkedIn Learning.

Course rating: 27,106 total enrollments Duration: 45 m Certificate: Certificate on completion

11. Critical Thinking: Fundamentals of Good Reasoning

Learn the fundamentals of good reasoning, including how to recognize, formulate, evaluate, and construct arguments.

• Arguments: What they are and How to Recognize them?
• Interpretation: Saying What the Argument is
• Evaluation: Arguments Good and Bad
• The Logic of Sets
• Conditional and Disjunctive Arguments
• Truth Trees and Relations
• Generalization and Causation
• Analogy and Explanation
• Constructing Arguments

Throughout this course, you will learn how to recognize arguments, interpret them, evaluate them, and construct them. This learning approach assumes that learning more about how to think about reasons will improve our ability to do it.

You can take the Critical Thinking: Fundamentals of Good Reasoning certification course on Edx.

Duration: 36 - 54 h Certificate: Certificate on completion

12. Develop Conceptual Thinking for Problem-Solving - Online Course - FutureLearn

Use critical thinking and the conceptual thinking framework to approach problems effectively and communicate your solutions with this online strategic thinking course.

• apply the conceptual thinking framework to a problem of your choice and structure your team to implement it.
• define the problem you’re facing in clear and succinct terms.
• apply critical thinking strategies to generate possible solutions.
• communicate your analysis of the problem and your proposed solutions in ways that win buy-in from other stakeholders within and outside of your organization.

During this Critical thinking course, you will discover the conceptual thinking framework, learn how to apply it to problems, and communicate your analysis to solve problems efficiently and effectively.

The program will introduce you to the thinking process of some of the best minds in conceptual thinking including Alan Alda, Charles Duhigg, Leonard Mlodinow, and Nancy Duarte. It will help you identify ways to look at the problem space clearly, then assemble a team with the right mix of skills to think creatively and reach a consensus.

In the next step, you'll learn strategies for thinking deeply, considering all stakeholders, looking at the problem from different perspectives, evaluating potential risks, and connecting unlikely dots for inspiration.

Plus, you will learn to transform your idea into a reality by improving your communication skills to get buy-in from other stakeholders and decision-makers.

You can take Develop Conceptual Thinking for Problem-Solving - Online Course - FutureLearn certification course on Futurelearn.

Course rating: 669 total enrollments Duration: 8 h Certificate: Certificate on completion

Hey! We hope you have found this Online Critical Thinking Courses and Training with certification list helpful and intriguing. Since you've made it this far then certainly you are willing to learn more and here at Coursesity, it is our duty to enlighten people with knowledge on topics they are willing to learn.

Here are some more topics that we think will be interesting for you!

• Learn Neuroscience Online
• Learn Neuroplasticity Online
• Learn Nutrition Online
• Learn Medical Terminology Online

Sign up for more like this.

More From Forbes

13 Easy Steps To Improve Your Critical Thinking Skills

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

With the sheer volume of information that we’re bombarded with on a daily basis – and with the pervasiveness of fake news and social media bubbles – the ability to look at evidence, evaluate the trustworthiness of a source, and think critically is becoming more important than ever. This is why, for me, critical thinking is one of the most vital skills to cultivate for future success.

Critical thinking isn’t about being constantly negative or critical of everything. It’s about objectivity and having an open, inquisitive mind. To think critically is to analyze issues based on hard evidence (as opposed to personal opinions, biases, etc.) in order to build a thorough understanding of what’s really going on. And from this place of thorough understanding, you can make better decisions and solve problems more effectively.

To put it another way, critical thinking means arriving at your own carefully considered conclusions instead of taking information at face value. Here are 13 ways you can cultivate this precious skill:

1. Always vet new information with a cautious eye. Whether it’s an article someone has shared online or data that’s related to your job, always vet the information you're presented with. Good questions to ask here include, "Is this information complete and up to date?” “What evidence is being presented to support the argument?” and “Whose voice is missing here?”

2. Look at where the information has come from. Is the source trustworthy? What is their motivation for presenting this information? For example, are they trying to sell you something or get you to take a certain action (like vote for them)?

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024.

3. Consider more than one point of view. Everyone has their own opinions and motivations – even highly intelligent people making reasonable-sounding arguments have personal opinions and biases that shape their thinking. So, when someone presents you with information, consider whether there are other sides to the story.

4. Practice active listening. Listen carefully to what others are telling you, and try to build a clear picture of their perspective. Empathy is a really useful skill here since putting yourself in another person's shoes can help you understand where they're coming from and what they might want. Try to listen without judgment – remember, critical thinking is about keeping an open mind.

5. Gather additional information where needed. Whenever you identify gaps in the information or data, do your own research to fill those gaps. The next few steps will help you do this objectively…

6. Ask lots of open-ended questions. Curiosity is a key trait of critical thinkers, so channel your inner child and ask lots of "who," "what," and "why" questions.

7. Find your own reputable sources of information, such as established news sites, nonprofit organizations, and education institutes. Try to avoid anonymous sources or sources with an ax to grind or a product to sell. Also, be sure to check when the information was published. An older source may be unintentionally offering up wrong information just because events have moved on since it was published; corroborate the info with a more recent source.

8. Try not to get your news from social media. And if you do see something on social media that grabs your interest, check the accuracy of the story (via reputable sources of information, as above) before you share it.

9. Learn to spot fake news. It's not always easy to spot false or misleading content, but a good rule of thumb is to look at the language, emotion, and tone of the piece. Is it using emotionally charged language, for instance, and trying to get you to feel a certain way? Also, look at the sources of facts, figures, images, and quotes. A legit news story will clearly state its sources.

10. Learn to spot biased information. Like fake news, biased information may seek to appeal more to your emotions than logic and/or present a limited view of the topic. So ask yourself, “Is there more to this topic than what’s being presented here?” Do your own reading around the topic to establish the full picture.

11. Question your own biases, too. Everyone has biases, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. The trick is to think objectively about your likes and dislikes, preferences, and beliefs, and consider how these might affect your thinking.

12. Form your own opinions. Remember, critical thinking is about thinking independently. So once you’ve assessed all the information, form your own conclusions about it.

13. Continue to work on your critical thinking skills. I recommend looking at online learning platforms such as Udemy and Coursera for courses on general critical thinking skills, as well as courses on specific subjects like cognitive biases.

Read more about critical thinking and other essential skills in my new book, Future Skills: The 20 Skills & Competencies Everyone Needs To Succeed In A Digital World . Written for anyone who wants to surf the wave of digital transformation – rather than be drowned by it – the book explores why these vital future skills matter and how to develop them.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

• Data Science
• Engineering
• Entrepreneurship
• Technology Insider
• Manufacturing
• MIT Bootcamps
• MIT Open Learning
• MITx MicroMasters Programs
• Online Education
• Professional Development
• Quantum Computing

  View All Posts

By: MIT xPRO on December 14th, 2022 6 Minute Read

Print/Save as PDF

These Online Courses Will Make You a Better Thinker in 2023

Online Education | Professional Development | Leadership | Engineering | Systems Thinking

It’s time to dispel the myth that online courses are only suitable for learning hard skills. 

MIT xPRO offers many online courses that help professionals from all backgrounds become better thinkers. And according to the MIT instructors who teach these courses, there are clear advantages to learning specific frameworks online. 

Here’s an overview of MIT xPRO’s system thinking, critical thinking, and systems engineering offerings, including insights from instructors on how you can benefit from these courses. 

System Thinking

This five-week online course will make you a better problem-solver and improve the performance of your projects by teaching you to apply system thinking in technical environments. 

Benefits of becoming a better thinker through a system thinking framework 

“Our world is changing ever faster, from the prosaic—how we use our phones—to the profound—how our greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate,” explains John Sterman , lead instructor for MITx PRO’s System Thinking course. 

He explains that most of the changes we now struggle to comprehend arise as consequences (often unintended) of our own actions. “Well-intentioned efforts to solve pressing problems often fail, and all too often, our best efforts to solve a problem actually make it worse,” he says. 

“To improve, many advocate that we become ‘systems thinkers’—that we develop our ability to understand that ‘you can’t do just one thing’ and that ‘everything is connected to everything else,’” continues Professor Sterman. “The challenge is moving from slogans to useful tools and processes that can lead to sustained benefits for our organizations, companies, economy, and society.”

MIT’s approach to systems thinking aims to do just that. 

Benefits of learning system thinking frameworks online 

Professor Sterman notes that there are multiple ways for people to develop their capacity for systems thinking, including in-person and online instruction. 

“People learn best from experience and experiment,” he says. “But in complex systems, from a new aircraft to a company to the economy as a whole, experiments are often too costly, unethical, or simply impossible, and experience often comes too late to help.” 

He suggests that just as pilots learn to fly a new aircraft in a simulator before taking the real aircraft up in the air, “people can learn in management flight simulators in which they can try their own strategies, run experiments, and thus develop their systems thinking capabilities while designing strategies for greater success.” 

This learning can occur effectively in both in-person and online formats. “The key,” Professor Sterman says, “is receiving timely, informative feedback on the likely consequences of your decisions—something management flight simulators provide.”

Learn more about MIT xPRO’s online System Thinking course .  

Critical Thinking and Decision Making

This three-week online course for technical professionals explores what it means to think about thinking and empowers you to solve problems at work and in everyday life. 

Benefits of becoming a better thinker through a critical thinking framework 

According to Dan Frey , lead instructor for MITx PRO’s Critical Thinking and Decision Making course, the single greatest benefit of strengthening one’s critical thinking skills is improved resistance to “self-sealing.” 

“Chris Argyris—a great critical thinker himself—explained that many high-performing professionals fall into a pattern of behavior in which they find it difficult or impossible to recognize the limits of their own ability,” says Professor Frey. 

“The best safeguard I know against that trap is the ability to identify the theories that drive our own actions and put them to the test. You should constantly expose your own theories to data and reasoned evaluation. If you have the skills to do that, you will learn and improve over your entire life.” 

Benefits of learning critical thinking frameworks online 

"Both in-person and online instruction can be a great way to enhance critical thinking," says Professor Frey. "Given that online resources have become so convenient and cost-effective, it would be a mistake to rule out the newer modalities. Ideally, learners use both—each one for the purposes for which it is best adapted." 

As a commercial pilot who spent thousands of hours in flight simulators and thousands more in real aircraft, Professor Frey has learned that "if it's possible to improve a skill in the simulator, you may as well do that and save the jet fuel. Of course, you also need to log some actual stick time, but that phase will be most effective if you prepare yourself properly beforehand." 

The way he sees it, one thing flying a plane and critical thinking have in common is that there are multiple ways to learn each, and restricting yourself to only one is old-fashioned. He made up a great "dad joke" to further illustrate this point, but you'll have to ask him about it yourself!

Learn more about MIT xPRO’s online Critical Thinking and Decision Making course . 

Architecture and Systems Engineering: Models and Methods to Manage Complex Systems

This award-winning four-course program explores state-of-the-art practices in systems engineering. Courses include:  Architecture of Complex Systems, Models in Engineering, Model-Based Systems Engineering: Documentation and Analysis, and Quantitative Methods in Systems Engineering.

Benefits of becoming a better thinker through a systems engineering framework 

One significant benefit of improving one’s thinking through a systems engineering framework is learning to address disruption, notes Bruce Cameron , lead instructor for MIT xPRO’s systems engineering program.

“Many industries are undergoing disruption today. Traditional automotive is being disrupted by electrical vehicle technology, home appliances are being disrupted by smart home vendors,” he lists. He explains that this disruption comes from architectural change and new technology progression. 

“In MIT xPRO’s systems engineering program, we teach a structured framework to first identify architectures and then to model potential changes, so learners can explore potential responses and opportunities.”

Dr. Cameron points out that systems engineers are encouraged to build their own tools and processes. But many inherit tools and processes without a crisp explanation of the principles behind them. “The intent of these courses is to teach the principles and to look at the latest tools through a constructive lens to answer questions like, ‘When should we pick this tool?’ and ‘How could we pull these tools together? ’”

Benefits of learning systems engineering frameworks online 

Dr. Cameron explains that MIT xPRO’s online systems engineering program—like all MIT xPRO courses—was designed for professionals and, therefore, specifically curated to fit around their work schedules. Rather than having to attend a lecture at 9 a.m., learners have the flexibility to consume the materials on their own time. 

But that’s not the only major benefit. “Online, we have so much more collaboration and workflow available to us!” Dr. Cameron exclaims. “For instance, we run polls at many points in the course, such as ‘How much time do you think should be devoted to concept exploration?’ Everyone gets to benchmark against the rest of the participants’ data in the poll, which is not easily done in a traditional on-campus course.” 

Extensive networking is another notable perk of online learning. “You get to network with a much broader group of people in these global courses,” says Dr. Cameron, “from Rimac engineers in Croatia to Whirlpool designers in China to Microsoft product managers in Seattle.”

Learn more about MIT xPRO’s Architecture and Systems Engineering: Models and Methods to Manage Complex Systems course .

Explore MIT xPRO’s Course Catalog 

If you’ve considered taking an online course, why not make 2023 the year you prioritize professional development? MIT xPRO offers many online courses designed to help professionals improve their thinking and perform at their highest potential. 

Check out our course catalog, and see which offering speaks to you . 

• More about MIT xPRO
• About this Site
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy

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?

We understand that it's difficult to learn how to use critical thinking more effectively in just one article, but our service is here to help.

We are a team specializing in writing essays and other assignments for college students and all other types of customers who need a helping hand in its making. We cover a great range of topics, offer perfect quality work, always deliver on time and aim to leave our customers completely satisfied with what they ordered.

The ordering process is fully online, and it goes as follows:

• Select the topic and the deadline of your essay.
• Provide us with any details, requirements, statements that should be emphasized or particular parts of the essay writing process you struggle with.
• Leave the email address, where your completed order will be sent to.
• Select your prefered payment type, sit back and relax!

With lots of experience on the market, professionally degreed essay writers , online 24/7 customer support and incredibly low prices, you won't find a service offering a better deal than ours.

• Inservice Information Request Form
• Certification Online Course
• The State of Critical Thinking Today
• Higher Education
• K-12 Instruction
• Customized Webinars and Online Courses for Faculty
• Business & Professional Groups
• The Center for Critical Thinking Community Online
• Certification in the Paul-Elder Approach to Critical Thinking
• Professional Development Model - College and University
• Professional Development Model for K-12
• Workshop Descriptions
• Online Courses in Critical Thinking
• Critical Thinking Training for Law Enforcement
• Consulting for Leaders and Key Personnel at Your Organization
• Critical Thinking Therapy

Translate this page from English...

*Machine translated pages not guaranteed for accuracy. Click Here for our professional translations.

Spring 2025 Online Courses

Courses Count Toward  Certification in Our Approach

Section Links . . .

Important Deadlines:

• Read Here

Course Offerings:

• CT700 - How to Infuse Critical Thinking Into Your Instruction

• CT800 - Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of You Learning and Your Life

• CT701 - How to Infuse Critical Thinking Into Instruction, Part II: Advanced Course

General Information:

• How the Courses Work

• Our Instructors

• Testimonials

Important Deadlines

January 20, 2025: Last day to drop with a full registration refund.

January 21, 2025 : Instruction begins.

February 2, 2025: Last day to register .

March 18, 2025: Last day to drop with a prorated registration refund ($25 minimum refund deduction once the course begins).

May 13, 2025: Semester ends.

Course Offerings

Ct700 - how to infuse critical thinking into your instruction.

This course  introduces a substantive conception of critical thinking and how to infuse this concept throughout your instruction. It fosters understanding of how to teach critical thinking skills to students through any subject or discipline, and at any level of instruction. In this course, you will be introduced to the elements of reasoning, universal intellectual standards, and intellectual traits through readings, discussions, and practical application activities. You will redesign lessons and strategies using the concepts and principles of critical thinking. You will practice strategies for Socratic discussions. You will help students learn to consciously use critical thinking concepts and strategies in learning, and in their lives. You will redesign and teach lessons you develop for your own classes - and receive course credit for doing so! 

As you apply your mind in this course, you can expect to:

• deepen your understanding of the foundations of critical thinking;

• develop skills and abilities in placing fairminded critical thinking at the heart of teaching and learning, including explicitly emphasizing the development of Intellectual Virtues among your students;
• design instruction that fosters explicit critical thinking throughout your course(s);
• help your students learn the tools they need for developing as ethical critical thinkers;
• come to understand the role that native pathologies of human thought play in impeding intellectual development;
• explicitly use the Elements of Reasoning and Intellectual Standards to create critical thinking lessons in your subject area(s);
• help students cultivate their ability to think within key concepts in your subject(s) and discipline(s); and
• create lessons and assessment processes that dovetail with fostering critical thinking at every moment of teaching and learning.

CT800 - Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life

Since few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in their lives, few gain significant command of it. Most people are frequently victims of their thinking; that is, they are hurt  rather than helped   by it. Most people are their own worst enemies. Their thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing them from recognizing opportunities, keeping them from exerting energy where it will do the most good, poisoning relationships, and leading them down blind alleys.

This course will introduce you to the tools the best thinkers use and will exemplify the activities and practices you can use to begin emulating them. Here are some of the qualities of the best thinkers:

• The best thinkers think about their thinking.    They do not take thinking for granted. They do not trust to fate to make them good in thinking. They notice  their thinking. They reflect   on their thinking. They   act  upon their thinking. 
• The best thinkers are highly purposeful.    They do not simply act. They know why they act. They know what they are about. They have clear goals and clear priorities. They continually check their activities for alignment with their goals. 

• The best thinkers distinguish their thoughts from their feelings and desires.    They know that wanting something to be so does not make it so. They know that one can be unjustifiably angry, afraid, or insecure. They do not let unexamined emotions determine their decisions. They have “discovered” their minds, and they examine the way their minds operate as a result. They take deliberate charge of those operations.
• The best thinkers routinely take thinking apart.    They “analyze” thinking. They do not trust the mind to analyze itself automatically. They realize that analyzing thinking is an art one must consciously learn. They realize that it takes knowledge of the parts of thinking, and practice in exercising control over them.
• The best thinkers routinely evaluate thinking, determining its strengths and weaknesses.    They do not trust the mind to evaluate itself automatically. They realize that the automatic ways in which the mind evaluates itself are inherently flawed. They realize that evaluating thinking is an art one must consciously learn. They realize that it takes knowledge of the universal standards for thinking, and practice in exercising control over them. 

This course, as a whole, will introduce you to the tools of mind that will help you reason well through the problems and issues you face - whether in the classroom, in your personal life, or in your professional life. If you take these ideas seriously, and practice using them, you can take command of the thinking that ultimately will command the quality of your life. 

• understand what critical thinking is, how it differs from other forms of human thought, and its foundational principles and concepts;
• become explicitly aware of the barriers to critical thinking development (egocentricity and sociocentricity), as well as how to recognize and overcome their many manifestations in daily life;
• analyze thinking by breaking it down into its fundamental components (the Elements of Thought), and learn how those components work together in reasoning;

• develop Intellectual Virtues, or desirable traits of mind, through practice over time;
• formulate clear, important, relevant questions;
• differentiate between questions of fact, of preference, and of reasoned judgment, and understand the best approaches to take for each of those categories;
• read critically and writing substantively;
• recognize the problem of media bias and propaganda as barriers to critical thought in individuals and human societies;
• develop a clear framework for ethical reasoning and understand how it differs from other modes of thought, such as religious, ideological, political, and legal thinking;
• learn the importance of fairminded critical thinking in self-actualization and the cultivation of fairminded critical homes, workplaces, classrooms, and societies; and
• understand the stages of critical thinking development, as well as determine your current such stage and what is required to ascend to higher stages.

CT701 - How to Infuse Critical Thinking Into Instruction, Part II: Advanced Course

Registration Closed

• Developing effective strategies for fostering fairminded critical thinking in instruction.
• Leading more advanced Socratic dialog.
• Deepening your understanding of the foundations of critical thinking. 

• Beginning to outline a Thinker's Guide to Critical Thinking within your field of study (showing proficiency in understanding the relationship between critical thinking and your field of study).
• Understanding more deeply the concepts of close reading and substantive writing, in order to better foster these understandings in student thought. 
• Placing the concept of fairminded critical thinking at the heart of teaching and learning, including an explicit emphasis on the development of Intellectual Virtues. 
• Understanding the roles played by native human pathologies of thought in impeding intellectual development. 
• Redesigning lessons with critical thinking at the heart of teaching and learning processes.
• Designing instructional assessment processes that dovetail with fostering critical thinking at every moment in teaching and learning. 

General Information

How the courses work, course format and platform, organization of the courses, live meetings, types of assignments, how to begin, how to submit assignments.

Assignments are submitted through the Center for Critical Thinking Community Online , either through the activities' 'Share' function or by posting to a private course forum.

Course Length

Weekly workload.

The assignments, if done well, will take an average of 3-4 hours per week for most participants.

If You Fall Behind

If cannot complete a module's assignments in time, please notify the instructor at your soonest availability. As long as you stay in communication, our instructors will accommodate your need for additional time as best they can.

Course Instructors

Each course is facilitated by an instructor educated in the Paul-Elder conception of critical thinking, under the direction of the Foundation's Senior Fellows. In recent years, some courses have been instructed by  Dr. Paul Bankes , while others have been instructed by Dr. Brian Barnes .

Our registration fee covers the cost of tuition and all course materials. This fee is $942.

Certificates of Completion

All course materials (reading, videos, etc.) are provided digitally online.

Withdrawing from a Course

Withdrawel notices must be submitted by email to [email protected] or [email protected] .

For refund information, please see the ' Important Deadlines ' section at the top of this page.

Our Instructors

Testimonials

• 'I told my boss this week during a faculty meeting that this has been the best [higher education] course I've ever taken.'
• 'The instruction and course content was phenomenal. . . . this course has added significant value to my life.'
• 'I have really enjoyed this course. . . meetings were engaging and very informative. I plan to attend additional offerings this academic year.'

• "I would like to express my deepest appreciation to you [Dr. Linda Elder] and Richard Paul. You both created a system for life guidance through your very arduous work on critical thinking. Thank you for adding the intellectual virtues to critical thinking. Critical thinking without the intellectual virtues is still narrow-minded thinking. Thanks to [instructor] Paul Bankes [CT700], we could get familiar with fairminded critical thinking this semester in the class. Since I have also attended a couple of courses in psychology, I could better understand what majestic guidance you have created to help us have better lives by improving our way of thinking. I just wanted to say "THANK YOU" for each second you have devoted in this way. I will try to internalize fairminded critical thinking in my life and help to develop this idea as much as I possibly can. I hope one day I can claim that I am from the community of Fairminded Critical Thinking."
• "I would like to extend my sincere gratitude for allowing me to complete the CT700 Course. It has been the most humbling and enlightening experience of my academic life. . . . I will now embark on my vision to make a difference in the South African Education System. Once, again, my gratitude goes out to you . . . "
• "CT700 was an excellent course that changed my thinking and life. It was painful at times and I found it took time for me to meaningfully complete the assignments. As I worked through the first few weeks, I also wondered if I would be able to change my thinking process. By the end of the course, I grew personally and professionally in ways that I wasn’t sure were possible."

Alison's New App is now available on iOS and Android! Download Now

Are you a business or organisation seeking to train and upskill your employees?

If yes, check out Alison’s Free LMS here!

header.all_certificate_courses

Personal development, sales & marketing, engineering & construction, teaching & academics.

Become an Alison Affiliate in one click, and start earning money by sharing any page on the Alison website.

• Change Language

Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills

This free online course includes:.

• Hours of Learning
• CPD Accreditation
• Final Assessment

Rate This Course & Get Better Recommendations!

Thanks for your review, in this free course, you will learn how to.

This course, Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills, will provide you with an understanding of creative problem solving. You will learn the problem solving method. You will be able to explain information gathering and problem definition. You will also learn about preparing for brainstorming, generating solutions, analyzing solutions, and selecting a solution.

This course then explains critical thinking. You will learn about components of critical thinking, non-linear thinking, and logical thinking. You will also learn about critical thinkers. Students will learn about evaluating the information and the benefits of critical thinking. The module then talks about problem solving.

This course then wraps up with organizational skills. You will learn how to remove the clutter. Students will also learn how to prioritize their time and schedule with to do lists. Students will also learn about paper and paperless storage as well as how to organize their work area. The course concludes with tools to fight procrastination and avoiding disorganization. By taking this course you will learn problem solving. critical thinking, and organizational skills. So why wait? Start learning today.

All Alison courses are free to enrol study and complete. To successfully complete this course and become an Alison Graduate, you need to achieve 80% or higher in each course assessment. Once you have completed this course, you have the option to acquire an official , which is a great way to share your achievement with the world.

Your Alison is:

• Ideal for sharing with potential employers
• Great for your CV, professional social media profiles and job applications.
• An indication of your commitment to continuously learn, upskill & achieve high results.
• An incentive for you to continue empowering yourself through lifelong learning.

Alison offers 3 types of s for completed courses:

• Digital : a downloadable in PDF format immediately available to you when you complete your purchase.
• : a physical version of your officially branded and security-marked , posted to you with FREE shipping.
• Framed : a physical version of your officially branded and security marked in a stylish frame, posted to you with FREE shipping.

All s are available to purchase through the Alison Shop . For more information on purchasing Alison , please visit our FAQs . If you decide not to purchase your Alison , you can still demonstrate your achievement by sharing your Learner Record or Learner Achievement Verification, both of which are accessible from your Account Settings . For more details on our pricing, please visit our Pricing Page

Knowledge & Skills You Will Learn

Complete this cpd accredited course & get your certificate , certify your skills, stand out from the crowd, advance in your career.

Learner Reviews & Feedback For Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills

Want to create a customised learning path for your team.

Our dedicated Learning Advisors are here to help you curate a customised learning path tailored to your organisation's needs and goals.

Explore Careers Related To This Course

Not sure where to begin or even what you want to do.

Discover the career most suitable for you and get started in the field with a step-by-step plan.

About Your Alison Course Publisher

- alison stats, more free online courses by this publisher, learners who took this course also enrolled in, explore subjects related to this course.

Join our community of 40 million+ learners, upskill with CPD UK accredited courses, explore career development tools and psychometrics - all for free.

• Reset password form here

Enter your friend's email address

• Open access
• Published: 13 September 2024

Application of AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode in cardiovascular disease education

• Koulong Zheng 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Zhiyu Shen 1   na1 ,
• Zanhao Chen 1   na1 ,
• Chang Che 1   na1 &
• Huixia Zhu 1  

BMC Medical Education volume  24 , Article number:  1003 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Cardiovascular diseases present a significant challenge in clinical practice due to their sudden onset and rapid progression. The management of these conditions necessitates cardiologists to possess strong clinical reasoning and individual competencies. The internship phase is crucial for medical students to transition from theory to practical application, with an emphasis on developing clinical thinking and skills. Despite the critical need for education on cardiovascular diseases, there is a noticeable gap in research regarding the utilization of artificial intelligence in clinical simulation teaching.

This study aims to evaluate the effect and influence of AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode in the teaching of cardiovascular diseases.

The study utilized a quasi-experimental research design and mixed-methods. The control group comprised 32 students using traditional teaching mode, while the experimental group included 34 students who were instructed on cardiovascular diseases using the AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode. Data collection included post-class tests, “Mini-CEX” assessments, Clinical critical thinking scale from both groups, and satisfaction surveys from experimental group. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews.

Research shows that compared with traditional teaching models, AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode significantly improve students’ performance in many aspects. The theoretical knowledge scores( P  < 0.001), clinical operation skills( P  = 0.0416) and clinical critical thinking abilities of students( P  < 0.001) in the experimental group were significantly improved. The satisfaction survey showed that students in the experimental group were more satisfied with the teaching scene( P  = 0.008), Individual participation( P  = 0.006) and teaching content( P  = 0.009). There is no significant difference in course discussion, group cooperation and teaching style of teachers( P  > 0.05). Additionally, the qualitative data from the interviews highlighted three themes: (1) Positive new learning experience, (2) Improved clinical critical thinking skills, and (3) Valuable suggestions and concerns for further improvement.

The AI-empowered scenario simulation teaching Mode plays an important role in the improvement of clinical thinking and skills of medical undergraduates. This study believes that the AI-empowered scenario simulation teaching mode is an effective and feasible teaching model, which is worthy of promotion in other courses.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Cardiovascular diseases, including myocardial infarction and arrhythmia, frequently manifest abruptly and progress rapidly, placing individuals in critical situations. In addition to the physical distress, the substantial rates of disability and mortality linked to these conditions impose a significant burden on both families and society. Furthermore, the presence of commodities such as diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in many cardiovascular disease patients adds further complexity to treatment strategies [ 1 , 2 ]. In light of this context, the importance of internship training in cardiology is underscored [ 3 ]. In China, when medical students enter their fourth and fifth years of undergraduate study, they will be placed in hospitals for a clinical internship lasting one to two years. Internship plays a critical role in the development of medical students, facilitating the transition from theoretical knowledge to practical application and fostering the growth of clinical reasoning and skills [ 4 ]. Nevertheless, the prevailing mode of internship education primarily relies on conventional instructional approaches, which prioritize teacher-led dissemination of knowledge through lectures and demonstrations [ 5 , 6 ]. Although these methods are successful in facilitating knowledge acquisition, they are inadequate in motivating students, promoting clinical reasoning, and cultivating the skills necessary to manage emergency situations, particularly when dealing with critically ill patients. As a result, it is essential to implement a shift in teaching methodologies, specifically within the realm of cardiology internship training.

In recent years, the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has led to the emergence of various products profoundly impacting various aspects of people’s lives [ 7 ]. Generative AI, a type of AI based on deep learning, involves training large-scale language models to generate new text, images, or other types of data. Notably, models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT use deep learning algorithms trained on extensive datasets to generate human-like responses in conversation. In the realm of education, generative AI exhibits tremendous potential. Firstly, it can offer personalized learning experiences by tailoring learning paths based on individual student needs and proficiency levels, enhancing learning effectiveness and making education more targeted and efficient [ 8 , 9 ]. Secondly, generative AI plays a crucial role in automatic assessment and feedback, providing students with immediate and constructive feedback, promoting better understanding and mastery of knowledge. Additionally, through simulated dialogues, role-playing, and other mode, generative AI can help students improve communication and problem-solving skills, offering new possibilities for flexible, intelligent teaching mode and driving innovation and progress in education [ 10 ].

Scenario-based simulation teaching is an instructional method that involves simulating real-world situations for teaching purposes, commonly used in clinical education. In this approach, students are placed in virtual or real scenarios where they face specific problems, challenges, or tasks, engaging in practical activities and decision-making to proficiently apply knowledge [ 11 ]. This teaching method emphasizes practicality and interactivity, allowing students not only to apply theoretical knowledge in simulated situations but also to actively participate in discussions, collaborate on problem-solving, and enhance their practical application and teamwork skills [ 12 ]. Research indicates that scenario-based simulation teaching stimulates student interest, increases motivation, and fosters critical thinking and innovation by integrating theoretical knowledge into practice [ 13 ].

Nowadays, with the rapid development of science, new technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have brought significant changes to clinical medicine. For example, clinical scenario simulation surgery allows doctors to create a virtual surgical training platform. This allows them to practice complex surgical skills in a safe, repeatable practice environment [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. While studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of scenario-based simulation teaching in clinical courses [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 18 ], there is currently no research on the application of generative AI in simulating clinical scenarios related to cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we aim to investigate the effectiveness of the AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode in cardiovascular disease education. Our goal is to explore the impact of this innovative teaching model on clinical interns, focusing on their basic knowledge, clinical operation ability and clinical critical thinking ability.

Experimental design

A combination of quasi-experimental research design and descriptive qualitative research methods was employed to form both a control group and an experimental group. Our study integrated Kolb’s experiential learning model into the experimental group’s teaching methods to enhance the learning process [ 19 , 20 ]. Kolb’s experiential learning model involves providing learners with real or simulated situations and activities. Under the guidance of teachers, learners participate in these activities to gain personal experience. They then reflect on and summarize their observations, developing theories or conclusions, which are ultimately applied in practice (Fig.  1 ).

Kolb’s experiential learning model

Study participants

A total of 66 first-year students from two classes in the clinical major at Nantong University were selected as the study participants. Inclusion criteria comprised: (1) absence of current physical or mental abnormalities; (2) full-time undergraduate students in medical majors; (3) no prior experience using the AI platform for medical course learning before the experiment; (4) voluntary participation in the study with the signing of an informed consent form. The control group consisted of 32 students, following a traditional teaching model, while the experimental group comprised 34 students undergoing scenario-based simulation teaching mode empowered by AI.

All students entered university directly through the national college entrance examination (gaokao) after completing 12 years of education. After inclusion, an assessment of the characteristics of the two student groups, including age, gender in pre-professional courses, revealed comparable learning abilities between the two groups ( P  > 0.05). Both groups received instruction in internal medicine. The students in both groups used the ninth edition of the textbook “Internal Medicine,” edited by Ge Junbo and others and published by People’s Medical Publishing House, and were taught by the same instructor.

Teaching interventions

Teaching mode of control group.

The control group adopted the traditional teaching model, and the course arrangement was divided into two parts: theoretical classes and practical classes. In weekly theoretical classes, teachers use PPT to impart knowledge according to the teaching objectives and syllabus. The contents of these theoretical courses include basic knowledge of cardiovascular diseases, pathophysiology, diagnostic methods and treatment principles. Teachers help students understand complex medical concepts through detailed explanations and illustrations, and answer students’ questions in class to ensure they master the necessary theoretical knowledge.

In the practical class, the teacher led the students to conduct practical training based on the teaching content of the previous theoretical class. Practical classes were usually conducted in simulated wards or clinical skills laboratories. Teachers first demonstrated the operations on a standardized patient(SP), including specific operating steps such as cardiac examination, auscultation, and electrocardiogram interpretation. Teachers explained in detail the key points and precautions of each operation link, and demonstrated on-site how to communicate with patients to improve students’ clinical operation skills and doctor-patient communication abilities.

After the demonstration, students were divided into groups for operational exercises, with teachers guiding them, correcting mistakes in a timely manner and providing feedback. In this way, students not only consolidated theoretical knowledge, but also enhanced practical operational abilities and developed clinical thinking and decision-making abilities. In addition, practical courses also emphasized teamwork and communication skills. Students simulated real clinical environments through group discussions and role-playing to improve their overall quality and professional abilities.

Formation of teaching research team

The team of this study was composed of 2 chief physicians, 3 attending physicians, 2 resident physicians, 5 teaching assistants, and 4 graduate students. This team consisted of teachers with more than five years of teaching experience. Before the lectures, they all underwent training in scenario simulation teaching mode and were proficient in using ChatGPT.

Implementation plan for educational reform

The teaching model of the experimental group innovatively incorporated generative artificial intelligence technology, providing students with a brand new scene simulation teaching experience. In this teaching model, teachers first provided an in-depth explanation of theoretical knowledge to ensure that students could master the core points of the course, such as the characteristics of different types of arrhythmias in electrocardiograms. These points are the basis for understanding the complexity of cardiovascular disease and are the knowledge that students must skillfully apply in subsequent simulation practices.

Students then watched a video simulating scenarios related to cardiovascular disease. These videos not only vividly reproduced clinical scenes, but also contained rich medical information and situational challenges, which greatly stimulated students’ interest in learning and enthusiasm for participation. While watching the video, students were encouraged to play the role of doctors and use the theoretical knowledge they had learned to conduct detailed analysis and inferences on the signs, symptoms, and pathogenesis shown in the video.

Students needed to use critical thinking to identify the occurrence and development of the disease from the patient’s clinical manifestations and, at the same time, master the key points of diagnosis and the basic principles of treatment. This process not only exercises the students’ clinical thinking skills but also deepens their understanding of the disease diagnosis and treatment process.

After the scenario simulation, students participated in group discussions to share their observations and analyses, complementing each other and improving their understanding of the disease. This interactive learning method promoted the exchange of knowledge and the collision of ideas, helped students examine problems from different angles, and improved their problem-solving abilities.

Finally, students would complete thinking questions related to the course content, consolidate the knowledge they have learned, and test the learning effect. Students could ask ChatGPT questions at any time, and when they had more questions, they could get help from their teachers. Except for learning theoretical knowledge, all clinical practice processes were consistent with those of the control group.

Establishment of experimental group

Reasonable grouping is an important prerequisite for team learning. To enhance group learning and achieve optimal learning outcomes, each group had a maximum of 6 students. Therefore, before class, teachers determined the groups based on students’ average GPAs to ensure that each group had similar overall learning abilities. Eventually, the students in the experimental group were divided into 6 groups. Based on feedback from teachers on student performance, adjustments to group members were made in the first week. In each group, one student was selected as the group leader, responsible for organizing group activities. Clear division of team roles ensured the participation of each member and promoted cooperation within the group.

Preparation of scenario simulation videos

Writing scenario simulation scripts.

The cardiovascular teaching research group wrote script stories based on teaching objectives and typical cardiovascular cases, enriching the background and character features of the plot to make it as close to real clinical situations as possible.

Breaking down script scenes

In the production of clinical case scenario simulation videos, the breakdown script played a crucial role, providing guidance and basis for AI drawing for each scene. By inputting the case directly into ChatGPT and instructing, “How many scenes can this script be broken down into for animation video creation?” ChatGPT would then offer a breakdown of scenes as an example, subject to review by the teachers for alignment with educational goals and accuracy.

Animation drawing

By inputting the prompt “I need you to act as the Midjourney command optimization master, generating scene descriptions for the above scenes separately, I want Midjourney to draw them, please provide concise descriptions in both Chinese and English,” specific instructions would be obtained. This prompt asks ChatGPT to generate a concise description for each scenario. These descriptions should include necessary details to help Midjourney draw the scene accurately. Each scene description was reviewed, and then each English description was input into Midjourney to generate animation materials. These materials were imported into editing software to complete the production of video content, with subtitles automatically generated and added to the video.

Question bank compilation

In the process of compiling a question bank for cardiovascular teaching, ChatGPT generates questions based on the plot content of the script when prompted with the instruction, “This is a case in cardiovascular teaching, what questions can be given to students?” ChatGPT would write questions based on the relevant plot content of the script. The teacher could continue to instruct to change the format and description of the questions and could also request answers and scoring criteria for the corresponding questions.

Synthesis of scenario simulation teaching videos and classroom teaching

The assessment of question and answer accuracy and scientific validity, the adjustment of question difficulty in alignment with teaching objectives, and the precise placement of questions within the video were carried out to finalize the production of cardiovascular scenario simulation teaching videos. Subsequently, these videos were integrated into the class app for classroom instruction. Feedback from both students and teachers was solicited to enhance the content and quality of the scenario simulation teaching videos(Fig.  2 ).

Flow chart of research on teaching reform programmes

Data collection

Post-class test.

Students in both the experimental group and the control group took the post-class test, and the test content and grading criteria were exactly the same. The theoretical knowledge level and practical operational ability were each scored out of 100 points, with higher scores indicating more vital student abilities. The theoretical knowledge assessment used exam questions prepared by the teaching team, while practical operational ability used a “Mini-CEX” scoring sheet customized for cardiovascular medicine. The Mini-CEX evaluation form was adapted by the teaching and research team from a scale for assessing clinical skills written by John J Norcini et al. [ 21 ]. It is designed according to the characteristics of cardiovascular medicine. It mainly evaluates clinical history recording, electrocardiogram interpretation, humanistic care, Clinical diagnosis, communication skills and overall competency. There were five parts in total; each part had four questions, and each question adopted Likert’s five-point scoring system. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.90, and the Cronbach’s alpha of each dimension was 0.753–0.772.

Clinical critical thinking scale

Based on Robert Ennis’s critical thinking framework and related theories, relevant questions were adapted according to the experimental purpose and subjects [ 22 ]. The final clinical critical thinking scale consisted of four dimensions, including logical reasoning, central argument, argumentation evidence and organizational structure, with a total of 5 questions in each dimension and 5 points in each question, for a total of 100 points.

Overall teaching satisfaction survey

The teaching and research team developed a teaching satisfaction questionnaire. Students completed the Teaching Satisfaction questionnaire on the WJX.cn at the end of the final exam. The questionnaire included six aspects: teaching scene satisfaction (Q1  ∼  Q4), course discussion satisfaction (Q5  ∼  Q8), group cooperation satisfaction (Q9  ∼  Q11), individual participation (Q12  ∼  Q14), teaching content satisfaction (Q15  ∼  Q18), and teaching teacher satisfaction (Q19  ∼  Q20). Each question was set on a scale of 1 to 5 (strongly disagree to strongly agree on five scales). Final satisfaction (%) is score/total score (100 points) *100%. After analyzing the preliminary collected data, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.85, indicating high internal consistency and reliability.

Qualitative assessment - semi-structured interviews

At the end of the course, we conducted a semi-structured interview to survey students in the experimental group and teachers on their evaluation of the use of AI in teaching cardiovascular disease. In selecting interviewees, we considered the gender and age and then conducted purposive sampling among the experimental group to ensure a diversity of opinions.

In order to fully understand the teaching effect and the real experience of teachers and students with the application of AI teaching mode, the research team first conducted preliminary interviews with two students and determined the final outline of the interview: (1) How do you feel about the learning of this teaching mode? (2) Do you think your learning/teaching style has changed since before? (3) What are your suggestions for the future development of this teaching mode?

A researcher who was well-versed in interviewing techniques was assigned to conduct the interviews independently. The interviews were conducted during the week following the course in a quiet and relaxing session to avoid errors as much as possible. Based on their final test results, they were divided into three grades, with three boys and three girls randomly selected from six groups from three different levels. Each interview lasted approximately 20 min. The students’ conversations were recorded using a voice recorder, and the research team pledged to keep them confidential. Recordings of the interviews were transcribed verbatim within 24 h of the end of the conversation.

Data analysis

Data entry and analysis were performed using Rstudio software (version 4.3.1). The following R packages were utilized: “stats”, “car”, “doBy”, and “ggplot2”.

For quantitative data, independent sample t-tests were employed to analyze differences between groups. For qualitative data, the chi-square test was utilized. A significance level of P  < 0.05 was considered statistically significant, indicating differences between groups.

Baseline comparison between two groups

The experimental group consisted of 34 students aged 22–24 years (mean age 23.03 ± 0.626). The Control group comprised 32 students from clinical professional classes, with ages ranging from 21 to 25 years (mean age 23.14 ± 0.976). Before the class, we assessed the basic clinical knowledge of the two groups of students, and the results showed that there was no significant difference in the demographic characteristics of the two groups ( P  > 0.05), and we found that there was no significant difference between them, which was comparable (Table  1 ).

Final scores between two groups

Statistical analysis of examination scores for two groups revealed that students in the experimental group had an average score of 83.26 on the theoretical final exam, whereas students in the control group had an average score of 79.56. The scores of the control group were significantly lower than those of the experimental group ( p  < 0.05). Regarding Mini-CEX examination scores, students within the experimental group attained an average score of 76.24, which was notably greater than the average score of 70.19 achieved by students in the control group ( p  < 0.001). Furthermore, the clinical critical thinking proficiency of the experimental group surpassed that of the control group, as indicated by statistical significance ( p  < 0.001) (Table  2 ).

Satisfaction survey

After investigation and recovery, a total of 66 students completed the satisfaction questionnaire, and 66 valid questionnaires were recovered, with a total completion rate of 100%. As shown in the questionnaire results (Table  3 ), it can be seen that the overall satisfaction of experimental group in teaching scene, individual participation and teaching content is higher than that of control group, and the difference between the two groups is statistically significant ( P  < 0.05). There were no significant differences in other aspects ( P  > 0.05).

Qualitative data analysis

In summarizing the interview findings, three primary themes emerge for analysis: (1) A new learning (teaching) experience; (2) Enhancement of clinical critical thinking ability; (3) Suggestions for improvement.

Theme 1: a new learning (teaching) experience

“In the past, we have always learned knowledge from books. Some things are very complicated and not easy to understand. With the help of AI, I think a lot of complicated knowledge has suddenly become simple and clear.”(S1).

“It is a very unimaginable experience. Through the scenario simulation course, I can intuitively see the physiological changes of the heart and blood vessels, and many theoretical knowledge are easier to understand.”(S2).

“The scenario simulation course enables us to visually see the electrophysiology and pathophysiological changes of the heart and blood vessels. Seeing the complete process makes it easier to remember and understand.”(S3).

“I’ve seen a lot of animations during the learning process, and through this method, I have a better understanding of clinical analysis and judgment.”(S4).

“I think the course preparation process is very easy, with the help of ChatGPT, many educational resources can be found quickly, and I am even more incredible that it can produce a complete clinical simulation video! I believe I will be able to perform better in the field of clinical teaching in the future!”(T1).

Theme 2: enhancement of clinical critical thinking ability

Leveraging AI in medical and educational fields, students can utilize AI interactive platforms to simulate disease processes, enhancing their understanding of cardiovascular diseases and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.(S1).

“With AI assistance, my knowledge becomes more systematic and detailed. For example, when learning about acute myocardial infarction, I saw numerous relevant images such as anatomical slices of coronary arteries, their distribution, and corresponding myocardial perfusion areas, which enhances our analytical and judgment abilities.”(S2).

“During leisure time, I can use AI interactive platforms for learning and engage in question-and-answer conversations with AI, which makes self-directed learning more effective and motivating.”(S5).

“I could see the students’ progress in their learning from the exercise tests at the end of the lesson and the final Mini-CEX exam. Through the communication and discussion with them after the lesson, I found that they became more logical in their thinking about the problems, and their ability to analyse the conditions during the Mini-CEX exam was greatly improved.”(T2).

Theme 3: concerns for improvement

Regarding the application of AI in cardiovascular medicine education, students and teachers actively provided some suggestions.

“This teaching format and content are vivid and illustrative. However, I feel that some content, when interacting with AI, cannot answer my questions well.”(S3).

“With this mode of teaching, I feel that I have a higher level of mastery of this course than any other subject and am more interested and motivated to learn. I have been very willing to use ChatGPT in other courses to assist me in my studies, but I felt slightly uncomfortable communicating with the AI as opposed to the teacher.”(S4).

“This way of preparing teaching materials and the mode of lectures is indeed very innovative, with the help of ChatGPT, my pre-course preparation process will be relatively easier, and the use of it in the classroom has also greatly improved the motivation of students. However, I am concerned that the drawbacks of AI, such as academic honesty and accuracy of answers, will also have an impact on the final teaching results, so we teachers should be cautious about AI.”(T2).

With the rapid development of technology and AI, the form of medical education is undergoing continuous changes [ 23 , 24 ]. Traditional teaching mode, characterized by inefficiency and dull content, no longer meet the needs of modern medical education. This is particularly evident in the teaching of cardiovascular system diseases [ 25 ], where the content is complex and difficult to remember, often leading to a lack of student engagement and understanding during clinical practice, thereby impacting the cultivation of clinical thinking skills [ 26 ]. Currently, AI is widely applied across various fields, and research shows that it plays a crucial role in education [ 27 , 28 ], including personalized learning, intelligent tutoring, instructional design, and student assessment, greatly enhancing learning outcomes and promoting educational innovation. Moreover, studies have also shown the widespread promotion and application of scenario-based teaching models in clinical practice teaching [ 29 , 30 , 31 ].

In this study, the scenario-based teaching model is implemented based on ChatGPT 3.5. We believe that the scenario-based teaching model based on generative AI is an important mode and development direction for educational practice reform. ChatGPT, with its outstanding adaptability, versatility, efficiency, intelligence, and comprehensive coverage, has become a favored choice for many developers and is widely used in the education sector [ 32 , 33 ]. Through clever integration with the scenario-based teaching model, a new teaching experience is created.

For teachers, ChatGPT provides powerful support, significantly improving lesson preparation efficiency. Teachers can use ChatGPT’s intelligently generated dialogue scenarios to present abstract and difficult-to-understand concepts in vivid and interesting scenarios, making it easier for students to understand and remember. Additionally, teachers can adjust the generated dialogues according to students’ learning situations, personalize teaching, and improve teaching effectiveness. For students, in the scenario-based teaching model, they feel as if they are in a vivid teaching theater. They take on detective roles, cultivating clinical thinking and case analysis skills as they solve problems. ChatGPT’s intelligent dialogue can also customize learning plans based on students’ learning styles and progress, improve memory efficiency through mnemonic devices, and stimulate their interest in learning and self-directed learning motivation.

The findings of the study indicate that students enrolled in AI-assisted teaching programs exhibit higher scores in theoretical knowledge, Mini-CEX examination performance, and clinical critical thinking skills compared to their counterparts in traditional teaching settings. These results suggest that a hybrid teaching approach may enhance students’ comprehension of knowledge and proficiency in clinical procedures, this is consistent with the findings of Yujiwang et al [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ]. The possible reason is that in the interaction of scenario simulation, students can independently explore the process of illness and take the initiative to find and solve problems. According to Kolb’s experiential learning model [ 19 , 20 ], experience to reflection to abstract concepts to practice, and finally to experience, interlocking and progressive, prompting students to understand knowledge from scenario simulation, then apply it to practice, and then find problems, which not only improves their independent learning ability, but also improves their critical thinking ability. Additionally, student interviews revealed that the new teaching method facilitates their exploration and identification of clinical issues, thereby preparing them effectively for future clinical practice.

Through an analysis of students’ teaching satisfaction questionnaires, it was found that the experimental group exhibited significantly higher levels of satisfaction in teaching scene, individual participation, and teaching content compared to the control group. These results suggest that the mixed teaching mode utilizing the AI platform may be more feasible and suitable for practical teaching in cardiovascular internal medicine. Although we found no statistically significant differences in course discussion, teamwork, and instructor teaching style, this may be due to the following reasons. First, the small sample size and short duration of this study limited the power to detect significant differences. Future research could improve this by increasing the sample size and extending the duration of the study. In addition, traditional teaching methods are already relatively mature in these aspects, and student satisfaction in these three aspects is already at a high level, and may not show significant advantages in the short term. At the same time, teaching satisfaction is affected by many factors, and a single change is not enough to significantly improve overall satisfaction. Therefore, we will continue to optimize the new AI-powered teaching model and strengthen its integration with course discussions and teamwork. We look forward to seeing more significant effects in future research.

Moreover, students say that the teaching method of scenario simulation not only helps them systematically understand and master the content of the course, but also stimulates their interest in independent learning and improves their ability to discover and solve problems. The vast majority of students hold a positive attitude towards the AI empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode, and some students also put forward their own views on this teaching mode, mainly focusing on the accuracy and understanding of AI. This also provides us with valuable suggestions for the improvement of further study.

This study also has the following limitations: (1) The number of participants in the survey is relatively small, resulting in insufficient data and interview views collected; (2) In this study, we used version 3.5 of generative AI ChatGPT. However, it is worth noting that a more advanced version 4.0 of ChatGPT is already available on the market. Therefore, the version we use does not fully represent the highest computing power of AI technology.

In comparison to the conventional teaching methodology, the novel teaching mode demonstrates clear benefits. Findings from examinations, assessments, satisfaction surveys, and interviews suggest that this innovative teaching method offers a more efficient means for interns to gain contemporary professional knowledge and enhance their clinical practice proficiency. Additionally, the cultivation of clinical critical thinking and problem-solving skills through this approach is expected to greatly support their long-term career viability. The utilization of an AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode has the potential to enhance students’ engagement and motivation, as well as improve their problem-solving skills in clinical settings. Consequently, the implementation and dissemination of our AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode in cardiovascular medicine practice teaching is recommended.

Data availability

Our research encompasses sensitive personal identity information of students. Due to the potential risk of breaching individual privacy, the datasets analyzed in this study cannot be made publicly accessible. We emphasize that the data remains confidential and is not open to the public. However, if you have a compelling need for access, please reach out to the corresponding author at [email protected] to request the data.

Kose E, An T, Kikkawa A, Matsumoto Y, Hayashi H. Analysis of factors affecting rehospitalization of patients with chronic kidney disease after educational hospitalization. Clin Pharmacol. 2014;6:71–8.

Google Scholar  

Pena X, Guijarro C. COPD and cardiovascular disease: more than just a co-incidence. Rev Clin Esp (Barc). 2020;220(5):290–1.

Torabi A, Khemka A, Bateman PV. A cardiology handbook app to improve medical education for internal medicine residents: development and usability study. JMIR Med Educ. 2020;6(1):e14983.

Article   Google Scholar  

Locke R, Mason A, Coles C, Lusznat RM, Masding MG. The development of clinical thinking in trainee physicians: the educator perspective. BMC Med Educ. 2020;20(1):226.

Pimdee P, Ridhikerd A, Moto S, Siripongdee S, Bengthong S. How social media and peer learning influence student-teacher self-directed learning in an online world under the ‘New normal’. Heliyon. 2023;9(3):e13769.

Liu CX, Ouyang WW, Wang XW, Chen D, Jiang ZL. Comparing hybrid problem-based and lecture learning (PBL + LBL) with LBL pedagogy on clinical curriculum learning for medical students in China: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Med (Baltim). 2020;99(16):e19687.

Chen M, Zhang B, Cai Z, Seery S, Gonzalez MJ, Ali NM, Ren R, Qiao Y, Xue P, Jiang Y. Acceptance of clinical artificial intelligence among physicians and medical students: a systematic review with cross-sectional survey. Front Med (Lausanne). 2022;9:990604.

Yu H. The application and challenges of ChatGPT in educational transformation: new demands for teachers’ roles. Heliyon. 2024;10(2):e24289.

Stamer T, Steinhäuser J, Flägel K. Artificial intelligence supporting the training of communication skills in the education of health care professions: scoping review. J Med Internet Res. 2023;25:e43311.

Knopp MI, Warm EJ, Weber D, Kelleher M, Kinnear B, Schumacher DJ, Santen SA, Mendonça E, Turner L. AI-enabled medical education: threads of change, promising futures, and risky realities across four potential future worlds. JMIR Med Educ. 2023;9:e50373.

Huang CY, Wang YH. Toward an integrative nursing curriculum: combining team-based and problem-based learning with emergency-care scenario simulation. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(12):4612.

Sun L, Yang L, Wang X, Zhu J, Zhang X. Hot topics and frontier evolution in college flipped classrooms based on mapping knowledge domains. Front Public Health. 2022;10:950106.

Tseng LP, Hou TH, Huang LP, Ou YK. The effect of nursing internships on the effectiveness of implementing information technology teaching. Front Public Health. 2022;10:893199.

Tyler R, Danilova G, Kruse S, Pierce A. Innovations through virtual reality simulation. Mo Med. 2021;118(5):422–5.

Plotzky C, Lindwedel U, Sorber M, Loessl B, König P, Kunze C, et al. Virtual reality simulations in nurse education: a systematic mapping review. Nurse Educ Today. 2021;101:104868.

Harper HE, Hirt PA, Lev-Tov H. The use of virtual reality in non-burn dermatological care - a review of the literature. J Dermatolog Treat. 2022;33(1):48–53.

Sutherland J, Belec J, Sheikh A, Chepelev L, Althobaity W, Chow BJW, et al. Applying modern virtual and augmented reality technologies to medical images and models. J Digit Imaging. 2019;32(1):38–53.

Du YL, Ma CH, Liao YF, Wang L, Zhang Y, Niu G. Is clinical scenario simulation teaching effective in cultivating the competency of nursing students to recognize and assess the risk of pressure ulcers? Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2021;14:2887–96.

Figueiredo LDF, Silva NCD, Prado MLD. Primary care nurses’ learning styles in the light of David Kolb. Rev Bras Enferm. 2022;75(6):e20210986. Published 2022 Sep 9.

Wijnen-Meijer M, Brandhuber T, Schneider A, Berberat PO. Implementing Kolb´s experiential learning cycle by linking real experience, case-based discussion and simulation. J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2022;9:23821205221091511. Published 2022 May 12.

Norcini JJ, Blank LL, Duffy FD, Fortna GS. The mini-CEX: a method for assessing clinical skills. Ann Intern Med. 2003;138(6):476–81.

Ennis RH. Critical thinking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1996.

Masters K. Artificial intelligence in medical education. Med Teach. 2019;41(9):976–80.

Liu J, Wang C, Liu S. Utility of ChatGPT in clinical practice. J Med Internet Res. 2023;25:e48568.

Brown DW, MacRae CA, Gardner TJ. The future of cardiovascular education and training. Circulation. 2016;133(25):2734–42.

Richards JB, Hayes MM, Schwartzstein RM. Teaching clinical reasoning and critical thinking: from cognitive theory to practical application. Chest. 2020;158(4):1617–28.

Keskinbora K, Güven F. Artificial intelligence and ophthalmology. Turk J Ophthalmol. 2020;50(1):37–43.

Nensa F, Demircioglu A, Rischpler C. Artificial intelligence in nuclear medicine. J Nucl Med. 2019;60(Suppl 2):29S-37S.

Lin YP, Liu CH, Chen YT, Li US. Scenario- and discussion-based approach for teaching preclinical medical students the socio-philosophical aspects of psychiatry. Philos Ethics Humanit Med. 2023;18(1):15.

Cannon-Bowers JA. Recent advances in scenario-based training for medical education. Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2008;21(6):784–9.

Sultana N, Betran AP, Khan KS, Sobhy S. Simulation-based teaching and models for caesarean sections: a systematic review to evaluate the tools for the ‘See one, practice many, do one’ slogan. Curr Opin Obstet Gynecol. 2020;32(5):305–15.

Dave T, Athaluri SA, Singh S. ChatGPT in medicine: an overview of its applications, advantages, limitations, future prospects, and ethical considerations. Front Artif Intell. 2023;6:1169595.

Lee H. The rise of ChatGPT: exploring its potential in medical education. Anat Sci Educ. 2023 Mar 14.

Wang Y, Peng Y, Huang Y. The effect of typical case discussion and scenario simulation on the critical thinking of midwifery students: evidence from China. BMC Med Educ. 2024;24:340.

Holdsworth C, Skinner EH, Delany CM. Using simulation pedagogy to teach clinical education skills: a randomized trial. Physiother Theory Pract. 2016;32(4):284–95.

Lapkin S, Fernandez R, Levett-Jones T, Bellchambers H. The effectiveness of using human patient simulation manikins in the teaching of clinical reasoning skills to undergraduate nursing students: a systematic review. JBI Libr Syst Rev. 2010;8(16):661–94.

Demirören M, Turan S, Öztuna D. Medical students’ self-efficacy in problem-based learning and its relationship with self-regulated learning. Med Educ Online. 2016;21:30049.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program for College Students in Jiangsu Province (202313993027Y). Teaching Reform Research Project of Nantong University (2023B10).

Author information

Koulong Zheng, Zhiyu Shen and Zanhao Chen contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

Nantong University, Qi Xiu Road, Nantong, Jiangsu, 226007, China

Koulong Zheng, Zhiyu Shen, Zanhao Chen, Chang Che & Huixia Zhu

The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu, 226001, China

Koulong Zheng

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

KLZ and HXZ designed the trial. KLZ prepared the clinical cases. HXZ collected the data. HXZ and ZYS analyzed the data. HXZ, ZHC and CC wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huixia Zhu .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

This study has obtained ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University. All methods were conducted in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations(approval number 2024KT045). All participation was voluntary and signed informed consent forms were obtained from each participant.

Consent for publication

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Zheng, K., Shen, Z., Chen, Z. et al. Application of AI-empowered scenario-based simulation teaching mode in cardiovascular disease education. BMC Med Educ 24 , 1003 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05977-z

Download citation

Received : 15 February 2024

Accepted : 02 September 2024

Published : 13 September 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05977-z

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Artificial intelligence
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Educational measurement
• Medical education

BMC Medical Education

ISSN: 1472-6920

• General enquiries: [email protected]