why is it important to teach students critical thinking skills

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Critical Thinking in the Classroom: A Guide for Teachers

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, teaching students the skill of critical thinking has become a priority. This powerful tool empowers students to evaluate information, make reasoned judgments, and approach problems from a fresh perspective. In this article, we’ll explore the significance of critical thinking and provide effective strategies to nurture this skill in your students.

Why is Fostering Critical Thinking Important?

Strategies to cultivate critical thinking, real-world example, concluding thoughts.

Critical thinking is a key skill that goes far beyond the four walls of a classroom. It equips students to better understand and interact with the world around them. Here are some reasons why fostering critical thinking is important:

• Making Informed Decisions:  Critical thinking enables students to evaluate the pros and cons of a situation, helping them make informed and rational decisions.
• Developing Analytical Skills:  Critical thinking involves analyzing information from different angles, which enhances analytical skills.
• Promoting Independence:  Critical thinking fosters independence by encouraging students to form their own opinions based on their analysis, rather than relying on others.

Creating an environment that encourages critical thinking can be accomplished in various ways. Here are some effective strategies:

• Socratic Questioning:  This method involves asking thought-provoking questions that encourage students to think deeply about a topic. For example, instead of asking, “What is the capital of France?” you might ask, “Why do you think Paris became the capital of France?”
• Debates and Discussions:  Debates and open-ended discussions allow students to explore different viewpoints and challenge their own beliefs. For example, a debate on a current event can engage students in critical analysis of the situation.
• Teaching Metacognition:  Teaching students to think about their own thinking can enhance their critical thinking skills. This can be achieved through activities such as reflective writing or journaling.
• Problem-Solving Activities:  As with developing problem-solving skills , activities that require students to find solutions to complex problems can also foster critical thinking.

As a school leader, I’ve seen the transformative power of critical thinking. During a school competition, I observed a team of students tasked with proposing a solution to reduce our school’s environmental impact. Instead of jumping to obvious solutions, they critically evaluated multiple options, considering the feasibility, cost, and potential impact of each. They ultimately proposed a comprehensive plan that involved water conservation, waste reduction, and energy efficiency measures. This demonstrated their ability to critically analyze a problem and develop an effective solution.

Critical thinking is an essential skill for students in the 21st century. It equips them to understand and navigate the world in a thoughtful and informed manner. As a teacher, incorporating strategies to foster critical thinking in your classroom can make a lasting impact on your students’ educational journey and life beyond school.

1. What is critical thinking? Critical thinking is the ability to analyze information objectively and make a reasoned judgment.

2. Why is critical thinking important for students? Critical thinking helps students make informed decisions, develop analytical skills, and promotes independence.

3. What are some strategies to cultivate critical thinking in students? Strategies can include Socratic questioning, debates and discussions, teaching metacognition, and problem-solving activities.

4. How can I assess my students’ critical thinking skills? You can assess critical thinking skills through essays, presentations, discussions, and problem-solving tasks that require thoughtful analysis.

5. Can critical thinking be taught? Yes, critical thinking can be taught and nurtured through specific teaching strategies and a supportive learning environment.

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What Is Critical Thinking and Why Do We Need To Teach It?

Question the world and sort out fact from opinion.

The world is full of information (and misinformation) from books, TV, magazines, newspapers, online articles, social media, and more. Everyone has their own opinions, and these opinions are frequently presented as facts. Making informed choices is more important than ever, and that takes strong critical thinking skills. But what exactly is critical thinking? Why should we teach it to our students? Read on to find out.

What is critical thinking?

Source: Indeed

Critical thinking is the ability to examine a subject and develop an informed opinion about it. It’s about asking questions, then looking closely at the answers to form conclusions that are backed by provable facts, not just “gut feelings” and opinion. These skills allow us to confidently navigate a world full of persuasive advertisements, opinions presented as facts, and confusing and contradictory information.

The Foundation for Critical Thinking says, “Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief-generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.”

In other words, good critical thinkers know how to analyze and evaluate information, breaking it down to separate fact from opinion. After a thorough analysis, they feel confident forming their own opinions on a subject. And what’s more, critical thinkers use these skills regularly in their daily lives. Rather than jumping to conclusions or being guided by initial reactions, they’ve formed the habit of applying their critical thinking skills to all new information and topics.

Why is critical thinking so important?

Imagine you’re shopping for a new car. It’s a big purchase, so you want to do your research thoroughly. There’s a lot of information out there, and it’s up to you to sort through it all.

• You’ve seen TV commercials for a couple of car models that look really cool and have features you like, such as good gas mileage. Plus, your favorite celebrity drives that car!
• The manufacturer’s website has a lot of information, like cost, MPG, and other details. It also mentions that this car has been ranked “best in its class.”
• Your neighbor down the street used to have this kind of car, but he tells you that he eventually got rid of it because he didn’t think it was comfortable to drive. Plus, he heard that brand of car isn’t as good as it used to be.
• Three independent organizations have done test-drives and published their findings online. They all agree that the car has good gas mileage and a sleek design. But they each have their own concerns or complaints about the car, including one that found it might not be safe in high winds.

So much information! It’s tempting to just go with your gut and buy the car that looks the coolest (or is the cheapest, or says it has the best gas mileage). Ultimately, though, you know you need to slow down and take your time, or you could wind up making a mistake that costs you thousands of dollars. You need to think critically to make an informed choice.

What does critical thinking look like?

Source: TeachThought

Let’s continue with the car analogy, and apply some critical thinking to the situation.

• Critical thinkers know they can’t trust TV commercials to help them make smart choices, since every single one wants you to think their car is the best option.
• The manufacturer’s website will have some details that are proven facts, but other statements that are hard to prove or clearly just opinions. Which information is factual, and even more important, relevant to your choice?
• A neighbor’s stories are anecdotal, so they may or may not be useful. They’re the opinions and experiences of just one person and might not be representative of a whole. Can you find other people with similar experiences that point to a pattern?
• The independent studies could be trustworthy, although it depends on who conducted them and why. Closer analysis might show that the most positive study was conducted by a company hired by the car manufacturer itself. Who conducted each study, and why?

Did you notice all the questions that started to pop up? That’s what critical thinking is about: asking the right questions, and knowing how to find and evaluate the answers to those questions.

Good critical thinkers do this sort of analysis every day, on all sorts of subjects. They seek out proven facts and trusted sources, weigh the options, and then make a choice and form their own opinions. It’s a process that becomes automatic over time; experienced critical thinkers question everything thoughtfully, with purpose. This helps them feel confident that their informed opinions and choices are the right ones for them.

Key Critical Thinking Skills

There’s no official list, but many people use Bloom’s Taxonomy to help lay out the skills kids should develop as they grow up.

Source: Vanderbilt University

Bloom’s Taxonomy is laid out as a pyramid, with foundational skills at the bottom providing a base for more advanced skills higher up. The lowest phase, “Remember,” doesn’t require much critical thinking. These are skills like memorizing math facts, defining vocabulary words, or knowing the main characters and basic plot points of a story.

Higher skills on Bloom’s list incorporate more critical thinking.

True understanding is more than memorization or reciting facts. It’s the difference between a child reciting by rote “one times four is four, two times four is eight, three times four is twelve,” versus recognizing that multiplication is the same as adding a number to itself a certain number of times. When you understand a concept, you can explain how it works to someone else.

When you apply your knowledge, you take a concept you’ve already mastered and apply it to new situations. For instance, a student learning to read doesn’t need to memorize every word. Instead, they use their skills in sounding out letters to tackle each new word as they come across it.

When we analyze something, we don’t take it at face value. Analysis requires us to find facts that stand up to inquiry. We put aside personal feelings or beliefs, and instead identify and scrutinize primary sources for information. This is a complex skill, one we hone throughout our entire lives.

Evaluating means reflecting on analyzed information, selecting the most relevant and reliable facts to help us make choices or form opinions. True evaluation requires us to put aside our own biases and accept that there may be other valid points of view, even if we don’t necessarily agree with them.

Finally, critical thinkers are ready to create their own result. They can make a choice, form an opinion, cast a vote, write a thesis, debate a topic, and more. And they can do it with the confidence that comes from approaching the topic critically.

How do you teach critical thinking skills?

The best way to create a future generation of critical thinkers is to encourage them to ask lots of questions. Then, show them how to find the answers by choosing reliable primary sources. Require them to justify their opinions with provable facts, and help them identify bias in themselves and others. Try some of these resources to get started.

5 Critical Thinking Skills Every Kid Needs To Learn (And How To Teach Them)

• 100+ Critical Thinking Questions for Students To Ask About Anything
• 10 Tips for Teaching Kids To Be Awesome Critical Thinkers
• Free Critical Thinking Poster, Rubric, and Assessment Ideas

More Critical Thinking Resources

The answer to “What is critical thinking?” is a complex one. These resources can help you dig more deeply into the concept and hone your own skills.

• The Foundation for Critical Thinking
• Cultivating a Critical Thinking Mindset (PDF)
• Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking (Browne/Keeley, 2014)

Have more questions about what critical thinking is or how to teach it in your classroom? Join the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook to ask for advice and share ideas!

Plus, 12 skills students can work on now to help them in careers later ..

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Helping Students Hone Their Critical Thinking Skills

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

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

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

Make Time for Metacognitive Reflection

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

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

Teach Reasoning Skills 

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

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

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

Ask Open-Ended Questions 

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

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

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

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

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

Teach Information Literacy 

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

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

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

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

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

Provide Diverse Perspectives 

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

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

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

Practice Makes Perfect 

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

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

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

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Why do learners need critical thinking skills?

What is critical thinking and how can you teach it effectively in this post, we share five strategies for teaching critical thinking – or higher order thinking skills – in your classroom. what is critical thinking educators, employers, and researchers agree that to succeed in....

What is critical thinking and how can you teach it effectively? In this post, we share five strategies for teaching critical thinking – or higher order thinking skills – in your classroom.

What is critical thinking?

Educators, employers, and researchers agree that to succeed in the workplace, learners need skills and competencies beyond technical or academic knowledge – skills such as critical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration and teamwork, self-management, social responsibility, and leadership.

We all know that critical thinking (sometimes known as higher order thinking) is a crucial employability skill. It leads to better learner engagement, greater academic progress and future success in the workplace. But along with other human skills like communication, creativity and self-management, critical thinking skills are often overlooked in education as they’re challenging to teach and assess.

But to employers, these skills are invaluable despite being hard to find.

Critical thinking skills are those that enable learners to think critically, going beyond observation and memorisation of facts.

Broadly, critical thinking is defined as a multifaceted skill that involves problem-solving in the face of ill-defined information – or to put it another way, critical thinking involves the use of evidence to create a new argument or method.

4 reasons why critical thinking skills are important

1. Learners with better critical thinking are more prepared for the workforce.

2. Critical thinking skills can predict academic success in university.

3. Critical thinking has been identified as a crucial skill for university graduates and employers.

4. Greater levels of critical thinking are associated with improved quality of life.

How do you teach critical thinking effectively?

1.  Define and discuss critical thinking skills with your learners

Many learners with be unfamiliar with the term critical thinking so be sure to use ‘think alouds’, explicit instruction and examples to explain what good higher order thinking skills look like in terms of desirable behaviours and useful strategies.

Name and label higher order thinking skills when your learners engage in them, so they begin to develop a vocabulary around these skills and provide your learners with clear opportunities to practise their higher order thinking skills with your support, and give them feedback on their performance.

2.  Teach higher order thinking skills in an appropriate way for learners’ developmental level

In some cases, learners’ ability to demonstrate critical thinking skills will be dependent on their level of cognitive development as well as their vocabulary, reading and writing skills. It is important to keep these considerations in mind when developing activities.

The youngest learners can begin developing higher order thinking skills by distinguishing fact and opinion, supporting opinions with evidence, and considering whether information is relevant to solve a problem.

Later, learners can construct paragraph or multi- paragraph arguments and consider the quality of information used to solve a problem.

More advanced students are increasingly able to take an objective, logical, and nuanced stance to drawing conclusions from evidence and critiquing evidence and arguments.

3. Scaffold your learners’ practice of critical thinking skills.

You can scaffold higher order thinking skills through the gradual release of responsibility model – “I do, we do, you do”. This strategy allows learners to develop competence with and confidence in their ability to use higher order thinking skills.

First, complete a task, explaining the higher order thinking skills used as you go along (“I do”). Next, the learners follow along during the task (“We do”). And finally, learners complete the task on their own, getting assistance and support only when needed (“You do”).

4. Teach your learners how to ask good questions when examining evidence and drawing conclusions.

One of the main goals of critical thinking instruction is to teach your learners to internalise a questioning mindset when gathering and examining evidence and drawing conclusions.

Ask your learners intentional and targeted questions that elicit higher order thinking skills.

Present them with content that poses contradictions and inconsistencies and evokes cognitive conflict (i.e., challenges deeply-held assumptions). This type of content will allow for thoughtful and deep discussions that facilitate higher order thinking skills.

Give them opportunities to practise identifying concepts that can weaken arguments (e.g. logical fallacies, experimenter bias, correlation versus causation or the presence of confounding variables).

5. Incorporate inquiry-based assignments to teach and assess critical thinking skills

Inquiry-based assignments support the development of higher order thinking skills by providing learners with meaningful and challenging questions or problems that require them to investigate and explore problems, and integrate and synthesise information in order to develop and justify a solution idea.

Set assignments that require our learners to explore authentic problems that are complex and do not have clear right or wrong answers.

Incorporate writing into assignments and provide learners with evidence on an issue (i.e. documents or articles) that they have to critically synthesise, organised and evaluate in order to support a decision or conclusion on the issue.

Try this critical thinking exercise in your primary classroom

Before you begin, ask your students to read the brainteaser alone and not to discuss it, then once they’ve read it, ask them to stand up if they think it’s possible, and stay seated if they don’t think it’s possible.

Next, ask them to discuss it with their neighbour and indicate their answer in the same way – let them know it is ok to change their mind!

This time, ask those who think it’s not possible, why? And ask those who think it is possible, also why?

Then explain that those students who said it is not possible aren’t thinking critically . Yes, Friday is six days after Sunday, not two days later. So the cowboy could not have left town on the calendar day Friday. But – that didn’t stop him hopping on his horse named Friday and leaving town!

Solving a brainteaser requires you to decide on an answer based on a given amount of information, such the fact that the cowboy in question arrived on a horse. He came to town on a Sunday. The information about sleeping in the hotel isn’t relevant. You know that names of the days of the week don’t change, so Friday couldn’t have taken the place of Tuesday. Therefore, the Friday in question wasn’t a weekday. It had to be the name of the cowboy’s horse.

We use critical thinking whenever we use logic to connect ideas or information in order to make a decision, draw a conclusion, evaluate a position, or reach an answer.

Here’s another question for older students

Again, ask your students to think about this question on their own initially and then share their thoughts with a partner.

To complete the task, first they need to gather information that will inform the plan. Who is the target audience for the product? What has worked well in the past? What hasn’t?

Next, they’ll need to use that information to actually create the plan. What information will they weigh most heavily? What if some of the information they’ve gathered conflicts?

Throughout the process they’ll probably critique various drafts and use those critique to improve their plan.

All of these steps reflect how critical thinking is used.

Just as with the first brainteaser, explain to your students that we use critical thinking whenever we use logic to connect ideas or information in order to make a decision, draw a conclusion, evaluate a position, or reach an answer.

How do you assess critical thinking?

Assessing critical thinking skills can be complex so wherever possible, consider how critical thinking is practised in a particular subject as this will better prepare your students for how they will use critical thinking in their future careers.

Activities that require the exploration of an open-ended, complex, and authentic problem or question typically elicit critical thinking and in particular, having students draw and justify conclusions or design solutions is key to critical thinking assessment.

More on teaching and assessing critical thinking skills

Skills for Today: What we know about critical thinking

Critical thinking: a summary for educators

Throughout February and March 2020 we ran a ‘ Our Human Talents: Personal and Social Capabilities’ webinar series to take a deeper dive into the Personal & Social Capabilities that are crucial for employability, including critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.

Find out more and watch the recordings here.

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In this article

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Suzie Williams is part of the international schools team at Pearson. A graduate of the universities of Salford and Strathclyde in the UK, she has worked in education for over 20 years, is a former primary school governor, heads up the Pearson international schools blog and produces and directs the annual Pearson International School Leaders Conferences.

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What Are Critical Thinking Skills and Why Are They Important?

Learn what critical thinking skills are, why they’re important, and how to develop and apply them in your workplace and everyday life.

We often use critical thinking skills without even realizing it. When you make a decision, such as which cereal to eat for breakfast, you're using critical thinking to determine the best option for you that day.

Critical thinking is like a muscle that can be exercised and built over time. It is a skill that can help propel your career to new heights. You'll be able to solve workplace issues, use trial and error to troubleshoot ideas, and more.

We'll take you through what it is and some examples so you can begin your journey in mastering this skill.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyze facts and information that are available, to form a judgment or decide if something is right or wrong.

More than just being curious about the world around you, critical thinkers make connections between logical ideas to see the bigger picture. Building your critical thinking skills means being able to advocate your ideas and opinions, present them in a logical fashion, and make decisions for improvement.

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Why is critical thinking important?

Critical thinking is useful in many areas of your life, including your career. It makes you a well-rounded individual, one who has looked at all of their options and possible solutions before making a choice.

According to the University of the People in California, having critical thinking skills is important because they are [ 1 ]:

Crucial for the economy

Essential for improving language and presentation skills

Very helpful in promoting creativity

Important for self-reflection

The basis of science and democracy 

Critical thinking skills are used every day in a myriad of ways and can be applied to situations such as a CEO approaching a group project or a nurse deciding in which order to treat their patients.

Examples of common critical thinking skills

Critical thinking skills differ from individual to individual and are utilized in various ways. Examples of common critical thinking skills include:

Identification of biases: Identifying biases means knowing there are certain people or things that may have an unfair prejudice or influence on the situation at hand. Pointing out these biases helps to remove them from contention when it comes to solving the problem and allows you to see things from a different perspective.

Research: Researching details and facts allows you to be prepared when presenting your information to people. You’ll know exactly what you’re talking about due to the time you’ve spent with the subject material, and you’ll be well-spoken and know what questions to ask to gain more knowledge. When researching, always use credible sources and factual information.

Open-mindedness: Being open-minded when having a conversation or participating in a group activity is crucial to success. Dismissing someone else’s ideas before you’ve heard them will inhibit you from progressing to a solution, and will often create animosity. If you truly want to solve a problem, you need to be willing to hear everyone’s opinions and ideas if you want them to hear yours.

Analysis: Analyzing your research will lead to you having a better understanding of the things you’ve heard and read. As a true critical thinker, you’ll want to seek out the truth and get to the source of issues. It’s important to avoid taking things at face value and always dig deeper.

Problem-solving: Problem-solving is perhaps the most important skill that critical thinkers can possess. The ability to solve issues and bounce back from conflict is what helps you succeed, be a leader, and effect change. One way to properly solve problems is to first recognize there’s a problem that needs solving. By determining the issue at hand, you can then analyze it and come up with several potential solutions.

How to develop critical thinking skills

You can develop critical thinking skills every day if you approach problems in a logical manner. Here are a few ways you can start your path to improvement:

1. Ask questions.

Be inquisitive about everything. Maintain a neutral perspective and develop a natural curiosity, so you can ask questions that develop your understanding of the situation or task at hand. The more details, facts, and information you have, the better informed you are to make decisions.

2. Practice active listening.

Utilize active listening techniques, which are founded in empathy, to really listen to what the other person is saying. Critical thinking, in part, is the cognitive process of reading the situation: the words coming out of their mouth, their body language, their reactions to your own words. Then, you might paraphrase to clarify what they're saying, so both of you agree you're on the same page.

3. Develop your logic and reasoning.

This is perhaps a more abstract task that requires practice and long-term development. However, think of a schoolteacher assessing the classroom to determine how to energize the lesson. There's options such as playing a game, watching a video, or challenging the students with a reward system. Using logic, you might decide that the reward system will take up too much time and is not an immediate fix. A video is not exactly relevant at this time. So, the teacher decides to play a simple word association game.

Scenarios like this happen every day, so next time, you can be more aware of what will work and what won't. Over time, developing your logic and reasoning will strengthen your critical thinking skills.

Learn tips and tricks on how to become a better critical thinker and problem solver through online courses from notable educational institutions on Coursera. Start with Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking from Duke University or Mindware: Critical Thinking for the Information Age from the University of Michigan.

Article sources

University of the People, “ Why is Critical Thinking Important?: A Survival Guide , https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/why-is-critical-thinking-important/.” Accessed May 18, 2023.

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Critical thinking for teachers and students

What Do We Mean by the Term ‘Critical Thinking?’

Firstly, there is no single, commonly agreed definition of the term ‘critical thinking’.

However, most commonly as teachers, we use it to refer to what are known as the higher-order thinking skills.

These higher-order thinking skills are skills that require us to think in a deeper, more complex manner.

If you are familiar with Bloom’s taxonomy, think of the upper levels of the hierarchy – analyze, evaluate, create. We could also add infer to this list of critical thinking skills.

Put simply, critical thinking requires the student to engage in an objective analysis of a topic and evaluate the available information in order to form a judgment.

Critical thinking demands a systematic approach to evaluating new information. It encourages us to question and reflect on our own knowledge and how we arrive at the opinions we have and make the decisions we make.

THERE ARE NO FORMAL CRITICAL THINKING STANDARDS, BUT THESE ATTRIBUTES OUTLINED BY MONASH UNIVERSITY CAPTURE THE ESSENCE OF WHAT STUDENTS AND TEACHERS SHOULD ASPIRE TO IN THE CLASSROOM.

  Why Is Critical Thinking Important?

Our students need to be able to think critically to make rational decisions on what to believe or what course of action to take.

An inability to think critically can leave students vulnerable to muddied thinking and the possibility of believing in unsound ideas.

Critical thinking helps students to filter the wheat from the chaff, intellectually speaking.

Developing strong critical thinking skills helps students to eliminate dubious data to leave only the strongest, most reliable information.

At its core, critical thinking is about having good reasons for our beliefs. It helps us to navigate through bias (our own and that of others) to avoid manipulation or becoming enslaved by our feelings. These are essential skills in an age of overwhelming information.

Helping our students to develop their critical thinking skills not only inoculates them against embracing flawed ideas, but these skills are also some of the most in-demand by employers and this looks set to continue to be so well into the future.

This is due to the ever-increasing pace of technological change. It is impossible to accurately predict the specific requirements of many future jobs. One thing is for sure though, so-called soft skills such as critical thinking will ensure students will be able to adapt to whatever shapes the workplace of the future will take.

Teaching Critical Thinking 

There are any number of ways to introduce critical thinking into the classroom, either as discrete activities or interwoven into lessons with other stated objectives. However, it is helpful to students to take the time to teach a variety of strategies to help them think critically about the ideas they encounter which will help them form their own opinions.

An opinion based on critical thinking does not rely on gut feeling, but rather on rational reasoning which often requires some form of initial research.

Let’s start by taking a look at some ways you can encourage critical thinking in your classroom, especially in the research process.

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT GUIDE TO TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

A complete guide to teaching Critical Thinking

This 180 page e-book is an excellent resource for teachers looking to implement critical thinking in the classroom.

It is packed full of great content whether you are just starting out, or looking to go further.

It makes relevant connections to technology, STEM, and critical and creative thinking.

Teaching Strategies: A Step-by-Step Approach to Critical Thinking

The following process is a useful template for teaching students. When embarking on their research, this template provides a step-by-step process that they can use to structure their investigations.

1. Format the Question

In the age of the Internet, access to information is no longer the major hurdle facing the inquisitive student investigator. If anything, the real problem now is knowing how to appropriately sift through the almost inexhaustible amount of information out there.

The key to this filtration process is the formulation of the research question. How the question is composed and formatted will inform exactly what information the student is looking for and what information can be discarded.

The type of question formatted here will depend on the purpose of the research. For example, is the question intended to establish knowledge? Then, it may well be a straightforward What type question, for example, What are the consequences of a diet high in processed sugars?

If the question is geared more towards the use of that information or knowledge, then the question may be more of a Why type question, for example, Why do some commentators claim that a diet high in processed sugars is the greatest threat facing public health?

One extremely useful tool to assist in formatting questions that make demands on student critical thinking abilities is to employ Bloom’s taxonomy.

2. Gather the Information

Once the question has been clearly defined, then the process of gathering the information begins. Students should frequently refer back to their research questions to ensure they are maintaining their focus.  

As they gather information concerning their question, reference to their initial question will help them to determine the relevance of the information in front of them. They can then weigh up whether or not the information helps move them further toward answering their initial research question.

3. Apply the Information  

The ability to think critically about information is of no use unless the understanding gained can be applied in the real world.

The most practical application of this skill is seen when it is used to inform decision-making. When faced with making a decision, encourage students to reflect on the concepts at work in regard to the choice they face.

They must look at what assumptions exist and explore whether their interpretation of the issue is a logically sound one. To do this effectively, they will also need to consider the effects of that decision.

4. Consider the Implications

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

As the old proverb suggests, our well-intended decisions can sometimes lead to unforeseen negative consequences. When considering paths of action, we need to encourage our students to reflect deeply on all possible outcomes of those actions: short, medium, and long-term.

Unintended consequences are outcomes that are unforeseen and can often undo much of the good of the original decision.

There are many fascinating examples of this phenomenon that are easily found online and can be interesting to share with the students.

One such example was uncovered by the economist Sam Peltzman. He found that when mandatory seat-belt legislation was passed in some of the US states the number of fatalities of drivers did go down as a result. However, he also found that this was offset by an increase in fatalities among pedestrians and cyclists as drivers felt safer wearing seat belts and many drove faster as a result.

5. Explore Other Points of View

This is the final testing ground of an opinion that has been forged in the fires of critical thinking. Though students will have been exposed to competing ideas earlier in the research stage, they should now take the time to measure their matured opinions against these other points of view.

Exploring alternative viewpoints helps us to evaluate our own choices and avoid stagnating in our own biases and innate preferences. Doing this helps us to make the most informed decisions possible.

Now that we’ve had a look at a step-by-step approach to critical thinking, let’s take a look at some creative ways to help students exercise those critical thinking muscles in the classroom. Getting critical doesn’t have to be boring!

Critical Thinking Games and Activities

The Barometer: Find Out Where You Stand

When considering where we stand on issues, it’s important to realise that things don’t always have to be a zero-sum game.  Things don’t have to be all or nothing.  Students need to learn that opinions can be nuanced and that often there exists a spectrum of opinions on any given issue.

In this activity, give the students a controversial issue to consider. Assign the extremes on the issue to opposite ends of the classroom and instruct students to arrange themselves along a continuum based on how strongly they feel about the issue.

They’ll likely need to engage in some free-flowing conversation to figure this out and setting a time limit will help ensure this discussion doesn’t go on endlessly.

Draw an Analogy: Making Lateral Links

This game encourages students to think creatively and indirectly about an idea or a subject and it can be used in practically any context. It encourages students to make comparisons between seemingly unconnected things by analyzing both for any underlying concepts that may link them together somehow – no matter how tenuously!

Start by asking your students a creative question based on the topic or idea you are exploring together in the classroom. The format of these questions should closely follow a similar pattern to the following examples:

●      How is raising a child like building a house?

●      Why is an egg like a hunk of marble?

●      How is a bookshelf like a lunchbox?

The more inventive the elements in each question are, the more challenging it will be for the students to make links between the two of them.

This game can generate some interesting responses and is easy to differentiate for students of all ages. Younger students may enjoy a simpler question format such as ‘ Smell is to nose as sight is to… ’ where the links between the elements are much more obvious.

For older students, remember too that when devising the questions the links between the different elements do not have to be obvious. Indeed, as far as you’re concerned they do not even have to exist. That’s for the students to explore and create.

Build Critical Thinking Skills with Brain Teasers

Brain teasers are great fun and an enjoyable way to fill a few minutes of class time, but they also provide great exercise for students’ critical thinking abilities. Though they are often based on unlikely premises, the skills acquired in solving them can have real-world applications.

Let’s take an example to see how this works. Ask your students the following teaser – you might want to set a time limit and have them write their answers down to put some added pressure on:

A rooster sits on a barn and is facing west. The wind is blowing eastward at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour. The rooster lays an egg. Which cardinal direction does the egg roll?  

The answer is, of course, that there is no egg. Roosters are male and therefore can’t lay eggs.

One of the reasons why so many will get this simple teaser wrong is that despite knowing that a rooster is a male chicken, they overlook it due to the casualness with which it’s thrown into the teaser.  

The other reason is the misdirection caused by the quite meticulous detail provided. Students are likely to pay too much attention to the details such as the speed of the wind, its direction, and the direction of the rooster is facing.

All these irrelevant details distract the students from the fact that the only information required to solve this teaser is provided by the 2nd word of the riddle.

There are numerous brain teasers freely available on the Internet. Weaving them into your lessons gives students opportunities to sharpen their critical thinking skills by sorting relevant from irrelevant details and encouraging students to analyze closely the relevant details provided.

Build the Habit and Become a Critical Thinker

In this article, we have taken a look at some concrete ways to practice critical thinking skills in the classroom. However, becoming a critical thinker is much more about developing consistent critical thinking habits in our approach to ideas and opinions.

To help your students develop these habits, be sure to encourage intellectual curiosity in the classroom. Ask students to examine their own assumptions and evaluate these in light of opposing opinions and available evidence.

Create opportunities in your lessons to explore advertisements and even political statements together. Fight the urge to impart your own beliefs and biases in favor of allowing students to determine the credibility of the sources themselves. Encourage them to draw their own conclusions.

Consistently insist that your students provide evidence to support their conclusions when they express opinions in classroom discussions.

In time, the habit of critical thinking will inform how your students approach any new information that they come across. This will leave them better able to think clearly and systematically and better able to express themselves coherently too.

Create opportunities in your lessons to explore advertisements and even political statements together. Fight the urge to impart your own beliefs and biases in favor of allowing students to determine the credibility of the sources themselves. Encourage them to draw their conclusions.

Fostering Future Thinkers: 10 Dynamic Strategies for Cultivating Critical Thinking in the Classroom

• Socratic Questioning: Encourage students to engage in thoughtful discussions by employing Socratic questioning. This method involves asking open-ended questions that prompt deeper exploration of concepts, helping students develop analytical and reasoning skills.
• Real-World Problem-Solving: Integrate real-world problems into the curriculum, allowing students to apply critical thinking skills to authentic situations. This hands-on approach fosters practical problem-solving abilities and encourages creativity.
• Debate and Discussion: Organize debates and class discussions to expose students to diverse perspectives. This not only enhances their critical thinking but also teaches them how to construct persuasive arguments and consider alternative viewpoints.
• Case Studies: Utilize case studies from various fields to present complex scenarios. This challenges students to analyze information, identify key issues, and propose effective solutions, fostering critical thinking within specific contexts.
• Critical Reading and Writing: Emphasize critical reading and writing skills. Encourage students to analyze texts, identify main arguments, evaluate evidence, and express their thoughts coherently in writing. This enhances both analytical and communication skills.
• Concept Mapping: Introduce concept mapping as a visual tool to help students organize thoughts and relationships between ideas. This technique enhances their ability to see the bigger picture and understand the interconnectedness of concepts.
• Problem-Based Learning (PBL): Implement problem-based learning approaches, where students work collaboratively to solve complex problems. This method promotes critical thinking, teamwork, and the application of knowledge to real-world situations.
• Cognitive Dissonance Activities: Engage students in activities that provoke cognitive dissonance, challenging their existing beliefs or assumptions. This discomfort encourages critical examination and reflection, leading to intellectual growth.
• Metacognition Development: Foster metacognition by prompting students to reflect on their thinking processes. Encourage them to analyze how they approach problems, make decisions, and solve challenges, promoting self-awareness and self-correction.
• Role-Playing Scenarios: Create role-playing scenarios that require students to step into different perspectives or roles. This immersive approach encourages empathy, perspective-taking, and the ability to analyze situations from multiple viewpoints, enhancing overall critical thinking skills.

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Critical Thinking: Why is it Important and How to Teach Them to Students?

• By: Amy Heath
• In: Teaching Skills

As both an individual and a society, critical thinking is one of the most crucial skills you can have. As a teacher, it is maybe  THE  most important skill you can teach.

Students today are faced with a world of information, and critical thinking skills can help them process it critically and logically. Critical thinking skills have improved academic performance when students utilise the skillset throughout their education.

In this article, we will explore what critical thinking is and how it impacts student performance in school . You will learn about some important ways teachers can teach critical reasoning skills to students through instruction or by modelling these behaviours themselves during class time.

20- Second Summary

• Critical thinking is the ability to think logically, clearly, and independently.
• Critical thinking is essential because it makes you can think independently, helps you solve your problems, and is an all-around exercise for your brain.
• Some ways to teach critical thinking are to have your students debate, ask frequent questions, and read and write their opinions on exciting topics.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking  is a process in which someone evaluates an issue from multiple perspectives to be critical and logical in their evaluation. In critical thinking, one asks critical questions that lead to developing a critical understanding of a problem.

When herd mentality is becoming increasingly and frighteningly common, critical thinking is becoming rarer and more sought after than ever. Being able to think critically means that you can take your beliefs through the filters of logic. It also means that you are capable of constant introspection, clarity, and an independent mindset.

Critical thinking allows us to:

• Methodically resolve issues
• Filter our unnecessary and irrelevant ideas
• Comprehend the logical reasoning behind concepts
• Identify logical gaps in reasonings
• Establish watertight arguments
• Analyse others’ arguments

Why Are Critical Thinking Skills Important?

Critical thinking skills are critical for success in school, career and daily life. A world without critical thinking means a world without challenges, and without challenges means a world without advancement. Without critical thinking, our society would be a bunch of people choosing sides with full extremity without considering the greyness and complications of situations. It would just be people agreeing with each other or fighting without proper thinking or analysis. Well, that is happening a lot nowadays, to be honest.

In any case, these are some of the reasons why critical thinking skills are crucial:

It Makes You An Independent Thinker

You must have heard of the age-old proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”. As teachers, there is a lot that we must explain in a sort of “ this is what it is”  manner, but what we do not do enough is teach them to question. Like I had mentioned before, the world is becoming increasingly easily influenced. We need more and more individuals who can look at themselves and the world around them with a critical pair of eyes and who have their own opinions instead of just following the herd.

It Helps You Solve Problems

Thinking critically means that you are willing to spend more time on problems, analyze their roots and figure out ways to resolve them. Every generation has many issues that need solving, and our current and future generations are no different. There are large-scale issues that need to be solved, like global warming and overpopulation. Problem-solving is also one of the key features that employers look for in potential employees.

It Is Work Out For Your Brain

Critical thinking is possibly the best way to exercise your mind because it combines different facets of thinking.

Firstly, it makes you wonder about things. It makes you ask questions from the largest of scales to the most mundane of things. This means that you will never stop learning. You will develop a knack for understanding different sides and having different mindsets.

Secondly, it makes you think outside the box. Many schools have this terrible habit of boxing and limiting their students by just giving them information and expecting them to regurgitate the given information repeatedly. Thinking critically is an exercise that instead helps students think creatively.

Thirdly, it is an essential aspect of becoming a leader. Thinking critically helps a lot when you must make decisions, especially tough ones.

Critical thinking skills are critical in daily life because critical thinkers can identify problems. They solve those problems through reason, define goals to resolve the problem and then take action.

How To Teach Critical Thinking To Students?

No matter what type of teacher you are, you can help students think critically by modelling these behaviours themselves during class time. By critical thinking skills research, teachers ask critical questions that lead to developing a critical understanding of a problem.

Teachers should also define goals for their students and provide clear criteria for what success looks like in relation to those goals. In addition, they can teach students how to identify patterns and underlying assumptions when considering various points of view.

So how do we teach students to be critical thinkers? To be honest, it is not that difficult and here are some suggestions on how you can do the same.

Make Them Debate

When I was in secondary school, I was put on a debate team. I think a good portion of my critical thinking capabilities can be attributed to that whole experience. Debating is a great way to evolve your skills because you cannot spew random or false facts. You must conduct good research and be backed up by solid and relevant points and facts.

It also teaches you to present your arguments in the most convincing way possible. Also, since you will be debating with other people, it teaches you to think of the other side’s arguments since you will need to understand the other opponent to counteract their views. Due to all of these, debating can be a great all-around exercise for critical thinking.

P.S. They can be a lot of fun for students too. Just try to make sure that you choose topics they are interested in, and you will be surprised how much effort they can put in.

Make Them Ask

Perhaps one of the reasons we do not think critically as much is because we do not ask enough questions. Try to make it a regular thing in your classes to have students ask questions about anything and then discuss in class. Try to make it as open-minded as possible so that the students feel comfortable and interested.

If none of the students is willing to bring up questions, you can use a reward system to incentivise them to do so. You can give some questions as examples in the beginning to give them an idea of what to do. Just put the habit of questioning in their minds.

Make Them Read And Write

Again, this is something that used to happen in my English classes that I never appreciated. We used to have this homework, sometimes called  Newspaper Clipping . It gave us a piece of news to read and then answered some questions and shared our opinions on the news. I now understand how important and valuable it was.

It does not have to be straight from the newspapers. You can give your students exciting pieces of information about the world, cultures, sports, phenomenon, current events, or anything that they either need to know or have curiosity in. Let them read and absorb information and then have them write their unfiltered opinions on them.

Do  not  just tell them what they need to believe or think. Instead, you can say to your students why you believe a certain way and then ask them to explain why they believe a certain way as well.

Also Read: Tips to engage young learners in your classroom.

Tips for parents to help their children develop critical thinking skills at home

Parents can do a few things to help their children develop critical thinking skills at home. One is to model critical thinking for their children. This can be done by asking critical questions about the characters in books that they read together or discussing news stories and their critical thinking skills when processing the information.

Another tip is to provide opportunities for critical thinking games and activities. You can do this by playing critical thinking board games or video games with your child. Have them figure out what to do next by being critical of their decisions or asking them to solve a crossword puzzle without looking up any words they do not know.

Parents can also help their children develop critical thinking by engaging them with critical reading, writing, and improving their math skills by having them solve a problem without using their calculator.

Conclusion:

Critical thinking skills are critical to success. As teachers, it is our responsibility to teach our students this new way of thinking. Critical thinking helps us be more thoughtful in our actions and make better decisions. Teaching students to think critically is possible at any age but requires patience and lots of practice. New habits take time to form, so do not give up on your child when they do not immediately grasp the concept.

I hope this article has been helpful to you, and I highly encourage everyone to teach their students, children, or siblings to practice critical thinking.

This article was published on November 30, 2021.

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Teaching how to think is just as important as teaching anything else

Lecturer in Critical Thinking, The University of Queensland

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

University of Queensland provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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A new paper on teaching critical thinking skills in science has pointed out, yet again, the value of giving students experiences that go beyond simple recall or learned procedures.

It is a common lamentation that students are not taught to think, but there is usually an accompanying lack of clarity about exactly what that might mean.

There is a way of understanding this idea that is conceptually easy and delivers a sharp educational focus – a way that focuses on the explicit teaching of thinking skills through an inquiry process, and allows students to effectively evaluate their thinking.

What are thinking skills?

Let’s first understand what we might mean by thinking skills. Thinking skills, or cognitive skills, are, in large part, things you do with knowledge. Things like analysing, evaluating, synthesising, inferring, conjecturing, justifying, categorising and many other terms describe your cognitive events at a particular functional level.

Analysis, for example, involves identifying the constituent elements of something and examining their relationships with each other and to the whole. One can analyse a painting, a piece of text, a set of data or a graph.

Analysis is a widely valued cognitive skill and is not unique to any discipline context. It is a general thinking skill.

Most syllabuses from primary to tertiary level are organised by content only, with little mention of such cognitive skills. Usually, even if they are mentioned, little is said about how to teach them. The hope is they will be caught, not taught.

Rigour in course design is too often understood as equating to large amounts of recall of content and specific training in algorithms or set procedures. It is far less common, but far more valuable, to have courses in which rigour is found in the demand for high-level cognitive skill formation.

This is not to say that knowledge is not important in the curriculum. Our knowledge is hard won; we should value what we have learned for how it makes our lives more productive or meaningful.

But there is nothing mutually exclusive about developing high levels of cognitive skills with content knowledge in a discipline context. It just demands attention to these skills, using the content as an opportunity to explore them.

It is knowing how to provide students with these skill-building opportunities in context that is the mark of an outstanding teacher of effective thinking.

After all, we do not expect the scientific, cultural and political leaders of tomorrow simply to know stuff. They must also know what to do with it.

Why inquiry is necessary

These skills are not something students can learn just by hearing about them. They need to be given experiences in which they are required to do them. The cognitive skills involve a learning how , not just a learning that .

This is why it’s not possible to develop effective thinkers by relying on didactic teaching methods, in which students are seen as passive recipients of the knowledge passed down by the teacher.

Just as it’s impossible to learn how to surf without getting on a board, it’s impossible to master cognitive skills unless you experience the need to use them.

Inquiry learning provides these necessary experiential opportunities.

There are many ways in which inquiry is understood educationally, and it usually describes a very broad approach characterised by a focus on active student involvement in the learning process.

Let me provide a narrower educational definition: inquiry is a process in which students are required to utilise a range of cognitive skills to formulate and solve problems.

An example of a task that requires only a narrow range of cognitive skills might be one that gets students to apply a learned procedure to construct a piece of art or experimental apparatus. The cognitive skills involved might include recall with some simple application.

If students were asked to evaluate existing examples of the above, with a view to modifying them to suit particular purposes or situations, and to explain their processes in doing so, then the skills of conjecture, analysis, evaluation, justification and communication can come into play.

The second example is more indicative of inquiry learning as a result of its demand for deeper and broader use of cognitive skills.

Let me also add another proviso, particularly to the end of developing good thinkers: to effectively learn to inquire, students must be aware of the cognitive processes they are experiencing. That is, they must be aware of their thinking - they must be metacognitive.

Talking about thinking

To think about our thinking, we must be able to talk about our thinking.

The cognitive skills describe our thought processes and hence provide a language in which we can discuss our thinking, at least in terms of learning to think well. This also provides a language in which to give students feedback on how they are going.

To stick with the example of analysis, we might say that an analysis was quite broad, but did not go deeply enough, or that it analysed some areas in depth, but did not extend to all elements.

Students can use such feedback reflectively and internalise this advice to develop their own autonomous systems of evaluation. Metacognition is therefore a necessary condition for students to improve their thinking.

Moving our educational focus from knowledge to inquiry allows for the development of effective thinking. Inquiry requires students to build strong cognitive skills that extend beyond simple recall or application of learned procedures into genuine critical thinking.

No school could teach students all the knowledge they need to survive in a rapidly evolving society. But we could teach them how to think in a way that works for the knowledge they will learn in the future.

That’s what learning for life really means.

• Critical thinking

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Why critical thinking skills are (urgently) important for students

November 16, 2020 by Amy Sparrow

This post is a guest blog by Dr. Tom Chatfield , the author of the SAGE Campus Critical Thinking online course that equips students with the intellectual skills and practical habits of critical thinking.

Tom is an author, tech philosopher and broadcaster..

Studying effectively has always required the skills that tend to be bundled together under the heading of “critical thinking”: constructing and evaluating arguments; assessing and deploying evidence; seeking reasonable explanations; learning to skewer common fallacies; seeing beyond the seductions of rhetoric; subjecting both your own and others’ ideas to sustained, rigorous interrogation.

I write books and design online courses and resources about critical thinking, and have been fascinated by the gamut of activities it spans since I was a student - as well as by its capacity to equip students with thinking tools that will stand them in good stead for life as well as study. In recent years, however, I’ve found myself spending more and more time writing and speaking not just about the kind of intellectual activities I’ve listed above - but also about the preconditions for committing to them in terms of time, attention, habit and technology.

In particular, when I teach and speak to students across colleges, schools and universities, I’m struck by the everyday ways in which they must wrestle with information overload, constant connectivity, and the sense that their thoughts do not fully belong to them; that the words they use, the ideas they share and the culture they participate in is simply too frantically networked for individual critical engagement to be meaningful. Here’s what I usually say in response…

First of all, they’re right to feel this way!

The information environments we move through in our daily lives are fundamentally communal experiences - and the critical thinking skills most likely to help us are primarily about who or what to trust, how to ask for help, and what it means to formulate the best possible questions. Misinformation, disinformation and fake news are the dark side of our digital age; but remedying them is as much about having better and more open conversations, and learning to cast a skeptical eye on others’ words, as it is about technology.

Second, they have more control than they think they do.

Our time and attention are under assault as never before; but this only makes pauses, moments of reflection and second thoughts more valuable. Amid daily routines that can too often become flattened into constant semi-distraction, the benefits of different types and textures of time - of establishing boundaries, variety, offline engagement, space for the mind to wander - have never been greater. Without the time in which to think, you will only ever get so far.

Third, critical thinking is about knowing how to think, not what to think…

In particular, it’s about resisting the impulse either to despair or seek premature refuge in certainty. Honest doubt is a difficult thing to sustain when you feel the world expects instantaneous certainty; but it is also the only approach that allows you, incrementally, to learn about what’s actually going on in the world.

I say all of these things and then, often, I ask my audience to perform a simple exercise. You can try it yourself. Simply think of an idea you disagree with strongly - and then try to come up with the strongest possible arguments in its favor. You can do it alone, or with a partner, taking turns to try to persuade one another of the merits of an idea you vehemently oppose!

Why is this worth doing? Because rigorous thinking isn’t about confirming whatever you might wish to be true. It’s about putting ideas to a genuine test; learning as much as you can from those who disagree with you; and, sometimes, changing your ideas in the face of new evidence.

I don’t expect an exercise like this to change someone’s deeply-held views; but it may help them hold these views more mindfully, and communicate them with a deeper empathy towards those who disagree. It also, for me, embodies the central importance of critical thinking in our digital age – and of the time, space and will to think twice within the maelstrom of news, views, anxieties and uncertainties surrounding us.

More than most of us, today’s students face an uncertain future; one in which they are being asked to manage their own time and attention, take responsibility for their studies, and keep their spirits up in the face of ongoing disruption.

What does it mean to seek knowledge, understanding and help effectively in such a situation; to keep asking questions that matter; to consume information discerningly, attentively, and gradually take ownership of your thoughts and studies? What does it mean to create the conditions within which serious, sustained learning and inquiry can take place? These are among the questions I hope my teaching, books and courses can help others answer for themselves.

If you’re teaching a course that requires critical thinking, the SAGE Campus Critical Thinking online course could supplement your teaching and equip students with the skills to succeed.

Sign up to our demo hub to try a full sample module of critical thinking today or find out how libraries can get institution-wide access to sage campus..

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Why Critical Thinking Skills Are Important For Students To Learn

Without even realising it, we use critical thinking skills every day. In fact, these important skills are used in everything from problem-solving and following through on goals to making informed decisions. The earlier the foundation of critical thinking is built, the sooner children can make sense of information through analysis and thinking.

It’s even been found that kids that have an early start in cultivating critical thinking skills perform better in school, are more creative, and are better at making good judgments. In this article, we’ll explore the importance of developing these skills and give you pointers on how to encourage your child to think critically.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking allows your brain to be loaded with skills that help you to make sense of the world around you. From managing work tasks to planning meals, critical thinking plays a vital role in making sensible choices throughout the day every day. These skills help us to weigh up the pros and cons of a situation, gather relevant information, and think about possible consequences. Critical thinking and executive functioning skills complement one another to enhance problem-solving skills and cognitive abilities.

Why is it Important For Students to Develop Their Critical Thinking Skills?

The importance of critical thinking for students is huge. These essential life skills help them to become smarter problem solvers and make wiser decisions. When kids learn how to think critically, they ask questions, understand things better, and figure out how to solve problems on their own. Critical thinking also encourages curiosity and helps to foster independent learning. It’s a skill that will continue to grow and develop as they get older, helping them to adapt to new situations and problems while they are at school and for the rest of their lives.

Ways to Encourage Your Child to Think Critically

Encourage curiosity.

Encourage your child’s curiosity by getting them to explore, ask questions, test their theories, think critically about results, and ask them about changes they could make or things they could do differently. This encourages deep thinking, providing room for exploration and creative analysis.

Help kids evaluate information

Developing a critical mindset is becoming one of the most important skills in our information-saturated world. Teaching your kids how to evaluate information and how to think critically while analysing the world around them will not only help them become successful but will protect them too. Get them to think about where or who the information is coming from, how it relates to what they know already and why it is or isn’t important.

Promote interests

When students are interested in something, they are usually more engaged and willing to experiment. The process of expanding their knowledge brings lots of opportunities to cultivate their critical thinking skills as well as find new hobbies and interests . Make sure you’re providing plenty of opportunities for your kids to explore the things that bring them joy or excite them.

The 5 Intellectual Standards

The Foundation for Critical Thinking has developed five ‘Intellectual Standards’, which are ways you can encourage your children to learn to think more critically.

1. Be Clear

Ask your children to BE CLEAR by asking for explanations and examples if they don’t understand something. It’s also important to let them know it’s okay to be confused and need to ask questions.

2. Be Accurate

Encourage your kids to BE ACCURATE. It’s always a good idea for them to check to see if something is true by researching the facts.

3. Be Relevant

Encourage children to BE RELEVANT by discussing other topics that relate to the discussion or problem at hand. Help them stay on track by linking related and meaningful information to the question they are trying to answer or the topic they’re learning about.

4. Be Logical

Support your child’s ability to BE LOGICAL. Help them understand how things fit together or the logic behind a situation. Don’t be afraid to question how they arrive at certain conclusions and whether their assumptions are correct.

It’s crucial to set expectations that your child should always BE FAIR. Promote empathy in their thinking processes, making sure they consider others when coming to a decision.

Is Critical Thinking a Skill a Tutor Can Help With?

Absolutely! Tutors can play a crucial role in helping your child to develop their critical thinking skills. From getting your child involved in interactive discussions to asking thought-provoking questions, there are many ways a tutor can help to nurture and encourage these skills. They can also teach your child effective strategies for solving problems independently, analysing information, and evaluating arguments. By working closely with a tutor, your child will develop sharper critical thinking abilities that will serve them well in the classroom, during exams, and beyond.

If you are interested in finding out more about private one-to-one tutoring, and how a tutor can help your child to develop their critical thinking skills, we’d love to help. Find a tutor near you to get started.

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

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

Eight Instructional Strategies for Promoting Critical Thinking

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

The new question-of-the-week is:

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

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

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

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

Current Events

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the two photos and a student response:

F - Focus on both photos and respond for three minutes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Before-Explore-Explain’

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

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

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

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

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

An Issue of Equity

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

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

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

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

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

So, what does that really look like?

Unpack and define critical thinking

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

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

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

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

Designing experiences for critical thinking

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

1.Choose Compelling Topics: Keep it relevant

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

2. Make Local Connections: Keep it real

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

3. Create Authentic Projects: Keep it rigorous

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

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

Critical Thinking & Student Engagement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

QUESTIONING

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

TALK TIME / CONTROL

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

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

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

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

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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The Importance of Critical Thinking Skills, For Students and Ourselves

Critical thinking is a vital, yet often neglected, skill. In higher education, Chris Griffiths , author of “The Creative Thinking Handbook,” noted in a TLNT blog article that critical thinking is “the ability to think clearly and independently about a subject or problem ... (and the) consideration of multiple perspectives, the checking of biases, and a detailed understanding of relevant context.” Put more simply, it means objective analysis, but we often form judgments without that all-important objective evaluation.

Employers on the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) Social Sciences Advisory Board tell us that they need people with critical thinking skills, but applicants often lack this ability. Their desire for critical thinkers is reflected in current research showing that critical thinking is one skill that cannot be taken over by artificial intelligence (AI) and that higher education must take a proactive role in preparing students with this skill.

What Skills Do Critical Thinkers Have?

According to, Dr. Norman Herr , a professor of science education, critical thinking skills can be boiled down to the following key elements:

• Identification of premises and conclusions — Break arguments down into logical statements
• Clarification of arguments — Identify ambiguity in these stated assertions
• Establishment of facts — Search for contradictions to determine if an argument or theory is complete and reasonable
• Evaluation of logic — Use inductive or deductive reasoning to decide if conclusions drawn are adequately supported
• Final evaluation — Weigh the arguments against the evidence presented

When translated to the professional world, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) identifies critical thinking as a top skill ( NACE PDF Source ). NACE said that students should be ready to demonstrate it by inclusive reasoning and judgement to make decisions and solve problems; analyzing and communicating information from multiple sources with awareness of biases that could impact outcomes; and communicating that information accurately to diverse groups of stakeholders.

As educators, we must teach our students those critical thinking skills and practice them ourselves to objectively analyze an onslaught of information. Ideas, especially plausible-sounding philosophies, should be challenged and put through rigorous credibility tests.

Red Flags for Unreliable Information

The School Library Journal lists four types of information that should raise red flags when we’re watching the news, reading social media, or at any point in our everyday lives when we’re confronted with something purported to be “fact:”

• Fake news , which refers to purported news that is demonstrably untrue.
• Misinformation , which is spread by those who don’t realize that it’s false or only partially true .
• Disinformation , which is deliberately spread by people who know that it’s not accurate and who want to spread a false message.
• Propaganda , which is information that is spread with a specific agenda. It may or may not be false, but it’s intended to get an emotional reaction.

These information types may overlap, especially with the extinction of local news sources. As of 2023, there were only 1,213 daily local newspapers left in the U.S., and they continue to disappear at a rate of two each week, according to a report from The State of Local News Project. The report also notes that there are over 200 counties with no local print, broadcast, or digital news outlets and over 1,500 with only one. This lack of access to local news is overwhelmingly found in high poverty areas, often with predominantly Black, Hispanic or Native-American populations.

This provides opportunities for biased websites to fill the gap; misinformation tracker NewsGuard said that there are almost 1,300 websites positioning themselves as local news while pushing political agendas.

Updated Tools to Support Critical Thinking

SNHU and other colleges and universities across the U.S. must use updated tools to help their students think critically about the information they consume. Currently, many institutions of higher learning fail to teach students how to identify misinformation sources.

AI acts as a cautionary example of the way in which the landscape can transform quickly and dramatically. Generative AI has the ability to converse on any topic and write in the style of anything from an essay to a news article with an air of authority. Griffiths noted that, while it mimics something written via independent thought, it’s regurgitating a mishmash of existing ideas drawn from its training data. It incorporates any biases in that data and even “hallucinates,” providing output as factual when it’s partially or entirely untrue.

Bad actors can leverage AI technology to create written, graphic and audio content that masquerades as real news. One relatively harmless example is the AI-generated photos that supposedly show Katy Perry attending the 2024 Met Gala. Although she was not there, the ruse was so convincing that it even fooled her mother. While the Perry pictures did not cause widespread harm, they show how easily bad actors can convince others of a deepfake’s authenticity. Videos can also be created or manipulated easily to create fake news stories like a supposed Tucker Carlson interview with a Pfizer official about a new FDA-approved diabetes cure. The “story” was actually an ad for an unproven dietary supplement.

As educators in institutions of higher education, we must afford learners as many opportunities as possible to hone their critical thinking skills when interacting with instructors and fellow students.

Greg Lukianoff and Johnathan Haidt, authors of "The Coddling of the American Mind,"  contend that “one of the most brilliant features of universities is that, when they are working properly, they are communities of scholars who cancel out one another’s confirmation biases .”

Without exploring opposing viewpoints, students may fall prey to confirmation bias, further cementing ideas that they already believe to be true. Being inclusive when it comes to viewpoint diversity is indispensable for avoiding these echo chambers that circumvent having one’s ideas challenged.

How to Think Critically

As we teach our students the importance of critical thinking, how do we equip them to sift through the onslaught of information they encounter every day, both personally and in their educational pursuits? And how do we do the same for ourselves?

Here are four critical thinking examples that anyone can apply when evaluating information:

Consider Vested Interest

Consider whether the person who wrote or is sharing the information has any vested interest in doing so. For example, a writer may have a degree and professional experience that gives them expertise to write an article on specific communication techniques.

Be aware that the writer’s credibility can be affected by outside interests. These include being paid to write a book with a certain viewpoint, giving paid seminars, affiliation with certain organizations or anything else that creates a financial or personal interest in promoting a specific perspective.

Examine Biases

Consider the venue in which the person is sharing the information. Newscasts and newspapers once were slanted more toward neutrality, although there was never an era when bias was completely absent. The 19th century even had its own version of clickbait in the form of yellow journalism .

Today, it’s getting more difficult for those with critical thinking skills to find unbiased sources. Use websites like AllSides , which rates major sites on their leanings.

Read Beyond Clickbait Headlines

Websites create headlines to generate traffic and ad revenue, not to support critical thinking or give accurate information. Too many people go by what the headline says without reading more deeply, even though media misrepresentation of studies is rampant.

Often, the information contained within the article is not accurately represented in the headline. Sometimes there’s even a direct contradiction, or the publication is focusing on one single study that may mean nothing because other studies have contradictory results.

Fact-Check Information

Use Snopes , Fact Check , and other fact-checking websites that examines viral memes and news stories for truthfulness. Ironically, Snopes itself has been the victim of misinformation campaigns designed to discredit its efforts to promote the importance of critical thinking.

Why is Critical Thinking so Important?

Misinformation, if not addressed, easily turns into disinformation when it’s readily shared by students, individuals and groups that may know it’s wrong. They may continue to intentionally spread it to cast doubt or stir divisiveness. Students listen to their peers, and the more critical thinking is addressed in a course, the more we prepare students not to fall into the misinformation trap.

Courtney Brown and Sherrish Holland , of the Center for the Professional Education of Teachers, argue that for educators, the challenge is now far more about how they need to inform their students to interpret and assess the information they come across and not simply how to gain access to it. The term “fake news” is used to discredit anyone trying to clarify fact from fiction. Fake news is a cover for some people when they are being deliberately deceptive.

As educators become clearer about the distinction, it can be better communicated to students.

Teaching Students to Think Critically

Anyone in a teaching position should point their students toward reliable references. For example, at SNHU, instructors can send students to databases in the Shapiro Library . For other materials, they should teach them to evaluate their integrity based on the four elements of critical thinking.

Is the premise legitimate or is it clickbait? Are the arguments in the article supported by evidence? Do the facts paint a reasonable picture, or are there contradictions? Is the article based on logic, or is it designed to draw in readers by misrepresenting its content? Is it hosted on a biased site, and do its authors have connections that could cause bias? Does it pass a fact check as a final evaluation?

Instructors can also incorporate these elements into announcements, discussion posts and feedback. For example, they can post two articles with differing viewpoints on the week’s material. For each, they can break down the publication’s possible slant, the way in which any research-based material is presented, and the author’s credentials. This demonstrates the different ways in which similar material can be presented, depending on the source and authors’ affiliations and biases.

Anyone Can Promote Critical Thinking

Even if you don’t teach, use those points in conversations to help others hone their critical thinking skills. If someone shares misinformation with you, don’t be combative. Instead, use probing statements and questions designed to spark their critical thinking.

Here are some examples:

• “That’s very interesting. Do you think the person they’re quoting might be letting his business interests color what he’s saying?”
• “I know that sometimes the media oversimplifies research. I wonder who funded that study and if that’s influencing what they’re saying.”

Of course, you need to adapt to the situation and to make what you say sound organic and conversational, but the core idea remains the same. Inspire the other person to use critical thinking skills. Give them reasons to look more deeply into the topic instead of blindly accepting information.

American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” Her sentiment is true for learners of any age, which makes it crucial for educators to maintain sharp critical thinking skills and pass them along to students to support them in their careers and in everyday life.

A degree can change your life. Choose your program  from 200+ SNHU degrees that can take you where you want to go.

Dr. Nickolas Dominello is the senior associate dean on the social sciences team at Southern New Hampshire University. He joined SNHU in 2014, served as a lead psychology faculty member, was promoted to associate dean in 2018 and then to senior associate dean in 2023. Dominello completed his doctoral training at Capella University in 2013, becoming a PhD in Psychology. He also has a Master of Arts in Education at the secondary level, and he has over 20 years of experience working as an educator.

Dr. Barbara Lesniak is the executive director of Social Sciences at Southern New Hampshire University. She started at SNHU as an adjunct in 2012, and her previous roles included associate dean of psychology and senior dean. Her experience outside of academia includes 15 years designing and delivering classroom and web-based courses in the corporate world and providing face-to-face and online counseling services. She specialized in helping online clients in acute crisis situations. Lesniak has a PsyD in Psychology and, as a lifelong learner, she earned an MFA and MS in Marketing at SNHU and is currently working on an MS in Organizational Leadership.

Dr. Tom MacCarty is an associate dean on the social sciences team and oversees the MS in Psychology program at Southern New Hampshire University. He received his PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Northcentral University. He also holds a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in School Psychology and a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling Psychology from Norwich University. MacCarty can be found on LinkedIn .

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SNHU is a nonprofit, accredited university with a mission to make high-quality education more accessible and affordable for everyone.

Founded in 1932, and online since 1995, we’ve helped countless students reach their goals with flexible, career-focused programs . Our 300-acre campus in Manchester, NH is home to over 3,000 students, and we serve over 135,000 students online. Visit our about SNHU  page to learn more about our mission, accreditations, leadership team, national recognitions and awards.

Home > Blog > Tips for Online Students > Why Is Critical Thinking Important and How to Improve It

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Why Is Critical Thinking Important and How to Improve It

Updated: July 8, 2024

Published: April 2, 2020

Why is critical thinking important? The decisions that you make affect your quality of life. And if you want to ensure that you live your best, most successful and happy life, you’re going to want to make conscious choices. That can be done with a simple thing known as critical thinking. Here’s how to improve your critical thinking skills and make decisions that you won’t regret.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the process of analyzing facts to form a judgment. Essentially, it involves thinking about thinking. Historically, it dates back to the teachings of Socrates , as documented by Plato.

Today, it is seen as a complex concept understood best by philosophers and psychologists. Modern definitions include “reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” and “deciding what’s true and what you should do.”

The Importance Of Critical Thinking

Why is critical thinking important? Good question! Here are a few undeniable reasons why it’s crucial to have these skills.

1. Critical Thinking Is Universal

Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. What does this mean? It means that no matter what path or profession you pursue, these skills will always be relevant and will always be beneficial to your success. They are not specific to any field.

2. Crucial For The Economy

Our future depends on technology, information, and innovation. Critical thinking is needed for our fast-growing economies, to solve problems as quickly and as effectively as possible.

3. Improves Language & Presentation Skills

In order to best express ourselves, we need to know how to think clearly and systematically — meaning practice critical thinking! Critical thinking also means knowing how to break down texts, and in turn, improve our ability to comprehend.

4. Promotes Creativity

By practicing critical thinking, we are allowing ourselves not only to solve problems but also to come up with new and creative ideas to do so. Critical thinking allows us to analyze these ideas and adjust them accordingly.

5. Important For Self-Reflection

Without critical thinking, how can we really live a meaningful life? We need this skill to self-reflect and justify our ways of life and opinions. Critical thinking provides us with the tools to evaluate ourselves in the way that we need to.

Photo by Marcelo Chagas from Pexels

6. the basis of science & democracy.

In order to have a democracy and to prove scientific facts, we need critical thinking in the world. Theories must be backed up with knowledge. In order for a society to effectively function, its citizens need to establish opinions about what’s right and wrong (by using critical thinking!).

Benefits Of Critical Thinking

We know that critical thinking is good for society as a whole, but what are some benefits of critical thinking on an individual level? Why is critical thinking important for us?

1. Key For Career Success

Critical thinking is crucial for many career paths. Not just for scientists, but lawyers , doctors, reporters, engineers , accountants, and analysts (among many others) all have to use critical thinking in their positions. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking is one of the most desirable skills to have in the workforce, as it helps analyze information, think outside the box, solve problems with innovative solutions, and plan systematically.

2. Better Decision Making

There’s no doubt about it — critical thinkers make the best choices. Critical thinking helps us deal with everyday problems as they come our way, and very often this thought process is even done subconsciously. It helps us think independently and trust our gut feeling.

3. Can Make You Happier!

While this often goes unnoticed, being in touch with yourself and having a deep understanding of why you think the way you think can really make you happier. Critical thinking can help you better understand yourself, and in turn, help you avoid any kind of negative or limiting beliefs, and focus more on your strengths. Being able to share your thoughts can increase your quality of life.

4. Form Well-Informed Opinions

There is no shortage of information coming at us from all angles. And that’s exactly why we need to use our critical thinking skills and decide for ourselves what to believe. Critical thinking allows us to ensure that our opinions are based on the facts, and help us sort through all that extra noise.

5. Better Citizens

One of the most inspiring critical thinking quotes is by former US president Thomas Jefferson: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” What Jefferson is stressing to us here is that critical thinkers make better citizens, as they are able to see the entire picture without getting sucked into biases and propaganda.

6. Improves Relationships

While you may be convinced that being a critical thinker is bound to cause you problems in relationships, this really couldn’t be less true! Being a critical thinker can allow you to better understand the perspective of others, and can help you become more open-minded towards different views.

7. Promotes Curiosity

Critical thinkers are constantly curious about all kinds of things in life, and tend to have a wide range of interests. Critical thinking means constantly asking questions and wanting to know more, about why, what, who, where, when, and everything else that can help them make sense of a situation or concept, never taking anything at face value.

8. Allows For Creativity

Critical thinkers are also highly creative thinkers, and see themselves as limitless when it comes to possibilities. They are constantly looking to take things further, which is crucial in the workforce.

9. Enhances Problem Solving Skills

Those with critical thinking skills tend to solve problems as part of their natural instinct. Critical thinkers are patient and committed to solving the problem, similar to Albert Einstein, one of the best critical thinking examples, who said “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Critical thinkers’ enhanced problem-solving skills makes them better at their jobs and better at solving the world’s biggest problems. Like Einstein, they have the potential to literally change the world.

10. An Activity For The Mind

Just like our muscles, in order for them to be strong, our mind also needs to be exercised and challenged. It’s safe to say that critical thinking is almost like an activity for the mind — and it needs to be practiced. Critical thinking encourages the development of many crucial skills such as logical thinking, decision making, and open-mindness.

11. Creates Independence

When we think critically, we think on our own as we trust ourselves more. Critical thinking is key to creating independence, and encouraging students to make their own decisions and form their own opinions.

12. Crucial Life Skill

Critical thinking is crucial not just for learning, but for life overall! Education isn’t just a way to prepare ourselves for life, but it’s pretty much life itself. Learning is a lifelong process that we go through each and every day.

How To Improve Your Critical Thinking

Now that you know the benefits of thinking critically, how do you actually do it?

• Define Your Question: When it comes to critical thinking, it’s important to always keep your goal in mind. Know what you’re trying to achieve, and then figure out how to best get there.
• Gather Reliable Information: Make sure that you’re using sources you can trust — biases aside. That’s how a real critical thinker operates!
• Ask The Right Questions: We all know the importance of questions, but be sure that you’re asking the right questions that are going to get you to your answer.
• Look Short & Long Term: When coming up with solutions, think about both the short- and long-term consequences. Both of them are significant in the equation.
• Explore All Sides: There is never just one simple answer, and nothing is black or white. Explore all options and think outside of the box before you come to any conclusions.

How Is Critical Thinking Developed At School?

Critical thinking is developed in nearly everything we do, but much of this essential skill is encouraged and practiced in school. Fostering a culture of inquiry is crucial, encouraging students to ask questions, analyze information, and evaluate evidence.

Teaching strategies like Socratic questioning, problem-based learning, and collaborative discussions help students think for themselves. When teachers ask questions, students can respond critically and reflect on their learning. Group discussions also expand their thinking, making them independent thinkers and effective problem solvers.

How Does Critical Thinking Apply To Your Career?

Critical thinking is a valuable asset in any career. Employers value employees who can think critically, ask insightful questions, and offer creative solutions. Demonstrating critical thinking skills can set you apart in the workplace, showing your ability to tackle complex problems and make informed decisions.

In many careers, from law and medicine to business and engineering, critical thinking is essential. Lawyers analyze cases, doctors diagnose patients, business analysts evaluate market trends, and engineers solve technical issues—all requiring strong critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, making you a better team member and leader. By analyzing and evaluating information, you can present clear, logical arguments and make persuasive presentations.

Incorporating critical thinking into your career helps you stay adaptable and innovative. It encourages continuous learning and improvement, which are crucial for professional growth and success in a rapidly changing job market.

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile from Pexels

Critical thinking is a vital skill with far-reaching benefits for personal and professional success. It involves systematic skills such as analysis, evaluation, inference, interpretation, and explanation to assess information and arguments.

By gathering relevant data, considering alternative perspectives, and using logical reasoning, critical thinking enables informed decision-making. Reflecting on and refining these processes further enhances their effectiveness.

The future of critical thinking holds significant importance as it remains essential for adapting to evolving challenges and making sound decisions in various aspects of life.

What are the benefits of developing critical thinking skills?

Critical thinking enhances decision-making, problem-solving, and the ability to evaluate information critically. It helps in making informed decisions, understanding others’ perspectives, and improving overall cognitive abilities.

How does critical thinking contribute to problem-solving abilities?

Critical thinking enables you to analyze problems thoroughly, consider multiple solutions, and choose the most effective approach. It fosters creativity and innovative thinking in finding solutions.

What role does critical thinking play in academic success?

Critical thinking is crucial in academics as it allows you to analyze texts, evaluate evidence, construct logical arguments, and understand complex concepts, leading to better academic performance.

How does critical thinking promote effective communication skills?

Critical thinking helps you articulate thoughts clearly, listen actively, and engage in meaningful discussions. It improves your ability to argue logically and understand different viewpoints.

How can critical thinking skills be applied in everyday situations?

You can use critical thinking to make better personal and professional decisions, solve everyday problems efficiently, and understand the world around you more deeply.

What role does skepticism play in critical thinking?

Skepticism encourages questioning assumptions, evaluating evidence, and distinguishing between facts and opinions. It helps in developing a more rigorous and open-minded approach to thinking.

What strategies can enhance critical thinking?

Strategies include asking probing questions, engaging in reflective thinking, practicing problem-solving, seeking diverse perspectives, and analyzing information critically and logically.

In this article

At UoPeople, our blog writers are thinkers, researchers, and experts dedicated to curating articles relevant to our mission: making higher education accessible to everyone. Read More

MSU Extension Child & Family Development

The importance of critical thinking for young children.

Kylie Rymanowicz, Michigan State University Extension - May 03, 2016

Critical thinking is essential life skill. Learn why it is so important and how you can help children learn and practice these skills.

We use critical thinking skills every day. They help us to make good decisions, understand the consequences of our actions and solve problems. These incredibly important skills are used in everything from putting together puzzles to mapping out the best route to work. It’s the process of using focus and self-control to solve problems and set and follow through on goals. It utilizes other important life skills like making connections , perspective taking and communicating . Basically, critical thinking helps us make good, sound decisions.

Critical thinking

In her book, “Mind in the Making: The seven essential life skills every child needs,” author Ellen Galinsky explains the importance of teaching children critical thinking skills. A child’s natural curiosity helps lay the foundation for critical thinking. Critical thinking requires us to take in information, analyze it and make judgements about it, and that type of active engagement requires imagination and inquisitiveness. As children take in new information, they fill up a library of sorts within their brain. They have to think about how the new information fits in with what they already know, or if it changes any information we already hold to be true.

Supporting the development of critical thinking

Michigan State University Extension has some tips on helping your child learn and practice critical thinking.

• Encourage pursuits of curiosity . The dreaded “why” phase. Help them form and test theories, experiment and try to understand how the world works. Encourage children to explore, ask questions, test their theories, think critically about results and think about changes they could make or things they could do differently.
• Learn from others. Help children think more deeply about things by instilling a love for learning and a desire to understand how things work. Seek out the answers to all of your children’s “why” questions using books, the internet, friends, family or other experts.
• Help children evaluate information. We are often given lots of information at a time, and it is important we evaluate that information to determine if it is true, important and whether or not we should believe it. Help children learn these skills by teaching them to evaluate new information. Have them think about where or who the information is coming from, how it relates to what they already know and why it is or is not important.
• Promote children’s interests. When children are deeply vested in a topic or pursuit, they are more engaged and willing to experiment. The process of expanding their knowledge brings about a lot of opportunities for critical thinking, so to encourage this action helps your child invest in their interests. Whether it is learning about trucks and vehicles or a keen interest in insects, help your child follow their passion.
• Teach problem-solving skills. When dealing with problems or conflicts, it is necessary to use critical thinking skills to understand the problem and come up with possible solutions, so teach them the steps of problem-solving and they will use critical thinking in the process of finding solutions to problems.

For more articles on child development, academic success, parenting and life skill development, please visit the MSU Extension website.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension . For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu . To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters . To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts , or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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Critical Thinking Skills Guide

Critical thinking is important. Generally speaking, critical thinking refers to the ability to understand the logical connections between ideas. When a person understands these connections, it makes it easier to construct logical arguments based on those ideas. It also becomes easier to evaluate the arguments that other people make to see if those arguments are based on sound reasoning.

Since critical thinking involves connecting important concepts and ideas, critical thinkers often find it easier to solve problems in a systematic fashion. Critical thinkers can also prioritize which ideas are most relevant to their own arguments.

From this general idea of what critical thinking involves, it should be easy to see why critical thinking would be important to students. Students who become critical thinkers are better equipped to deal with a wide range of problems that they encounter in school.

These students are better able to build new concepts upon previous ideas that they’ve learned. This is a useful skill throughout school. Advanced mathematics are built upon simpler math ideas. Science experiments require basic understanding of various substances used in the lab. Advanced argumentation is rooted in the simple ability to identify information that supports the argument’s basic premise.

Despite all the potential advantages that may come with possessing critical skills, these skills are not themselves taught directly in school. Such skills may be inadvertently taught during the course of various lessons and school work but, for the most part, critical thinking skills aren’t typically directly addressed.

There are no classes committed to teaching critical thinking skills alone, leading teachers across multiple subjects to have to find ways of integrating critical thinking into their lessons independently.

Critical Thinking by the End of High School

Entering college, students have hopefully learned several advanced critical thinking skills that will support them through their college work. Specifically, there are six critical thinking skills that will support upper high school students and college students. These skills can help students to perform better in a range of subjects.

Identification

Identification is important to critical thinking because it refers to the ability for a student to identify the existing problem and what factors impact that problem. This first critical thinking skill is what gives students the ability to see the scope of the problem and start thinking about how to solve the issue.

In a new situation, learners ask what the problem is, why it might be happening, and what the outcome is. From this initial set of questions, they come to an understanding of the problem’s scope and potential solutions.

Research of a problem cannot begin until identification has taken place. Once identification occurs, a learner can start researching that problem. How much research is necessary will depend on the scope of the problem. Mathematical problems, for instance, may rely on researching examples of the problem and reviewing more fundamental formulas.

More complex problems, such as addressing large social issues, still rely on the same process of understanding the scope of the issue and identifying what materials need to be referenced to address the problem. Research is also important when it comes to understanding claims.

Students should be able to hear a statement, question it, and verify that statement using objective evidence discovered through research. This is in contrast to the uncritical response of simply accepting the statement.

Identifying Biases

Identifying bias is one of the more difficult skills for students to grasp. Everyone has bias, including students themselves. A learner needs to be able to identify bias in the materials that they’re looking at that might impact what’s being written. Authors may write things that favor a certain point of view, which would impact how much a reader could trust the material.

On the other hand, students should also be able to examine their own biases. It’s important not to write in favor of one’s own view, which becomes increasingly important as a person progresses upward in their studies through higher education. It’s important for students to challenge their own perspectives but also to challenge the evidence that they read.

Making Inferences

The ability to make inferences is a critical skill for students to learn as they learn how to analyze data and piece together information. During the course of putting together information, it’s always important to learn how to draw conclusions based on that information.

Students need to be able to look at a body of evidence and make a determination of what that data might mean. Not all inferences will be correct, so students also need to be able to reassess their inferences as new data comes up or as existing evidence is reassessed.

Determining Relevance

To make correct inferences and formulate arguments, students need to be able to determine the relevance of the information that they receive. This is not an issue of examining bias so much as being able to identify the information that’s appropriate to solving a problem or making an argument.

This is particularly important as students get into more advanced areas of research. For instance, as students start getting asked to write papers, they need to be able to search through primary and secondary documents that can support their argument.

The more skilled that a student becomes at being able to determine the relevance of these documents, the less time students will have to spend sorting through irrelevant documents that don’t support their research.

Perhaps counterintuitively, it’s also important for people to learn how to curb their curiosity. Curiosity is important in that it drives research and exploration of a topic. However, consistent with the need to determine relevance is the need to identify where to end a line of inquiry.

Curiosity can send people exploring any number of topics during research that only burns time instead of informing a student’s research. The more skilled a student becomes at learning how to end certain paths of research the more they can focus on supporting their studies and finding evidence that will work in their research.

Teaching Critical Thinking Skills

Actually teaching critical thinking skills is something that teachers have instincts about and teach inadvertently without actually understanding how their lessons actually impact those skills. In truth, teachers should try to make critical thinking integral to their instructional design.

Almost any instructor can begin teaching critical thinking by simply modeling the behavior for their students. They can assess information, its sources, and its biases. But to get in-depth critical thinking skills, teachers also need to present broad problems and scenarios that students need to explore for themselves.

By presenting a problem or scenario that needs to be addressed and allowing students time to debate the issue, they can be guided to see the value of other arguments while learning how to construct their own arguments.

This is also a process through which students can learn how to identify information that will help them present those arguments. Teachers can also provide feedback on these arguments to help students improve their research and argumentation process in the future.

Another important part of teaching critical thinking skills includes asking questions. The questioning approach helps students to reassess their own perspectives and the evidence of others. When bringing up a topic or problem, instructors should ask some of the following:

• What do you think about this issue and why do you think that?
• Where did you get your information on this issue and why do you believe it?
• What is the implication of what you’ve learned and what conclusions can be reached?
• How do you view the problem and your information, and what other view could you take on it?

The importance in these lines of questions is to make students consider their own perspectives as well as contrary evidence. By asking these questions, students get to reevaluate what they believe and questions whether they actually should believe it. Sometimes people hold certain beliefs without truly understanding why they believe it.

By asking questions about one’s own knowledge, it becomes possible to understand one’s own knowledge base more deeply and discard information that may be inaccurate or too heavily biased.

There are also writing activities that teachers can use as well. During writing, students can be asked to write freely about any number of topics. The point of this free writing session is to let students arrive at a conclusion about what they believe about a topic. This isn’t a critical thinking phase of writing but is instead simply meant to allow student freedom to reach a conclusion about what they believe.

After the student has freely explored the topic, they move onto the critical thinking phase of their writing project. At this stage, the student begins to examine what sort of biases impacted the position they took on the topic and review their conclusions. The student determines whether their inferences were accurate.

This is essentially a reflective period in which students need to refine their writing and attack their own work to make it better while continually asking themselves whether their evidence is sound and whether their biases impacted the final work.

Critical Thinking Barriers

There are often several barriers that keep students from fully developing critical thinking skills. Ironically, one of the biggest problems to critical thinking is the existing curriculum a school is using. Particularly when curriculum is heavily standardized, it makes it difficult for teachers to find opportunities to teach critical thinking.

Too heavy of a focus on teaching standardized tests, including curriculum oriented toward making sure that students hit certain test scores, often means heavily fact based teaching that expects rote memorization. This leads to few chances to actually ask open questions in which students can question their knowledge base and critically assess a given situation.

There are, of course, other barriers to critical thinking. Sometimes, the problem lies with the fact that teachers are simply unused to teaching these skills. Partly as a result of feeling pressured to achieve highly standardized test scores, teachers often focus too much on fact teaching and rarely get into asking the sort of open ended questions that can help to cultivate critical thinking.

However, even when they have the opportunity to do so, teachers sometimes lack the training necessary to encourage critical thinking among students. Teachers may know many activities to teach students with without a concrete idea of how each contributes to the development of such skills. Teachers tend to be trained in how to pass along content rather than encouraging critical thinking.

One of the major problems that teachers face is an issue of time. Teaching content knowledge or teaching to the test involves passing along content that can help teachers teach the information that will help students pass their exams. Passing along vast quantities of information for rote memorization can be done efficiently by simply giving students lots of information to learn.

A significant amount of information can be passed along within a class when teaching an exam, but it’s much harder to teach critical thinking skills. Teaching critical thinking, on the other hand, requires instructors to set aside extensive periods of time to question and debate. Considering that teachers already struggle sometimes to fit in all of their activities, it’s difficult to ask them to accommodate large periods of time for passing along critical thinking skills.

Creatively finding solutions to this problem requires teachers finding small periods in which to fit in critical thinking discussions, perhaps through the use of smaller question and answer activities during lectures. Or, teachers can try to change the format of their classes completely to make them more hands on, engaging environments in which critical thinking is ongoing.

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The Importance of Critical Thinking for Kids: Why It Matters for Academic and Real-World Success

• September 14, 2023

It may become tiring when your students continuously ask “why?” throughout the school day, but that simple question is one of the first signs of critical thinking for kids.

American philosopher, psychologist, and educator John Dewey referred to this concept as “reflective thinking.” Dewey defined critical thinking as persistent, active, and careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge. It requires actively subjecting ideas to review and challenging what you’re told, rather than passively accepting them as truth.

With this thought process being a major part of your students’ brain and cognitive development , it’s important to help nurture it in the classroom with critical thinking activities for kids, so they have the chance to use logic and self-control to solve problems and explore their own creative points of view.

ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI) provides a collection of courses for early childhood educators seeking more guidance and training on how to promote critical thinking in the classroom. We realize that these skills will not only lead to lifelong academic achievement but they also help your students understand how to excel in the real world.

As we consider the importance of critical thinking for kids, we must first denote the foundational skills needed for critical thinking, then consider ways this thinking positively impacts problem-solving and supports academic success. We’ll also share some suggestions for fun projects that connect creativity to nurturing young minds that think critically.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: Levels of Critical Thinking

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a core part of the curricula we use to teach early childhood educators about critical thinking.  It’s also a vital tool teachers use in their day-to-day interactions with children. Bloom’s Taxonomy is laid out as a pyramid, with foundational skills at the bottom and more advanced skills higher up. The lowest phase, “Remember,” doesn’t require a great amount of critical thinking. These signify skills kids use when they memorize things like the alphabet, math facts, sight words, etc. Critical thinking starts to take off in the next steps of the pyramid

Understand – Understanding goes beyond memorization. It’s the difference between a child repeating the rote concept of “2+2 is four” or learning the days of the week versus understanding that when you add 2+2 it’s the same as multiplying those same numbers. Or a child understanding Saturday is the day after Friday and so on. Pure memorization has its place. Still, when a student understands the concept behind something, they’re able to apply what they’ve learned.

Apply – Application widens the world of knowledge and reasoning for young minds. Once they recognize the concept they’ve mastered can apply to other examples, you’ve helped them expand their learning greatly.  Math and science are where this level of critical thinking can easily be recognized, but its present in all subjects. Take sight words, for instance. Students originally memorize these words to help them read. However, once kids learn the phonics of words, they can apply that to tackle new words.

Analyze – Analysis springs your students into the next phase. Analyzing is where that incessant question of why stems because at this point they’re no longer taking things at face value. Analysis leads to students finding their own facts that stand up to inquiry, even when the facts don’t support what they thought. In the instance of your student beginning to question their belief that babies come from storks. Analyzing requires exploring, asking you questions, comparing and contrasting, research, and several other concepts to find the facts. Though they previously let their favorite fairy tales guide them, they now have to determine the best primary sources for information about babies’ birth like their teachers, parents, videos, and reading. Adults who find success in life have to use this skill set daily, and critical thinking for kids at this phase also becomes a routine.

Evaluate – Nearing the top of Bloom’s pyramid is evaluation skills, which provide the opportunity for kids to synthesize all the information they’ve learned, understood, applied, and analyzed, and to use it to support their opinions and decisions. The student has taken in all the information about babies, so now they have to remove their bias to make a choice on whether babies come from their mom or a stork. Evaluation moves beyond their beliefs that were supported without the proper elements of critical thinking.

Create – In the final phase, students use every one of those previous skills to create something new. For example, many kids in this age range create and express themselves through art. By starting with understanding and progressing to evaluating, they uncover how to apply the knowledge of how to mix primary colors (blue, red, etc.) to make other hues like purple, brown, etc. Beyond that, they can take their paints and easel to make a portrait that highlights the mixture of colors.

Why critical thinking for kids matters

Students making their way through each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy will think independently and understand concepts thoroughly. Students who know how to analyze and critique ideas are able to connect those skills to several subject matters  to make connections in various disciplines, see knowledge as useful and apply that and comprehend content on a deeper, more lasting level, according to the book “Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory.”  With that deeper understanding, your students will not always rely on you and their class time for guidance. Instead, they will seek out information and become self-directed learners in their daily lives.

At such a young age, it may seem difficult to promote critical thinking in the classroom, since it’s more of a habit that falls onto the individual student. However, early childhood educators are best suited to introduce critical thinking to little learners. In a 2018 Reboot Foundation survey, 20 percent of respondents said that critical thinking skills are best developed in early childhood, children ages 5 and younger.

At all ages, there’s an undeniable impact from providing lessons that nurture critical thinking in kids. For academic purposes, your students will be more ready to problem-solve and evaluate the lessons they learn in class. For their own benefit, forming their personal opinions based on deep critical thinking will allow them to find their own interests. When students are truly passionate about a topic or pursuit, they are more engaged and willing to experiment. The process of expanding their knowledge brings about a lot of opportunities for critical thinking. You have the chance to encourage this action and witness the benefits of the child investing in their niche interest in insects, performing arts, space, and more.

How to make critical thinking for kids fun

Critical thinking is all about sparking and responding to curiosity. There are a number of critical thinking activities for kids that have been proven helpful for early childhood educators.

Below, you’ll find a few fun ideas for your classroom:

Journal Time

Journaling may seem like a simple task but offers a daily or weekly opportunity to get your students in an imaginative mindset. You can incorporate just five minutes of instruction time each day to ask kids an open-ended question they can respond to using written words, a drawing, etc. For example, “What did you like about the experiment we did today?” or “What’s your favorite day of the week, and why?”

The kids may use words and pictures, depending on their level of writing skills, to answer the questions.

Lego-theme Party

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a student that won’t quickly say yes to a Lego party. This party is an opportunity for each student to use their imagination to create their own scene or theme based on one-word prompts. Just ask your students to create a farm, a store, the school, etc. using Legos.

The Lego creations allow them to use their imagination to create various themes, but they may have questions about what to include. You can give them helpful hints (like mentioning animals on a farm), but make sure your students are responsible for the final outcome. After everyone’s done, you can see how each student applied their critical thinking with very little guidance.

Make Your Own Menu

This food-themed critical thinking activity is sure to be a treat.

Gather artificial food items and sit them in front of the class. For this activity, ask each student to pick which foods they want for their personal menu. The students might ask how to spell the names of items or ingredients, but they’ll be fully in charge of what concoctions they create.

At the end, each student can present their menu and explain why they chose their food items. Not only will the students have a better handle on critical thinking, but they’ll also learn their classmates’ favorite foods.

These critical thinking activities for kids give your students the opportunity to question, analyze and evaluate in creative ways on topics that relate to them. Though critical thinking is a nuanced lesson, CCEI has designed courses that can help teachers inspire and guide students toward long-term academic success, such as Critical Thinking Skills in the Preschool Environment .

Click here to learn more about how to promote critical thinking in the classroom and discover our entire catalog of more than 200+ online courses that cover an array of trainings.

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The Importance of Critical Thinking Skills for Students

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Brains at Work!

If you’re moving toward the end of your high school career, you’ve likely heard a lot about college life and how different it is from high school. Classes are more intense, professors are stricter, and the curriculum is more complicated. All in all, it’s very different compared to high school.

Different doesn’t have to mean scary, though. If you’re nervous about beginning college and you’re worried about how you’ll learn in a place so different from high school, there are steps you can take to help you thrive in your college career.

If you’re wondering how to get accepted into college and how to succeed as a freshman in such a new environment, the answer is simple: harness the power of critical thinking skills for students.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking entails using reasoning and the questioning of assumptions to address problems, assess information, identify biases, and more. It's a skillset crucial for students navigating their academic journey and beyond, including how to get accepted into college . At its crux, critical thinking for students has everything to do with self-discipline and making active decisions to 'think outside the box,' allowing individuals to think beyond a concept alone in order to understand it better.

Critical thinking skills for students is a concept highly encouraged in any and every educational setting, and with good reason. Possessing strong critical thinking skills will make you a better student and, frankly, help you gain valuable life skills. Not only will you be more efficient in gathering knowledge and processing information, but you will also enhance your ability to analyse and comprehend it.

Importance of critical thinking for students

Developing critical thinking skills for students is essential for success at all academic levels, particularly in college. It introduces reflection and perspective while encouraging you to question what you’re learning! Even if you’ve seen solid facts. Asking questions, considering other perspectives, and self-reflection cultivate resilient students with endless potential for learning, retention, and personal growth.A well-developed set of critical thinking skills for students will help them excel in many areas. Here are some critical thinking examples for students:

1. Decision-making

If you’re thinking critically, you’re not making impulse decisions or snap judgments; you’re taking the time to weigh the pros and cons. You’re making informed decisions. Critical thinking skills for students can make all the difference.

2. Problem-solving

Students with critical thinking skills are more effective in problem-solving. This reflective thinking process helps you use your own experiences to ideate innovations, solutions, and decisions.

3. Communication

Strong communication skills are a vital aspect of critical thinking for students, helping with their overall critical thinking abilities. How can you learn without asking questions? Critical thinking for students is what helps them produce the questions they may not have ever thought to ask. As a critical thinker, you’ll get better at expressing your ideas concisely and logically, facilitating thoughtful discussion, and learning from your teachers and peers.

4. Analytical skills

Developing analytical skills is a key component of strong critical thinking skills for students. It goes beyond study tips on reviewing data or learning a concept. It’s about the “Who? What? Where? Why? When? How?” When you’re thinking critically, these questions will come naturally, and you’ll be an expert learner because of it.

How can students develop critical thinking skills

Although critical thinking skills for students is an important and necessary process, it isn’t necessarily difficult to develop these observational skills. All it takes is a conscious effort and a little bit of practice. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Never stop asking questions

This is the best way to learn critical thinking skills for students. As stated earlier, ask questions—even if you’re presented with facts to begin with. When you’re examining a problem or learning a concept, ask as many questions as you can. Not only will you be better acquainted with what you’re learning, but it’ll soon become second nature to follow this process in every class you take and help you improve your GPA .

2. Practice active listening

As important as asking questions is, it is equally vital to be a good listener to your peers. It is astounding how much we can learn from each other in a collaborative environment! Diverse perspectives are key to fostering critical thinking skills for students. Keep an open mind and view every discussion as an opportunity to learn.

3. Dive into your creativity

Although a college environment is vastly different from high school classrooms, one thing remains constant through all levels of education: the importance of creativity. Creativity is a guiding factor through all facets of critical thinking skills for students. It fosters collaborative discussion, innovative solutions, and thoughtful analyses.

4. Engage in debates and discussions

Participating in debates and discussions helps you articulate your thoughts clearly and consider opposing viewpoints. It challenges the critical thinking skills of students about the evidence presented, decoding arguments, and constructing logical reasoning. Look for debates and discussion opportunities in class, online forums, or extracurricular activities.

5. Look out for diverse sources of information 

In today's digital age, information is easily available from a variety of sources. Make it a habit to explore different opinions, perspectives, and sources of information. This not only broadens one's understanding of a subject but also helps in distinguishing between reliable and biased sources, honing the critical thinking skills of students.

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6. Practice problem-solving

Try engaging in challenging problems, riddles or puzzles that require critical thinking skills for students to solve. Whether it's solving mathematical equations, tackling complex scenarios in literature, or analysing data in science experiments, regular practice of problem-solving tasks sharpens your analytical skills. It enhances your ability to think critically under pressure.

Nurturing critical thinking skills helps students with the tools to navigate the complexities of academia and beyond. By learning active listening, curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving, students can create a sturdy foundation for lifelong learning. By building upon all these skills, you’ll be an expert critical thinker in no time—and you’ll be ready to conquer all that college has to offer! 

Frequently Asked Questions

What questions should i ask to be a better critical thinker, how can i sharpen critical thinking skills for students, how do i avoid bias, can i use my critical thinking skills outside of school, will critical thinking skills help students in their future careers.

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How to teach critical thinking, a vital 21st-century skill

A well-rounded education doesn’t just impart academic knowledge to students — it gives them transferable skills they can apply throughout their lives. Critical thinking is widely hailed as one such essential “ 21st-century skill ,” helping people critically assess information, make informed decisions, and come up with creative approaches to solving problems.

This means that individuals with developed critical thinking skills benefit both themselves and the wider society. Despite the widespread recognition of critical thinking’s importance for future success, there can be some ambiguity about both what it is and how to teach it . 1 Let’s take a look at each of those questions in turn.

What is critical thinking?

Throughout history, humanity has attempted to use reason to understand and interpret the world. From the philosophers of Ancient Greece to the key thinkers of the Enlightenment, people have sought to challenge their preconceived notions and draw logical conclusions from the available evidence — key elements that gave rise to today’s definition of “critical thinking.”

At its core, critical thinking is the use of reason to analyze the available evidence and reach logical conclusions. Educational scholars have defined critical thinking as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do,” 2 and “interpretation or analysis, followed by evaluation or judgment.” 3 Some have pared their definition down to simply “good” or “skillful thinking.”

At the same time, being a good critical thinker relies on certain values like open-mindedness, persistence, and intellectual humility. 4 The ideal critical thinker isn’t just skilled in analysis — they are also curious, open to other points of view, and creative in the path they take towards tackling a given problem.

Alongside teaching students how to analyze information, build arguments, and draw conclusions, educators play a key role in fostering the values conducive to critical thinking and intellectual inquiry. Students who develop both skills and values are well-placed to handle challenges both academically and in their personal lives.

Let’s examine some strategies to develop critical thinking skills and values in the classroom.

How to teach students to think critically — strategies

1. build a classroom climate that encourages open-mindedness.

Fostering a classroom culture that allows students the time and space to think independently, experiment with new ideas, and have their views challenged lays a strong foundation for developing skills and values central to critical thinking.

Whatever your subject area, encourage students to contribute their own ideas and theories when addressing common curricular questions. Promote open-mindedness by underscoring the importance of the initial “brainstorming” phase in problem-solving — this is the necessary first step towards understanding! Strive to create a classroom climate where students are comfortable thinking out loud.

Emphasize to students the importance of understanding different perspectives on issues, and that it’s okay for people to disagree. Establish guidelines for class discussions — especially when covering controversial issues — and stress that changing your mind on an issue is a sign of intellectual strength, not weakness. Model positive behaviors by being flexible in your own opinions when engaging with ideas from students.

2. Teach students to make clear and effective arguments

Training students’ argumentation skills is central to turning them into adept critical thinkers. Expose students to a wide range of arguments, guiding them to distinguish between examples of good and bad reasoning.

When guiding students to form their own arguments, emphasize the value of clarity and precision in language. In oral discussions, encourage students to order their thoughts on paper before contributing.

In the case of argumentative essays , give students plenty of opportunities to revise their work, implementing feedback from you or peers. Assist students in refining their arguments by encouraging them to challenge their own positions. 

They can do so by creating robust “steel man” counterarguments to identify potential flaws in their own reasoning. For example, if a student is passionate about animal rights and wants to argue for a ban on animal testing , encourage them to also come up with points in favor of animal testing. If they can rebut those counterarguments, their own position will be much stronger!

Additionally, knowing how to evaluate and provide evidence is essential for developing argumentation skills. Teach students how to properly cite sources , and encourage them to investigate the veracity of claims made by others — particularly when dealing with online media .

3. Encourage metacognition — guide students to think about their own and others’ thinking

Critical thinkers are self-reflective. Guide students time to think about their own learning process by utilizing metacognitive strategies, like learning journals or having reflective periods at the end of activities. Reflecting on how they came to understand a topic can help students cultivate a growth mindset and an openness to explore alternative problem-solving approaches during challenging moments.

You can also create an awareness of common errors in human thinking by teaching about them explicitly. Identify arguments based on logical fallacies and have students come up with examples from their own experience. Help students recognize the role of cognitive bias in our thinking, and design activities to help counter it.

Students who develop self-awareness regarding their own thinking are not just better at problem-solving, but also managing their emotions .

4. Assign open-ended and varied activities to practice different kinds of thinking

Critical thinkers are capable of approaching problems from a variety of angles. Train this vital habit by switching up the kinds of activities you assign to students, and try prioritizing open-ended assignments that allow for varied approaches.

A project-based learning approach can reap huge rewards. Have students identify real-world problems, conduct research, and investigate potential solutions. Following that process will give them varied intellectual challenges, while the real-world applicability of their work can motivate students to consider the potential impact their thinking can have on the world around them.

Classroom discussions and debates are fantastic activities for building critical thinking skills. As open-ended activities, they encourage student autonomy by requiring them to think for themselves.

They also expose students to a diversity of perspectives , inviting them to critically appraise these different positions in a respectful context. Class discussions are applicable across disciplines and come in many flavors — experiment with different forms like fishbowl discussions or online, asynchronous discussions to keep students engaged.

5. Use argument-mapping tools such as Kialo Edu to train students in the use of reasoning

One of the most effective methods of improving students’ critical thinking skills is to train them in argument mapping .

Argument mapping involves breaking an argument down into its constituent parts, and displaying them visually so that students can see how different points are connected. Research has shown that university students who were trained in argument mapping significantly out-performed their peers on critical thinking assessments. 5

While it’s possible — and useful — to map out arguments by hand, there are clear benefits to using digital argument maps like Kialo Edu. Students can contribute simultaneously to a Kialo discussion to collaboratively build out complex discussions as an argument map. 

Individual students can plan essays as argument maps before writing. This helps them to stay focused on the line of argument and encourages them to preempt counterarguments. Kialo discussions can even be assigned as an essay alternative when teachers want to focus on argumentation as the key learning goal. Unlike traditional essays, they defy the use of AI chatbots like ChatGPT!

Kialo discussions prompt students to use their reasoning skills to create clear, structured arguments. Moreover, students have a visual, engaging way to respond to the content of the arguments being made, promoting interpretive charity towards differing opinions. 

Best of all, Kialo Edu offers a way to track and assess your students’ progress on their critical thinking journey. Educators can assign specific tasks — like citing sources or responding to others’ claims — to evaluate specific skills. Students can also receive grades and feedback on their contributions without leaving the platform, making it easy to deliver constructive, ongoing guidance to help students develop their reasoning skills.

Improving students’ critical thinking abilities is something that motivates our work here at Kialo Edu. If you’ve used our platform and have feedback, thoughts, or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on social media or contact us directly at [email protected] .

•  Lloyd, M., & Bahr, N. (2010). Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking in Higher Education. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 4 (2), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2010.040209
•  Ennis, R. H. (2015). Critical Thinking: A Streamlined Conception. In: Davies, M., Barnett, R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
• Lang-Raad, N. D. (2023). Never Stop Asking: Teaching Students to be Better Critical Thinkers . Jossey-Bass.
•  Ellerton, Peter (2019). Teaching for thinking: Explaining pedagogical expertise in the development of the skills, values and virtues of inquiry . Dissertation, The University of Queensland. Available here .
• van Gelder, T. (2015). Using argument mapping to improve critical thinking skills. In The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education (pp. 183–192). doi:10.1057/9781137378057_12.

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