Pedagogy Portal

Critical Thinking

Subjects Links Descriptions
What is Critical Thinking? UI Critical Thinking Handbook

This is an online textbook written by Michael O’Rourke at University of Idaho.  This handbook is intended to address this absence. In particular, it is intended to supply a single, well-developed perspective on critical thinking, one that provides clarity and rigor of thought.

Critical Thinking

The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology at Illinois State University offers this website that includes links to other sites that define critical thinking, describe critical thinking projects, and provides links to other resources.
Defining Critical Thinking

These pages, from the Critical Thinking Community provide some readings on a variety of critical thinking issues:  Defining Critical Thinking, History of Critical Thinking, Critical Societies, Questions and Answers, Quotable Quotes, and Research

Articles about Critical Thinking

This site provides links to articles about critical thinking in the following categories:  About Critical Thinking, Fundamentals of Critical Thinking, Documenting the Problem, Higher Education Strategies and Samples, K-12 Strategies and Samples, Information for Students, Interviews & Editorials, Issues in Critical Thinking, and The Questioning Mind.
Helping Students Think How to Keep Your Students Thinking

The Teaching Resource Center at University of Virginia provides some brief thoughts on how to get students to think critically in the classroom.
Critical Thinking is Not What You Think

This is an article by Daniel Willingham at University of Virginia.  In it, he reviews several theories about critical thinking skills and offers some guidelines to get students to think more critically.
Critical Thinking Project

The Critical Thinking Project at Washington State University was developed because a pilot critical thinking evaluation session conducted in the summer of 1999 on papers from three senior-level courses revealed surprisingly low critical thinking abilities (a mean of 2.3 on a 6 point scale).  This website provides their report findings, a CT rubric, faculty adaptations, instructor responses, critical thinking materials, and questions and answers.
Teaching Critical Thinking

This article, published in College Teaching, offers some lessons about critical thinking and offers some guidelines.
Helping Students Assess Their Thinking This article, from the Foundation of Critical Thinking, identifies the two essential dimensions that students need to master in order to improve their thinking.  They are that students need to be able to identify the parts of their thinking and then they need to be able to assess their use of these parts in thinking.  He also offers some guidelines for students to improve their level of thinking.
Grading Critical Thinking Guide to Rating Integrative & Critical Thinking From Washington State University, this Rubric is part of the entire Critical Thinking Project at the school.
Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric This pdf document provides a rubric for grading critical thinking activities, a rating form, and instructions for using the holistic critical thinking scoring rubric.

Return to Pedagogy Portal Homepage