1.1 Educator’s notes
Learning Objectives
After completing Critical thinking, Critical analysis, Critical evaluation, and Logical fallacies, learners should be able to:
- Describe the concepts of critical thinking, analytical thinking, critical evaluation, and flawed arguments and discuss their relevance in everyday life, learning, and the workplace.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how these concepts are relevant to their own academic or professional discipline.
- Apply reflective practices to assess personal critical thinking skills and demonstrate an awareness of how they might use these skills in their field.
- Explain the use of the CRAAP model and apply the criteria to assess the reliability of a source.
- Demonstrate an understanding of fake news and how to distinguish it from credible information.
- Explain how critical thinking skills contribute to effective problem solving and decision-making.
- Explain the role of analytical thinking and evaluation in assessing information and making informed judgements.
- Define the concept of logical fallacies, and name six fallacies and describe their characteristics.
- Demonstrate knowledge of strategies and language that can be used to challenge and respond to logical fallacies in various contexts.
Using this content
There is no prescriptive method of how to use this content in your teaching. How you include it in your delivery will depend on many factors, including your classroom environment and how much prior knowledge your students have of reflective practice.
Things you can do with this content:
- Use the questions in the Reflect boxes to guide discussions on critical thinking.
- Create tailored lessons teaching critical thinking, critical analysis, critical evaluation, and logical fallacies by selecting relevant information and activities and combining it on your own platform.
- Use the analysis and evaluation examples in the chapter as models to scaffold your students’ work by looking at them together in class or asking students to review them outside of class.
- Include a link to this chapter as a support resource for students doing assessment tasks which require critical analysis and/or evaluation skills.
- Enhance your students’ understanding of critical thinking within their specific field by using the examples, case studies, and scenarios as supplementary material.
- Use the industry-focused examples and scenarios to inform and motivate students who might not fully appreciate that critical thinking skills are crucial capabilities, not just something they do for assessment.
For more ideas, check out the general suggestions in the Educator’s guide in the Front Matter.
Integration, accessibility, and inclusion
Please read the sections on integration and accessibility in the Educator’s guide. This is where you will find information on the practicalities and best practices of taking, adapting, and using this open educational content, such as importing it into your LMS, downloading .h5p files, attributing and adding the correct licensing information, and ensuring the content is accessible and inclusive.
Resources
The content in this chapter was developed through the adaptation of selected Open Educational Resources (OERs) and the creation of original content.
In cases where content is not an OER or licensing is unclear, the original source has been linked and/or clearly sourced. This is the case for the embedded YouTube videos.
Pages that do not list OER attributions contain only original content unless otherwise referenced.
This resource list also includes academic sources which helped inform the adapted OERs or original content.
Critical thinking
A Miniguide to Critical Thinking by Dr. Joe Y.F. Lau, University of Hong Kong, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. (OER)
Critical Thinking Web, Tutorial: What is critical thinking? website maintained by Dr Joe Lau, University of Hong Kong, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. (OER)
Critical thinking: Criticality in the learning cycle by University of York, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA (OER)
Lau, J.Y.F. (2011). Introduction. In An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity, J.Y.F. Lau (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118033449.ch1, pp. 1-9 (Source)
Agoos, S. (2017) 5 Tips to Improve Your Critical Thinking [TED-ED Video]. https://youtu.be/dItUGF8GdTw (TED-Ed talks are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Wilberding, E. (2022) This tool will help improve your critical thinking [TED-Ed Video]. https://youtu.be/vNDYUlxNIAA (TED-Ed talks are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
Critical analysis
Analytical Thinking by OpenStax (original) and Kristin Conlin, licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OER)
Argument analysis, RMIT Learning Lab (Linked external resource)
Critical evaluation
How to spot fake news – infographic by International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (2020) licensed under CC BY 4.0 (OER)
Study Smart: information research and literacy skills – Evaluate your sources by QUT licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OER)
Fundamentals of Business Communication Revised (2022): 10.4 Evaluating Sources by Venecia Williams & Nia Sonja licensed under a CC BY-SA, except where otherwise noted. (OER)
Choosing valid sources, RMIT Learning Lab (Linked external resource)
Bad News, Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab (Linked external resource – game)
Logical fallacies
Introduction to College Composition (Lumen) by Lumen Learning licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OER)
Communication for Business Professionals by eCampusOntario licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OER)
5.7: Finding and Refuting Logical Fallacies by Gabriel Winer, Berkeley City College & Laney College licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 (OER)
Thou shall not commit logical fallacies, The School of Thought (Linked external resource)
Logical fallacies tutorials, RMIT Learning Lab (Linked external resource)
You can find additional Open Educational Resources on critical thinking in the Higher order thinking resource collection.
