The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking. Concepts and Tools – a book review

Summary. The article is devoted to the consideration of ideological transformations of worldview knowledge, directly related to the functioning of the public imagination and the formation of both group and individual identity. The comprehension of socio-cultural dynamics related to the situation of post-truth and the implementation of guidelines, strategies, techniques, practices and methodologies of critical thinking in the field of education are also considered. The aim of the article is to consider the phenomenon of post-truth in the modern information field in relation to the concept of critical thinking and their explications in the social institution of education. The main attention is paid to the philosophical understanding of these phenomena in the context of philosophical and anthropological measurement of trends in the socio-communicative sphere of human existence. Methodological principles are the philosophy of information, the development of the paradigm of transhumanism, the search for modern world theory and practice, social philosophy. The article considers the essential preconditions and consequences for the humanitarian sphere in general and education in particular the current state of affairs with insufficient philosophical articulation of the concepts of post-truth and critical thinking. Scientific novelty. The article proves the ambivalent nature of the correlation between the phenomenon of post-truth and the concept of critical thinking on the occasion of the social institution of education and the sphere of social imagination. Conclusions. Critical thinking, based solely on skepticism, has been found to function as a precondition and a meaning-destroying element of post-truth as a theoretical construct and cognitive mechanism. The threat of dehumanization of the problem field of modern humanities outside the actualization of symbolic and axiological bases of human identity, which is relevant for both scientific discourse and education, is emphasized. Emphasis is placed on the need for a humanistic reinterpretation of critical human thinking, expressed in its social activity, identity acquisition and self-actualization.

Critical thinking has received much attention among educators yet remains largely undeveloped in traditional teacher-centered classrooms. A study was conducted to: (1) obtain a sense of what secondary school teachers believe critical thinking entails; (2) compare and contrast British Columbia (BC), Canada, and Japanese secondary teachers' conceptions of critical thinking; (3) investigate the nature of BC and Japanese secondary teachers' conceptions of critical thinking with respect to gender, age, teaching experience, and subject taught; and (4) determine whether critical thinking is a significant part of BC and Japanese teaching and the curriculum at the secondary level. Over 150 teachers from BC and Japan were asked to: (1) sort through 50 potential definers denoting possible attributes of critical thinking; (2) rank the 10 most significant; and (3) answer a questionnaire about the nature of critical thinking. Quantitative data, reduced through factor analysis, yielded a 5-factor solution: Scientific Reasoning, Cognitive Strategizing, Conscientious Judgments, Relevance, and Intellectual Engagement. From a synthesis of quantitative and qualitative data from teachers surveyed as well as expert opinion, critical thinking was found to be a process in which an individual is actively engaged in analyzing, reasoning, questioning, and searching for alternatives to solve a problem or to make a decision or judgment. While over half the teachers indicated critical thinking was part of their curriculum and teaching, many were unable to articulate how to teach it effectively, and there were significant differences in their conceptions of critical thinking. (Contains 7 figures, 11 tables, and 83 references. Teacher questionnaires in English and Japanese, critical thinking definers spreadsheet, and related component matrix of 50 definers are appended.) (Author/BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' CONCEPTIONS OF CRITICAL THINKING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND JAPAN: A Comparative Study

Over the past years, fostering critical thinking abilities has become one of the priorities in education in China. So far, much research has been conducted to explore how to resort to Western critical thinking methods to cultivate critical thinking abilities among Chinese students. Meanwhile, among much research in incorporating Confucian educational thought into current English teaching in China, little research has been done to explore the possibility of rendering Confucian conception of critical thinking to this endeavor. This paper argues that Confucian conception of critical thinking possesses similar complementary components to those of the Western conception of critical thinking. Through literature review and text analysis, this paper reviews the Confucian conception of critical thinking and the socio-cultural background that impact its development. Reflection on a case study and field observation shows that Confucian “enlightening approach” works effectively in today’s effort in critical thinking cultivation in English teaching; Confucius’ description of five-phase comprehensive learning process could be materialized in English teaching to progress from lower level learning (knowledge, comprehension, application) towards higher level learning (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation); Confucian conception of critical thinking, described as “contextual critique’ by some Western scholar, could complement Western critical thinking in a positive way. The paper suggests in-depth research in constructing the theoretical framework for the Confucian conception of critical thinking, investigation of other approaches to foster critical thinking abilities besides the “enlightening approach,” and thorough studies of current empirical research on critical thinking in TEFL in China so as to see how they can be applied in materializing Confucian conception of critical thinking.

Critical thinking is considered one of the most important skills, which determines the welfare of the person and of the whole society. The importance of critical thinking is noted in the strategic documents of Europe and of Lithuania. Critical thinking is considered a key competence, which is necessary for the citizens in participation in daily life, and in the society and enables employees to make decisions and start activities; it becomes one of the essential characteristics that employers expect their future employees to have. Scientists continuously raise the question of critical thinking (Lloyd & Bahr, 2010), what specific skills of critical thinking should be developed and how to make them adjustable in practice and remain stable, if the existing instruments of assessment are sufficient (Facione, Facione, 2013; Lai, 2011). The existing variety of conceptions of critical thinking presupposes discussions about the skills, which are necessary for a critically thinking individual. The purpose of this article is to analyse the concept of critical thinking based on multidisciplinary studies of critical thinking. In the investigation of the concept of critical thinking relating to multidisciplinary researches of critical thinking in Lithuania and abroad the analysis of discourse was involved. The selected strategy of the research helps to understand the concept of critical thinking, to analyse this phenomena in the background of different disciplines. Analysis of scientific literature and theoretical meta-analysis were used in the research. The performed research showed that cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions develop in the interpretation of the concept of critical thinking. Critical thinking is identified as cognitive and reflexive process of thinking including components of cognitive skills and dispositions, which enable to identify, analyse, justify decisions and arguments, to make decisions and to present problems for consideration. When analysing the interpretations of the concept of critical thinking it is important to identify which elements of the critical thinking concept and which results of critical thinking are emphasized in different sciences or in different areas of professional activities. The research has established that the skills of critical thinking are not linked to any specific area of science; in all of them the focus is on the skills orientated towards the process of problem solution in different professional fields.

<p>In the midst of an increasingly changing world, the ability to think critically has become a crucial attribute expected of university graduates. However, the endorsement of critical thinking in higher education has been challenged by the growing cultural diversity in university classrooms. Concerns about Asian students' lack of critical thinking and the appropriateness of critical thinking instruction in international education have been raised by teaching professionals. The present dissertation sought to understand the influence of culture on the teaching and learning of critical thinking in higher education. Chapter 2 presented a study examining the instructional contexts of Hong Kong and New Zealand. It was found that similar assessment methods were employed in the university courses in both cultures, but university courses in Hong Kong placed more emphasis on knowledge development whereas those in New Zealand explicitly described critical thinking in the course objectives. Chinese international and New Zealand European postgraduate students were individually interviewed to investigate the exact influence of cultural-educational contexts in Asia and New Zealand on university students' conception and practice of critical thinking (Chapter 3). Both samples of students held similar conceptions of critical thinking, but reported differences in their socialization experiences regarding the practice of critical thinking in their respective cultures. Specifically, stronger inhibition on students' practice of critical thinking was noted in Asia than in New Zealand. In Chapter 4, two studies that investigated the differences in critical thinking skills between Asian and New Zealand European students are presented. In both studies, New Zealand European students were found to perform better than their Asian counterparts on an objective measure of critical thinking skills. The difference was explained by students English language ability but not cultural factors such as cultural differences in cognitive styles or behavioral adoption of New Zealand culture. It was suggested that observed cross-cultural difference in critical thinking skills is related more to language ability rather than cultural variables. A significantly positive relationship between critical thinking skills and academic performance was found, and the relationship was not significantly different between Asian and New Zealand European student samples (Chapter 5). The relationship was also not different as a function of students' adoption of New Zealand culture, indicating that pedagogy with an emphasis on critical thinking is similarly applicable to both Asian and New Zealand European students. Overall, the present findings indicated that culture has an important influence on students' practice of critical thinking. Although there is cross-cultural difference in critical thinking skills between Asian and Western student samples, the difference appears to be related more to language ability rather than cultural factors. The present thesis provided empirical evidence to show that culture influences the educational practice of critical thinking, but the influence of culture does not necessarily impede the application of critical thinking instruction in international classrooms. With appropriate adaptation, critical thinking instruction can be beneficial to the intellectual development of students regardless of their cultural backgrounds.</p>

<p>In the midst of an increasingly changing world, the ability to think critically has become a crucial attribute expected of university graduates. However, the endorsement of critical thinking in higher education has been challenged by the growing cultural diversity in university classrooms. Concerns about Asian students' lack of critical thinking and the appropriateness of critical thinking instruction in international education have been raised by teaching professionals. The present dissertation sought to understand the influence of culture on the teaching and learning of critical thinking in higher education. Chapter 2 presented a study examining the instructional contexts of Hong Kong and New Zealand. It was found that similar assessment methods were employed in the university courses in both cultures, but university courses in Hong Kong placed more emphasis on knowledge development whereas those in New Zealand explicitly described critical thinking in the course objectives. Chinese international and New Zealand European postgraduate students were individually interviewed to investigate the exact influence of cultural-educational contexts in Asia and New Zealand on university students' conception and practice of critical thinking (Chapter 3). Both samples of students held similar conceptions of critical thinking, but reported differences in their socialization experiences regarding the practice of critical thinking in their respective cultures. Specifically, stronger inhibition on students' practice of critical thinking was noted in Asia than in New Zealand. In Chapter 4, two studies that investigated the differences in critical thinking skills between Asian and New Zealand European students are presented. In both studies, New Zealand European students were found to perform better than their Asian counterparts on an objective measure of critical thinking skills. The difference was explained by students English language ability but not cultural factors such as cultural differences in cognitive styles or behavioral adoption of New Zealand culture. It was suggested that observed cross-cultural difference in critical thinking skills is related more to language ability rather than cultural variables. A significantly positive relationship between critical thinking skills and academic performance was found, and the relationship was not significantly different between Asian and New Zealand European student samples (Chapter 5). The relationship was also not different as a function of students' adoption of New Zealand culture, indicating that pedagogy with an emphasis on critical thinking is similarly applicable to both Asian and New Zealand European students. Overall, the present findings indicated that culture has an important influence on students' practice of critical thinking. Although there is cross-cultural difference in critical thinking skills between Asian and Western student samples, the difference appears to be related more to language ability rather than cultural factors. The present thesis provided empirical evidence to show that culture influences the educational practice of critical thinking, but the influence of culture does not necessarily impede the application of critical thinking instruction in international classrooms. With appropriate adaptation, critical thinking instruction can be beneficial to the intellectual development of students regardless of their cultural backgrounds.</p>

Critical thinking is considered a key competence, which is necessary for the citizens in participation in daily life, and in the society and enables employees to make decisions and start activities; it becomes one of the essential characteristics that employers expect their future employees to have. Scientists continuously raise the question of critical thinking (Lloyd & Bahr, 2010, Liu, Mao, Frankel, Xu, 2016 and others), what specific skills of critical thinking should be developed and how to make them adjustable in practice and remain stable, if the existing instruments of assessment are sufficient (Facione, Facione, 2013; Lai, 2011, Gudžinskienė, 2006). The existing variety of conceptions of critical thinking presupposes discussions about the skills, which are necessary for a critically thinking individual. The purpose of this presentation is to analyse the concept of critical thinking in higher education context based on multidisciplinary studies of critical thinking. In the investigation of the concept of critical thinking relating to multidisciplinary researches of critical thinking in Lithuania and abroad the analysis of discourse was involved. The selected strategy of the research helps to understand the concept of critical thinking in higher education context, to analyse this phenomenon in the background of different disciplines. Analysis of scientific literature and theoretical meta-analysis were used in the research. The performed research showed that cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions develop in the interpretation of the concept of critical thinking in higher education context. Critical thinking is identified as cognitive and reflexive process of thinking including components of cognitive skills and dispositions, which enable to identify, analyse, justify decisions and arguments, to make decisions and to present problems for consideration. When analysing the interpretations of the concept of critical thinking it is important to identify which elements of the critical thinking concept and which results of critical thinking are emphasized in different sciences or in different areas of professional activities. The research has established that the skills of critical thinking are not linked to any specific area of science; in all of them the focus is on the skills orientated towards the process of problem solution in different professional fields.

What does critical thinking mean? Examination of pre-service teachers’ cognitive structures and definitions for critical thinking

The Confucian-Western dichotomy often interprets as Eastern and Western learning. In the framework of lifelong learning, the Confucian philosophy hypothesizes learning as a lifelong progression through which learners of any age learn to become an honorable person and to lead a morally outstanding life. This research has been done to find out whether the Confucian conception of critical thinking possesses is like harmonizing mechanisms to those of the Western conception of critical thinking. This research discovers the comparison of Confucian conception of critical thinking and the Western conception of critical thinking through literature review and text analysis. Reflection on interview survey, questionnaire survey and classroom observation show that Confucian “enlightening approach” works efficiently in today’s effort in critical thinking cultivation in English teaching. The study suggests detailed research in building the theoretical framework for the Confucian conception of critical thinking, examination of other approaches to develop critical thinking abilities in addition the “enlightening approach,” and in-depth studies of present practical research on critical thinking in TEFL in Myanmar to see how they can be useful in materializing Confucian conception of critical thinking.

 Reviews RUSSELL AND CRITICAL THINKING D H Philosophy / McMaster U. Hamilton, , Canada   @. “Bertrand Russell and Critical Thinking”: a special issue of Inquiry: Critical Thinking across the Disciplines. Vol. , no.  (winter ): –. .. n  John Dewey published a book entitled How We Think in which he Idistinguished a type of thinking which he called “reflective thought”, characterized as “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends.” Dewey proposed that the education of children develop the habit of this kind of thinking, which he associated with the scientific method. His construct has become a widely recognized educational ideal, under the label “critical thinking”. An ideal “critical thinker” is characterized not only by certain skills but also by dispositions to use the skills appropriately; see for example the characterizations in Ennis and Facione. In a paper presented at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, William Hare pointed out that, although Russell does not use the term “critical thinking”, this ideal is central to Russell’s philosophy. Hare extracted from Russell’s social, political and educational writings a rich conception of critical thinking, which includes not only skills and dispositions but also attitudes. Among the skills required for what Russell called “judicial habits of thought” (PfM, p. ) are the abilities to form an opinion for oneself, to find an impartial solution, and to identify and question assumptions. Among the constitutive  John Dewey, How We Think (Boston, New York and Chicago: D. C. Heath, ), p. ; italics in original.  Robert H. Ennis, “Critical Thinking: a Streamlined Conception”, Teaching Philosophy,  (): –; Peter A. Facione, Critical Thinking: a Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction (research findings and recommendations prepared for the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association; ERIC document ED–).  William Hare, “Bertrand Russell on Critical Thinking”, Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Educ/EducHare.htm [visited  December ]. Also published in the Journal of Thought,  (): –.  Nor is Dewey’s book in Russell’s personal library in , McMaster University.  Hare, op. cit. Reviews  dispositions are the habits of impartial inquiry, of weighing evidence, of attempting to see things truly, and of living from one’s own centre (Hare, ibid.), and a readiness to act in various ways: to admit new evidence against previous beliefs, to discard hypotheses which have proved inadequate, to adapt oneself to the facts of the world (ibid.). Russell further identified a critical attitude, which includes a realization of human fallibility, open-mindedness, a refusal to think that our own desires and wishes provide a key to understanding the world, and a tentativeness which proportions one’s confidence in one’s beliefs to the evidence warranting them. In his World Congress paper, Hare argued that Russell’s conception of critical thinking anticipates many insights in the recent literature on critical thinking and avoids many objections which have been raised against recent accounts of critical thinking. In particular, Russell’s emphasis on judgment embodies the insight that critical thinking cannot be reduced to a formula which can be routinely applied. Russell urges that critical thinking must include critical thinking about our own attempts at criticism, and that it should be constructive rather than destructive. Russell is well aware of the fallibility of rationality. Further, Russell does not advocate complete suspension of judgment or complete detachment. Subsequently, Hare invited a number of Russell specialists to contribute to a special issue of the journal Inquiry devoted to Bertrand Russell and critical thinking. Besides an introduction by Hare, a caricature of Russell by Antony Hare and an abridged version of Russell’s essay “A Philosophy for Our Time” (; Papers ), the issue includes essays by Paul Hager, A. D. Irvine, Howard Woodhouse, Ian Winchester, Sheryle Bergmann Drewe and Nicholas Griffin. In “Russell’s Conception of Critical Thinking: Its Scope and Limits”, Hager points out that Russell himself did not regard the complex of skills, dispositions and attitudes identified by Hare as a comprehensive elixir for all situations. Russell’s list of ten commandments for the conduct of life includes much else. So does his...

As critical thinking has been gradually valued and applied in various fields, people begin to attach importance to the cultivation and improvement of critical thinking. In education field, many educators and experts have begun to focus their research in critical thinking’s theories. How to improve students’ ability of critical thinking has always been a concern of educators who have been trying to combine critical thinking with curriculums. Based on the concept and definition of critical thinking, this study focuses on the application of critical thinking in improving oral proficiency of English majors. To investigate the relationship between critical thinking and oral English, we designed a questionnaire with the related information and collected a total of 62 college English majors’ views and feedbacks of it. The result shows that most students have awareness of thinking and analyzing from different perspectives. They also believe that the improvement of critical thinking skills influence and promote the clarity and logic in their oral expression. In addition, this essay had interviews with some teachers who are teaching in the university in online or offline form to know how they apply critical thinking into their class. In this essay, we will explore the concept of critical thinking, examine its importance in various contexts such as oral English in education field and shed light on effective strategies for enhancing and developing the skills of thinking and speaking.

IntroductionCalls for enabling ‘critical thinking’ are ubiquitous in health professional education. However, there is little agreement in the literature or in practice as to what this term means and efforts to generate a universal definition have found limited traction. Moreover, the variability observed might suggest that multiplicity has value that the quest for universal definitions has failed to capture. In this study, we sought to map the multiple conceptions of critical thinking in circulation in health professional education to understand the relationships and tensions between them.MethodsWe used an inductive, qualitative approach to explore conceptions of critical thinking with educators from four health professions: medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work. Four participants from each profession participated in two individual in-depth semi-structured interviews, the latter of which induced reflection on a visual depiction of results generated from the first set of interviews.ResultsThree main conceptions of critical thinking were identified: biomedical, humanist, and social justice-oriented critical thinking. ‘Biomedical critical thinking’ was the dominant conception. While each conception had distinct features, the particular conceptions of critical thinking espoused by individual participants were not stable within or between interviews.DiscussionMultiple conceptions of critical thinking likely offer educators the ability to express diverse beliefs about what ‘good thinking’ means in variable contexts. The findings suggest that any single definition of critical thinking in the health professions will be inherently contentious and, we argue, should be. Such debates, when made visible to educators and trainees, can be highly productive.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s40037-018-0415-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Higher education institutions are responsible for preparing and equipping undergraduate students with the skills required by the labor market, such as critical thinking. However, academics should consider students’ pre-existing ideas before designing and implementing an instructional intervention regarding critical thinking. Drawing on the literature for conceptual change, the current study aimed to map students’ conceptualization of critical thinking and their ideas regarding the acquisition of critical thinking. In total, 243 first-year social sciences students participated in the study. To explore students’ ideas, the authors constructed an instrument with 20 scientific and non-scientific statements about critical thinking. The instrument was a two-tier questionnaire, and participants indicated their level of agreement with each statement using a 5-point Likert scale as well as their confidence in their answers. Students’ ideas were categorized into six groups depending on their endorsements for the statement and their level of confidence in their decision. Results revealed that students had insufficient conceptualization of critical thinking, and their ideas regarding how critical thinking might be acquired were not consistently aligned with those of academics. Implications for instruction are discussed considering students’ ideas on critical thinking.

Critical thinking is a rich, dynamic, complex concept that entails bringing the most appropriate and highest standards for thought to bear upon the intrinsic (and frequently flawed) reasoning that occurs in the human mind, in order to reason at the highest levels. Critical thinking, in its explicit form, requires disciplining one's own thinking, as well as understanding and evaluating others' thinking, by focusing deliberately on the components present in all human reasoning. It requires developing executive-level functioning, in which the mind examines and re-examines its own thought by reasoning about its thinking to improve its reasoning. An early 1980s quote, often repeated by Richard Paul, that captures this point in a catchy phrase is: 'thinking about your thinking while you're thinking to improve your thinking'. This entails identifying and examining any errors or problems in the components, or elements, of reasoning, and correcting flaws by employing criteria appropriate in a given context. This systematic process, daily and routinely applied, should increasingly improve one's reasoning abilities over time. This in turn should lead to progressively more insightful levels of self-awareness on the part of the reasoner and, were it to be taken seriously on a broad scale, on the species itself. Critical thinking should lead to a world in which the majority of people, through their thinking, are able to make meaningful contributions and find contentment, despite the many complexities we face. Critical thinking arises from the need to intervene in the mistaken, irrational, and self-deceptive reasoning pervasive in human societies, which requires cultivating traits of mind, as well as skills and abilities. Critical thinking entails getting underneath and examining social norms, conventions, and taboos to determine the extent to which they are logical and reasonable. It might be noted that not every critical thinking theoretician accepts or advances the importance of ethical reasoning in critical thinking. Yet critical thinking as a serious field of study would guide reasoners to embrace and develop within themselves intellectual as well as ethical virtues that gradually improve and enhance their character as fair-minded persons; this follows from the ethical obligations all people face in living a human life. Critical thought differs in logic from any other field in that it attempts to understand thought itself – what thought entails, and where it goes wrong; it attempts this, in part, by uncovering, examining, and appreciating the many ways in which skilled, committed, passionate human thought leads to a more reasonable world, as well as the many ways in which confusions, delusions, and deceptions in human thought lead to a less reasonable world. In its highest manifestations, critical thinking searches for understandings and practices that advance life on the planet. In short, critical thinking is separate from, but necessary to, every subject, discipline, profession, or arena of human life that entails reasoning; this includes virtually every domain of life, to some degree, since reasoning is naturally occurring in the mind. Critical thinking searches for patterns of intrinsic neurotic and pathological reasoning that impede our capacities for criticality, logical thought, and reasonability. Critical thinking seeks to understand human reasoning as a system of ideas intimately connected with other fundamental functions of the human mind, namely emotions and desires (the affective dimension). Because thinking coexists in relationship with feelings and the human will, critical thinking theoreticians attempt to understand the concomitant relationships among thinking, emotions, and desires, and to uncover the conceptual tools most useful in improving not only cognition, or thinking, but also emotions and desires. Critical thinking is meant to be pre-eminently practical; it seeks to establish and develop universal concepts and principles about human thought essential to advanced reasoning in any field of study. By improving reasoning, these universal principles are essential as well to improving human life. In sum, guiding conceptual principles for human reasoning, and hence human life, are explored, established, and cultivated through the field of critical thinking studies. Critical thinking advances freedom of thought, which presupposes freedom of speech. This follows precisely because freedom of speech is required if humans are to openly and unreservedly explore thought without fear of reprisal or punishment, and if they are to best explore the many various and frequently complex implications of thought. Critical thinking helps explore all domains important to living a fulfilling life, including the psychological, social, economic, ecological, zoological, historical, scientific, literary, sexual, artistic, civic, and political. And critical thinking is essential to the cultivation of the educated mind (see Education). Historically, a number of important theoreticians have contributed to a shared conception of critical thinking. These include theoreticians reaching back in time before the use of the term critical thinking, as well as those theoreticians who began articulating an explicit concept of critical thinking in the 1970s and 80s. For instance, some of the roots of contemporary critical thinking began in the early part of the twentieth century, from fields such as logical positivism, analytic philosophy, and semantics. Many of the latter theoreticians came from philosophy departments, primarily those interested in formal logic, informal logic, and argumentation. Beginning in the 1970s and moving through the 1980s and 90s, various fields of study began to contextualise and develop aspects of critical thinking at differing levels of quality. The most comprehensive and integrated approach to critical thinking was developed by Richard Paul (1937–2015) and continues with the writings and teaching of scholars working in the Paulian tradition. Paul's approach is distinguished from other critical thinking theories chiefly because it offers the most comprehensive, integrated approach to critical thinking, is it essential to reasoning through the questions and problems in academic and professional disciplines, and is based in ordinary languages. Paul argues for living the examined life, in connection with the thinking of Socrates. Paul's framework establishes first principles in critical thinking that may be derived from the theory he constructed, distilled, and developed. Notably, Paul emphasises ethical reasoning as essential to critical reasoning, the importance of deliberate self-cultivation in advancing one's own intellectual character, and the universals in reasoning applicable across all domains of thought, subjects, and disciplines.

The synthesis course is expected to engage students in critical thinking, but if critical thinking is a developmental process, what are the essential underpinnings to successful critical thinking that need to be developed prior to synthesis level course work? Borrowing heavily from other faculty groups at Mason and the AAC&U VALUE rubrics for critical and creative thinking, the Critical Thinking Faculty Learning Community created a “development of critical thinking rubric” that outlines the progression of skills across a number of criteria. This rubric includes performance descriptions for the novice (expected in entry-level courses), the milestones of emerging and showing strength (typical of a synthesis course), and expert or advanced levels (more likely to be found in capstone courses). We will share data from the university-wide effort to assess critical thinking in synthesis courses and engage participants in a discussion of how to prepare Mason students for more advanced, sophisticated forms of critical thinking as they move through the university. It seems clear that to achieve the goals outlined for synthesis courses, students need some foundation in critical thinking from their lower division courses. In what ways can the university curriculum support these critical thinking goals? Panel members will share their experiences with cultivating critical thinking in their students at all levels of the curriculum.