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Faculty Development: Teaching Critical Thinking

Resources to support faculty in their development as community college educators, information about peer review and portfolios, resources from the library for online learning, curriculum development, outcomes assessment and much more.

7 Skills Students Need for their Future

Teaching Critical Thinking in the College Classroom

Teaching Strategies that Promote Critical Thinking

  • Ask students to summarize in writing and orally what the teacher or another student has said.
  • Ask students to elaborate on what has been said either by giving examples or using their own words.
  • Ask students to make connections between related concepts.
  • Ask students to state the most important concept of the class thus far.
  • Ask students to state the most confusing point of the class thus far.
  • Ask students to discuss any of the above with a partner for 30 seconds, and then ask them to participate in a class discussion.
  • Ask students to deliberate on real-life situations such a mock jury trials.
  • Ask students to write and/or present persuasive arguments that are data and evidence based.
  • Get students to debate content-related material.
  • Get students to keep a journal in their reactions and evaulations of what they read for class
  • Created problem-solving exercises and get students to work collaboratively.
  • Give students essays to write that ask them to interpret, synthesize, analyze and evaluate material.