Table of Contents for The Critical Thinking Initiative Handbooks

These texts are designed for your use.  You can easily build a course around the text's structure, but educators also select key exercises and assignments that fit their courses.  You might use the assessment with just a few exercises, many exercises without the assessment, or any other combination of chapters, assignments, and assessments.  The Critical Thinking Initiative is offers a large umbrella for the system to meet the differing needs of faculty at different grade levels, courses, disciplines, and institutions.
Student Edition






​(See first section below.)​



​

​
​

​

Section I - About This Book
This first section of the student edition challenges students' popular conceptions about what it means to think critically, focusing as it does so on why they all possess the ability to think critically ​but why they need to understand and exercise that ability if they are going to do it successfully in academia. 

​CHAPTERS
​Why should I read this book?
If critical thinking is important, then what is it?
Opinions vs. thoughts
You think all the time, but that's the problem
Smart is better than right
The thinker's mindset: judge, attorney, or jury?
Evidence-only thinking
Researching
Faculty Edition
*Faculty edition is two books in one; it contains all chapters in the student edition. 

Introduction: Welcome to the First Critical Thinking Ecosystem
Learn the research-driven foundation for the entire critical thinking ecosystem of The Critical Thinking Initiative.  This introduction explains why most critical thinking outcomes are low across the United States, and why most "solutions" fail to solve for the deep obstacles that prevent students from engaging your curriculum more deeply. 

CHAPTERS
​A critical thinking system for any discipline
Teaching critical thinking is rare ... and essential
​Understanding the five fractures in CT education
​Format for assignments in this text
Teaching Student Section I
  • Research overview on the importance of metacognition in learning (improved confidence, persistence, self-regulation, etc.), and how the entire system is a tacit exploration of helping students thinking about how they think  
  • Group exercises on defining critical thinking and troubleshooting conceptions of critical thinking (i.e., metacognition)
  • Reflective wring-to-learn (WTL) assignments on experiences with academic critical thinking, including comparisons between academic thinking and nonacademic thinking
  • Writing assignments and group exercises on understanding critical thinking relative to the specific class and/or discipline
  • Essay assignment on the distinction between opinions and thoughts, and the unfortunate prevalence of the former
  • "Meta-log" journal of critical thinking experiences
  • Essay assignment on reconceptualizing something they once believed to be "true"
Section II - Critical Thinking: Definition & Process
​Defining critical thinking
Walking through how you already think
Why thinking is A.L.I.V.E.
The umbrella problem
Here's how you put this cycle to work
Teaching Student Section II
  • Research overview explaining the evidence behind the framework in The Critical Thinking Initiative, including why it roots critical thinking in the deep structure that runs common in other definitions of thinking, and even in the very nature of how we function on the neuro-linguistic level.
  • Exercises to help students identify common key elements of their natural thinking processes and functionalize those elements in academia
  • Exercises to move students through simple to complex critical thinking issues, demonstrating that its the thinker, not the subject, who brings complexity to the discussion​
  • Step-by-step means of working with students through each step of the framework and easily deepen their thinking about any subject
Section III - Putting the Critical Thinking Cycle to Work
​The language of critical thinking
The critical thinking paragraph
The three-paragraph paper
The five-paragraph paper
The seven-paragraph paper
Teaching Student Section III
  • ​Research overview on the how authentic, critical thinking assessment can serve as an asset to improving students' intrinsic motivation, engagement, and persistence
  • Step-by-step means to help students build sound critical thinking by first employing the framework in as little as one paragraph, then expanding it to a short essay, then eventually an unstructured paper
Section IV - The Critical Thinking TARGET
​The Target critical thinking infographic
​Grading thinking: isolate vs. ongoing vs. mastery
Why ​Target categories overlap
The back: organization, style, correctness, and formatting
Now you know how to grade your paper!
Teaching Student Section IV
  • ​Research on the value of peer assessment, and why involving students in authentic critical thinking assessment of their own work improves learning outcomes, rigor, and student satisfaction
  • Exercises for helping students learn how to use the framework as assessment, which enables them to self-correct their thinking/writing process
  • Ways to establish stronger dialogue with students around a common language and standards for critical thinking, thus de-mystifying your expectations for assignments and assessments
Section V - Sample Papers F through A
​The "F"
The "D"
The "C"
The "B"
The "A"
Teaching Student Section V
  • How to work with each sample essay from the "F" through the "A" in order to help students see the difference in critical thinking aptitudes