Teaching Critical Thinking in an Age of Alternative Facts and Fake News

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Please join us for this workshop with Karl Wirth, Associate Professor of Geology, Macalester College. Most faculty agree that critical thinking is an essential goal of an undergraduate education.  However, despite some evidence that students make modest gains in critical thinking during college, many employers report that recent graduates do not have the critical thinking skills needed for modern work. And, notwithstanding the 24/7 access to information available to us using modern technologies, a recent study found that students have a “dismaying inability to tell fake news from real.”

The goal of this workshop is to explore ways for being more explicit about what we mean by “critical thinking” and how we teach it.  Following a brief introduction to critical thinking, several different instructional activities, ranging in duration from short in-class assignments to multi-week projects, will serve as examples of ways to explicitly teach the elements and standards of thinking.  Time for individual and group reflection will provide an opportunity for brainstorming activities to promote critical thinking in your own courses.

Please register for this event.

Sponsored by the Problem-Solving Initiative of the Brown Learning Collaborative, Sheridan Center