We’re excited to announce the launch of a new online course! Critical Thinking: An online course is an interactive course for students, equipping them with the intellectual skills and practical habits of critical thinking.
Designed to help universities support critical skills teaching, it provides flexible content that slots easily into existing modules or can be delivered as a standalone course. So whether you’re a university lecturer, academic skills tutor, Learning and Development lead or librarian, read on to find out how we can help your students develop this essential skill.
Created in partnership with SAGE author Tom Chatfield (who wrote bestselling textbook Critical Thinking and forthcoming Super Quick Skills guide Think Critically), it has been developed alongside advisors at 15 global partner institutions to ensure it delivers robust learning. The course uses interactive features to build students’ reasoning, argument and analysis skills, improve their planning, research and writing habits, and help them develop transferrable skills such as information literacy.
From quizzes and exercises, to videos and reflective questions, we’ve worked hard to create a course that catches students’ attention – and keeps them engaged throughout every topic and module. It not only gets them thinking, it challenges their expectations that there is always a right and a wrong answer!
Watch Tom’s course introduction video
Why is critical thinking so important?
Students are bombarded by information on screen, from fake news to feeds, and have to manage increasing information overload in their research and studies. Critical thinking is one of the key skills for coping in an information age, learning to think twice about the evidence in front of you and question what’s really going on: it helps students become more discerning consumers of information, so they can differentiate between good and bad sources, learn how to construct arguments and develop sound reasoning skills. As well as helping them develop clear confident critical writing in their assignments, it develops an important graduate skill for the workplace.
How does the course develop critical thinking skills?
The course uses a blend of interactive features and specially written content for e-learning format to help students develop a range of academic skills necessary for critical analysis. It teaches them:
How to think about evidence
How to argue
How to evaluate explanations and reasoning
How to think carefully and deliberately
How to structure writing and reading
How to manage their time and attention.
Who is the course for?
Relevant for any student cohort at FE, Access to HE and Undergraduate HE level, it’s packed with global cross-disciplinary examples from science, history, the media and social affairs – so applicable to students whatever their background or area of study.
What makes this course special?
Flexible format – the course can be delivered as full modules or individual topics to fit in with different teaching needs
Easy delivery – it sits within your VLE/LMS so is available anywhere, anytime
Interactive features – quizzes, videos and reflective points put core skills into immediate practice.