Critical Thinking for Young Graduates

About this course

Critical Thinking for Young Graduates: Mini-Course DescriptionBased on the Open University's "Thinking Critically" booklet, this is a structured mini-course specifically tailored for young graduates. There are extra case studies at the end.Introduction: Becoming a Critical ThinkerBegin with a real-world scenario where someone made a costly decision based on poor reasoning or unexamined information.Introduce critical thinking as defined by the Open University: actively seeking all sides of an argument, testing the soundness of claims made, and testing the soundness of evidence used to support those claims.Brief overview of Bloom's thinking triangle (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation).Ask students to reflect on a recent decision and identify one way critical thinking could have improved their approach.Lesson 1: Understanding ArgumentsPresent two contradictory headlines about the same topic that both sound convincing at first glance.Explore the four elements of an argument from the text: claims, evidence, warrants, and qualifications.Analyze a flawed argument (like the tutorial example about attendance) to identify weak reasoning.Exercise: Identify the components of a sample argument and evaluate its strength.Lesson 2: Reading CriticallyShow a cleverly edited video clip that changes context completely when the full version is shown.Introduce the three-step process for critical reading: identify the thrust of information, analyze the material, and compare/apply information.Demonstrate critical reading by evaluating a short passage, asking questions about relevance, clarity, and implications.Practice identifying bias and evaluating evidence in a news article or opinion piece.Lesson 3: Evaluating EvidenceShare a convincing "fact" that was widely accepted but later proven f