Critical thinking is the ability to assess a situation and make judgments based on those findings. Instead of accepting something at face value or relying on information provided by others, critical thinking allows students to use prior knowledge and context clues to reach their own conclusions. Professors often want to foster critical thinking in their students because it allows them to look at unfamiliar concepts and deduct information based on what they already know. This makes a new or difficult idea more approachable.
It doesn’t matter whether you are teaching fundamental coursework to freshmen or advanced concepts to graduate students, you can still foster critical thinking skills in your students. These skills can be used throughout their lives and make them more successful researchers, employees, and adults.
Here are six ways to foster critical thinking in your university courses to help your students succeed.
Warm up each class with riddles
Whether you have an 8 am class or teach students at night, it’s important to get them to wake up and focus on the material at hand. Help your students tune in by starting your class with a few riddles. These can be related to your coursework or simply allow your students to activate the problem-solving areas of their brains.
For example, what is the most expensive fish? A goldfish. What goes up, but never down? Your age. These small riddles foster participation and challenge your students to think critically about what you are asking. The goal isn’t to get every riddle right but rather to come up with fun and creative solutions to the problems.
All it takes is a few riddles to help students transition into a critical thinking frame of mind. Once they are alert and focused, you can transition to the core of the coursework.
Start a new discussion with a brainstorming session
You can foster critical thinking skills by helping students understand what they already know. This teaches them to approach new ideas with curiosity and confidence in their existing knowledge. One way to do this is through brainstorming, which encourages students to review as much information as possible about a topic before introducing a new idea.
For example, a history professor can start a discussion about the French Revolution by asking students to write down as many people, dates, and events related to the topic as they can remember. To make this digital, students could submit their answers to create a Word Cloud, highlighting the most commonly known aspects in the classroom. Students might already know about Napoleon Bonaparte or Marie Antoinette, which provides foundational points to start the lecture.
Not only can a brainstorming session promote critical thinking, but it can also help professors evaluate what students already know. This allows them to focus on new information while reviewing knowledge gaps some students might have.
Ask students to build connections
Critical thinking can help students remember the information you want to impart to them, increasing the value your course provides in the long run. One way to do this is to challenge students to build connections with other information they know.
For example, a student in an astronomy class might be more likely to remember certain concepts if they were first introduced at Space Camp when they were a kid or had a beloved family pet that was named after one of the planets, like Jupiter. These emotional connections stick to the new information.
You can foster these connections by asking students to reflect on Open-ended questions as part of their homework or end-of-class activities. Even asking students to write a few sentences can help them mentally review the material and connect it to other things they know. This process can also help you grade student participation and check attendance for the day.
Challenge students to apply what they learned through projects
Project-based learning is often a favorite choice for professors who want students to use critical thinking and apply what they learned. With this model, professors create a challenge and let students figure out how to overcome it themselves. Students should take what they recently learned and use that information to complete the assignment.
Project-based learning is why pasta bridges and egg drops are popular from elementary school through college. They provide fun opportunities for students to apply grade-appropriate physics concepts. A college calculus student might have a more advanced approach to the classic egg drop than an elementary student doing this for the first time, but the foundational elements of critical thinking remain.
Practice Socratic teaching
A Socratic seminar is a process where you ask a series of questions to break down arguments and force students to defend their ideas. This can be done in almost any college classroom and empowers students to stand behind what they know. Start by asking a question and letting a student answer. Instead of praising them for getting it right or correcting them if they are wrong, ask a follow-up question. Challenge that student to explain why or how they came up with that answer. You can keep asking more questions (potentially allowing other students to jump in) until the topic has been thoroughly discussed.
Socratic teaching allows students to step away from the traditional question-and-answer environment. Instead, it fosters open discussions and big-picture ideas that require critical thinking. These seminars can also prepare students to write better papers or defend their theses. They will have practice gathering supportive evidence to defend their ideas.
Host informal debates
Another way to encourage students to think critically is to host debates about specific class topics. You can select two students to discuss a topic and ask them to flip a coin or draw their sides randomly. The students might have to defend positions they disagree with in order to “win” the debate.
This activity challenges students to think about ideas from multiple perspectives. They might not agree with a certain belief or action, but they have to reflect on why others do. When a student approaches an unfamiliar idea in the future, they can use this experience to consider it from multiple angles, thus fostering critical thinking.
Use Poll Everywhere to bring critical thinking to your classroom
The activities discussed in this blog can be applied to the in-person, virtual, or hybrid college classroom environment. You can post riddles over Zoom and collect several answers before reading the best ones. You can host virtual debates and challenge students to share their ideas without talking over one another.
Empower your students to think critically and participate actively with Poll Everywhere. Use engaging activities like word clouds or reflection prompts to spark deeper discussions and assess prior knowledge effortlessly. With real-time responses displayed live, gathering insights is a breeze, saving you valuable time on grading. Poll Everywhere is built for higher-ed classrooms with features that drive participation and support critical thinking. Whether you’re sparking curiosity or checking comprehension, Poll Everywhere transforms passive lectures into dynamic learning experiences.
