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Professional Development in Critical Thinking


Note: The Foundation for Critical Thinking now offers customized workshops and custom online courses, all tailored to your institution's needs and goals!  Read More Here


Introduction

Critical thinking is not an isolated goal unrelated to other important aims in education, business, or governance. Rather, it is a seminal goal which, when done well, simultaneously facilitates a rainbow of other ends. It is best conceived, therefore, as the hub around which all other purposes cluster. As students and professionals develop the transferable skills of critical reasoning, they can think more proficiently in any other domain of education, work, and life – administrative, scientific, social, historical, mathematical, literary, financial, and so on. Therefore, the abilities and traits engendered by a robust, comprehensive framework for critical thinking therefore enable the skills, and character that are crucial to success in everyday life. 

All of this assumes, of course, that those who teach have solid grounding in critical thinking and the instructional strategies essential to it. Our Fellows and Scholars are leading authorities on critical thinking theory and application with decades of experience, able to train you and your colleagues in the cultivation of critical thinking and, if you choose, in the capacity to teach it to others.

Professional Development Specialized for Your Department or Program

Professional Development for Faculty and Staff

Research suggests that critical thinking is not typically an intrinsic part of instruction or training at any level. Students reach high school, college, and beyond without training in critical thinking, while professionals go their entire careers with the same deficit. At the same time, faculty and trainers tend to take critical thinking for granted as an automatic by-product of their teaching; yet, without critical thinking systematically infused into instruction, learning is typically transitory and superficial. What can we do?

There are no easy answers to this problem, for students, trainees, instruction, and training will not be transformed over night. However, with well-designed long-term professional development in critical thinking, faculty and trainers can begin to teach for critical thinking.

Click to read Dr. Linda Elder's Times Higher Education article on long-term staff development.

Having conducted successful workshops at many hundreds of institutions for more than 100,000 educators and professionals, the Foundation's distinguished presenters know how to lay the necessary foundations and then build for the future through follow-up workshops. Highly practical, each workshop is designed to ensure that participants think their way through critical-thinking concepts and principles, then apply these concepts and principles to the redesign of their teaching and other work.

Click to request more information about our Professional Development and Inservice programs.





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