Instructor's Guide to Historical Thinking

Gain digital access to this and many other resources at the Center for Critical Thinking Community Online!


(Physical copies not available at this time.)


This guide is designed principally for instructors. It is also useful for those interested in a serious study of history. It presents history as a mode of thinking rather than a list of disconnected dates and names and places. We recommend that it be used in conjunction with the Student Guide to Historical Thinking. Both guides are based on the idea that history, like all subjects, must be understood in terms of the reasoning that is embedded in it. In other words, these guides begin with the premise that all historians ask historical questions, formulate historical purposes, begin with historical assumptions, develop historical concepts and theories, reason from historical perspectives, and think through historical implications.


This guide begins with a focus on some important theoretical understandings in history. The foundations of critical thinking are then introduced and linked with a conception of fairminded historical thinking. In the final section, we offer instructional strategies for fostering fairminded historical thinking.


See: The Student Guide to Historical Thinking

$20.00



SKU: Title - Item Detail Price Add Items
Instructors Guide to Historical Thinking




Please do not pass this message by.

CRITICAL THINKING IS AT RISK.

Here are some of the big reasons why:

  1. Many people believe that critical thinking should be free and that scholars qualified to teach critical thinking should do so for free. Accordingly, they do not think they should have to pay for critical thinking textbooks, courses, or other resources when there is "so much free material online" - despite how erroneous that material may be.
  2. There are many misguided academicians, and some outright charlatans, pushing forth and capitalizing on a pseudo-, partial, or otherwise impoverished concept of critical thinking.
  3. Little to no funding is designated for critical thinking professional development in schools, colleges, or universities, despite the lip service widely given to critical thinking (as is frequently found in mission statements).
  4. Most people, including faculty, think they already know what critical thinking is, despite how few have studied it to any significant degree, and despite how few can articulate a coherent, accurate, and sufficiently deep explanation of it.
  5. People rarely exhibit the necessary level of discipline to study and use critical thinking for reaching higher levels of self-actualization. In part, this is due to wasting intellectual and emotional energy on fruitless electronic entertainment designed to be addictive and profitable rather than educational and uplifting.
  6. On the whole, fairminded critical thinking is neither understood, fostered, nor valued in educational institutions or societies.
  7. People are increasingly able to cluster themselves with others of like mind through alluring internet platforms that enable them to validate one another's thinking - even when their reasoning is nonsensical, lopsided, prejudiced, or even dangerous.
  8. Critical thinking does not yet hold an independent place in academia. Instead, "critical thinking" is continually being "defined" and redefined according to any academic area or instructor that, claiming (frequently unsupported) expertise, steps forward to teach it.

As you see, increasingly powerful trends against the teaching, learning, and practice of critical thinking entail extraordinary challenges to our mission. To continue our work, we must now rely upon your financial support. If critical thinking matters to you, please click here to contribute what you can today.

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO CONTINUE OUR WORK.

Thank you for your support of ethical critical thinking.