Critical Thinking Faculty Overview: Articles on Critical Thinking

We propose that teaching critical thinking is the most important job of teachers in the political science profession. Yet political scientists rarely engage with one another about the specific assignments used to teach critical thinking. This article is the beginning of what we hope will become a dialogue on how to best teach students to think critically. We make a few recommendations for assignments that aim to make students think critically within the various political science methodologies: normative, interpretive, causal, and comparative analysis. We argue for a particular strategy in teaching critical thinking that reinforces students' abilities to recognize which kinds of arguments require which kinds of evidence. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Traditional writing assignments often fall short in addressing problems in college students' writing as too often these assignments fail to help students develop critical thinking skills and comprehension of course content. This article reports the use of a two-part (staged) writing assignment with postscript as a strategy for improving critical thinking in a lower-division political science course. We argue that through well-designed writing assignments, instructors can encourage students to reconsider concepts, critically evaluate assumptions, and undertake substantive revisions of their writing. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]