Critical thinking is widely recognized as an essential skill for K-12 students to learn, yet not all students have equal opportunity to practice and acquire it. In this excerpt from the book Thinking Like a Lawyer: A Framework for Teaching Critical Thinking to All Students, author Colin Seale argues that there is a “critical thinking gap” that prevents students from low-income backgrounds, students from minority populations, and English language learners from having access to the high expectations and types of learning experiences that build critical thinking abilities.
Toolkit Library/
Book excerpt: how to close the critical thinking gap for all students
Making connections:
Principled Innovation asks us to work with others and recognize the limits of our own knowledge so that we can better understand and tackle the complex issues our communities face.
Visualize and build a prototype
Tool
120 minutes
By: The Learning Accelerator
Managing difficult classroom discussions
Tool
180 minutes
By: Indiana University
Peter Senge: introduction to systems thinking
Video
2 minutes
By: MIT, Peter Senge
Systems thinking: a cautionary tale
Video
3 minutes
By: Sustainability Illustrated
To navigate the dangers of the web, you need critical thinking—but you also need critical ignoring
Article
12 minutes
By: Sam Wineburg, The Conversation