Make it Critical
We all want our students to think deeply and critically about our course material. However, sometimes it’s hard to know what kinds of activities will encourage critical thinking.
Case and Wright (1997) argue that many activities can be made into critical thinking activities, if a few criteria are met. Below, their criteria are put into a brief rubric that can be used to determine if your course activities are truly those that pull for critical thinking or not. If not, use the rubric to adjust your activity to encourage critical thinking. (Keep in mind that not all course activities or questions need to encourage critical thinking, but that it is good for some to do so.)

The rubric assesses 4 key elements:
  • Does the task require reasoned judgment?
  • Is the challenge meaningful to students?
  • Is the task sufficiently focused?
  • During instruction, is sufficient support provided?

Elaboration on each of these questions is provided in the rubric below, and interested readers can find the full article by Case and Wright here .

Check out a PDF of the full rubric with notes and examples created by CTE faculty fellow Alison Barton on the CTE Resource Center .