32nd International Conference

The Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking have together hosted critical thinking academies and conferences for more than three decades. 

During that time, we have played a key role in defining, structuring, assessing, improving and advancing the principles and best practices of fairminded critical thought in education and in society. Our annual conference provides a unique opportunity for you to improve your understanding of critical thinking, as well as your ability to more substantively foster it in the classroom and in all aspects of your work and life.

The conference begins with 4 options for preconference sessions. The rest of the conference will consist of approximately 40 sessions offered over four days. Participants will choose in advance the sessions offered during the preconference and on days one, two, and four of the main conference. On the third day of the conference participants will choose from approximately 30 concurrent sessions. (The full concurrent session program will be available at the conference. Many of the sessions will be posted online by June 2012).

All of our work, and thus all of our conference sessions, are based on this substantive conception of critical thinking. We are committed to a concept that interfaces well within the disciplines, that integrates critical with creative thinking, that applies directly to the needs of everyday and professional life.

All conference sessions are designed to converge on basic critical thinking principles and to enrich a core concept of critical thinking with practical teaching and learning strategies. 

For a fuller explanation of core critical thinking concepts, see the Thinker's Guide Library.

FOUNDATION for CRITICAL THINKING FELLOWS

Dr. Richard Paul

Dr. Linda Elder

Dr. Linda Elder is an educational psychologist and a prominent authority on critical thinking. She is President of the Foundation for Critical Thinking and Executive Director of the Center for Critical Thinking. Dr. Elder has taught psychology and critical thinking at the college level and has given presentations to more than 20,000 educators at all levels. She has coauthored four books and 20 thinker's guides on critical thinking. Her views have been canvassed in the Times Higher Education, the Christian Science Monitor, and on National Public Radio.

Dr. Gerald Nosich

Dr. Gerald Nosich is an authority on critical thinking. He has given more than 150 national and international workshops on critical thinking. He has worked with the U.S. Department of Education on a project for the National Assessment of Higher Order Thinking skills, has served as the Assistant Director of the Center for Critical Thinking, and been featured as a Noted Scholar at the University of British Columbia. He is Professor of Philosophy at Buffalo State College in New York. He is the author of two books including Learning to Thinking Things Through.

Mr. Rush Cosgrove

Mr. Rush Cosgrove is Historian for the Foundation for Critical Thinking and is engaged in research for a PhD at the University of Cambridge.  He holds Masters degrees from both the University of Oxford, New College and the University of Cambridge, Darwin College.   He has conducted research on critical thinking and the Oxford Tutorial and is currently conducting research on the Paulian Framework for critical thinking as contextualized at a major U.S. research University. He conducts workshops in critical thinking for both faculty and students, in both English and Spanish.

  Read about all the main conference presenters .

Introducing at this year's conference… The Bertrand Russell Distinguished Scholars  Critical Thinking Lecture Series This new feature of the conference will highlight the work and thinking of distinguished thinkers within subjects, fields, disciplines, or about specific topics or issues.  This year's scholars include Michael Shermer, William Robinson, and Ethan Watters. All conference participants are invited to these lectures. Dr. Michael Shermer Dr. Michael Shermer is the Publisher of  Skeptic  magazine, a monthly columnist for  Scientific American , and author of many books including  Why People Believe Weird Things . He was a college professor for 20 years, and has appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, and Larry King Live. Dr. Shermer was the co-host and co-producer of the 13-hour Family Channel television series, Exploring the Unknown.  Ethan Watters Ethan Watters is the author of  Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche  and coauthor of  Making Monsters , an indictment of the recovered memory movement. A frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Men’s Journal, Details, Wired, and PRI's This American Life, he has appeared on such national media as Good Morning America, Talk of the Nation, and CNN. His work has been featured in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. William I. Robinson William I. Robinson is professor of sociology, global studies, and Latin American studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.  He is a scholar-activist who participates in social justice movements in Latin America and the United States.  Among his seven books are A Theory of Global Capitalism (2004) and Latin America and Global Capitalism (2008).  His web page is www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson.

PRECONFERENCE
Saturday and Sunday (July 21-22, 2012)
(choose one of the following in-depth two-day sessions)

• On Teaching Within the Spirit of the Oxford Tutorial ... Richard Paul
  
  
• Fostering Multilogical Thinking within the Disciplines ... Gerald Nosich
  
  
• Practical Ideas for Improving Student Learning ... Enoch Hale
  
  
• Discovering the Layers Underneath the Layers of Critical Thinking ... Linda Elder and Rush Cosgrove
  (This is an advanced session and will be limited to approximately 15 participants)
  

DAY ONE Monday (July 23)
(choose one of the following sessions, which runs all day following the morning key-note address)

• Some Ways to Design Instruction Using Critical Thinking as the Driving Force ... Richard Paul
  
  
• For Administrators: the Foundations of Critical Thinking and How They Can Be Infused Across the Curriculum ... Linda Elder
  
  
• Practical Methods for Fostering Critical Thinking in Secondary Instruction ... Enoch Hale
  
  
• Understanding the Relationship Between Critical Thinking and Socratic Questioning ... Gerald Nosich
  
  
• The art of analyzing transcripts of interviews of higher education faculty ... Rush Cosgrove
  (This is an advanced session for returning registrants)
  

DAY TWO Tuesday morning (July 24)
(choose one of the following sessions for the morning) 

• What Can Research Really Tell Us About the Human Mind?... Linda Elder 
• Overcoming Bad Habits of Teaching and Learning ... Gerald Nosich 
• Advanced Session: Analyzing Readings Using the Element of Thought ...  Enoch Hale 
• Two Conflicting Theories of Knowledge, Learning, and Literacy: The Didactic and the Critical ... Richard Paul

DAY TWO Tuesday afternoon (July 24)
(choose one of the following sessions for the afternoon)

• Why we are all pathological thinkers and what can be done about it ... Linda Elder
  
  
• Cultivating the intellect through close reading and substantive writing ... Enoch Hale
  
  
• Teaching Students to think within the logic of a discipline ... Gerald Nosich
  
  
• The Higher and Lower Politics of Critical Thinking ... Richard Paul
  

DAY THREE Wednesday (July 25)

• Concurrent sessions - Finalized
  
  Concurrent sessions are one hour in length. Most sessions are conducted by faculty and administrators who have been working with critical thinking concepts and principles for several years — either in bringing critical thinking into the individual classroom or across the curriculum. Concurrent session program has been finalized.
  

DAY FOUR Thursday morning (July 26)
(choose one of the following sessions for the morning)

• Helping students learn to think within the key concepts in subjects and disciplines ... Gerald Nosich
  
  
• Teach so that students think through the content using intellectual traits ... Richard Paul
  
  
• Four forms of sociocentric thought and the harm they cause ... Linda Elder
  
  
• Bringing it Home: Critical Thinking at the Institutional Level ... Patty Payette and Rush Cosgrove
  
  
• Identifying Resources that Foster Critical Thinking ... Enoch Hale

FROM PAST CONFERENCES