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Participate in webinar Q&A sessions with our internationally recognized Fellows and Scholars.
See below for upcoming webinars. Some are free to the general public, while others are exclusive to members of the Center for Critical Thinking Community Online. (If you are brand new, a 30-day free trial is available for this membership website.)
Typically, our webinar announcements provide optional activities for you to complete ahead of time in the Community Online. These will be relevant to the topic at hand; although the activities are not madatory, the new understandings you gain by completing them will help you to ask more refined questions at each webinar.
Please note that these sessions are recorded for later viewing by members of the Community Online, and some clips may be posted on other platforms. If you do not want your person or voice recorded, you can submit your questions via text chat.
"Thank you for your discussion this evening. It has helped me to see the beauty of the framework you have created."
"Thank you for this sharing session. It is an eye-opening session for me."
"Thank you for your amazing insights!"
" . . . always engaging . . . I look forward to learning from you in more sessions. Thank you!"
"Thank you for a wonderful webinar today. It was definitely thought provoking."
Led by Dr. Linda Elder
Thursday, June 15th, 2023
1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
(10:00 a.m. PDT)
Open to All!
What are your questions?
Together we ponder or answer them.
Thinking is driven by questions. The quality of your thinking is determined by the quality of the questions you ask. Fruitful questions, when properly addressed, lead to knowledge. Knowledge leads to important understandings. Important understandings, when actively employed by the mind, can lead to increasingly more fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful lives. In teaching and learning, the quality of our teaching can largely be captured in the questions students ask in our classes and the questions they ask when they leave our tutelage (not on how much information they have stored in short-term memory).
Despite these insights, the importance of questions in thinking is – and always has been – largely ignored in human conversations, relationships and societies. The role of questions in thinking is rarely discussed in human life (though in academia, of course, there are some few classes on how to pursue questions, and some faculty do explore the role of questions in thinking). Theory about questions is still in its infancy. While Socrates believed the most effective way to teach was through questioning, 2,400 years later, his insights seemed to be little valued. Each of us needs to improve our ability to ask productive and rewarding questions.
In our regular question-and-answer webinars, led by one of our Fellows or Scholars, we open the floor to your questions about critical thinking and its unlimited applications to human life. Join us in this forum where you can practice asking questions similar to how we want our students to practice asking them – to improve their ability to ask powerful questions in everyday life. Some questions we will be able to answer easily; those that do not lend themselves to definitive answers, we will explore with you.
Led by Dr. Linda Elder
International Authority on Critical Thinking
Thursday, May 25th, 2023
1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
(10:00 a.m. Pacific)
Duration: 60 Minutes
Most of the concepts we use in our thinking are handed down to us or influenced by societal conditioning; these ideas may be developed or given new life when emerging generations discuss and apply them. Many of these concepts lack substance, coming and going as fads do; others have the potential to bring about needed change, but are ultimately ineffective for a lack of criticality.
The important ideas that remain with us – exerting positive influence across generations – are those that give us the most power to improve human conditions, the conditions of all sentient species, and the life of the planet itself. These are ideas that stand the test of time.
In this session, the now widely-used terms inclusion, diversity, and social justice will be explored from a critical thinking viewpoint. Since these notions can be approached superficially or deeply, and since each can be used for good or misused for ill, a rich conception of them is needed if they are to help transform human societies for the better. Otherwise, they will fade away as buzzwords from a passing historical era – or, perhaps worse, they may be abused in opposition to the spirit of their most reasonable and ethical interpretations.
Because this webinar Q&A partially depends upon your questions as participants, we recommend completing as many of the following activities as you can beforehand. These require an account in the Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users. You are not required to complete the activities to join the webinar, but doing so will make the session significantly more effective for yourself and others.
1. Read pages 12 and 14 in The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools.
2. Complete the activity, “Analyze the Logic of a Concept or Idea” for one of the following terms:
a. Inclusion
b. Diversity
c. Equity
d. Social Justice
3. Return to The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools and read pages 19-26.
4. Return to your answers from assignment #2 above. See if you can improve your analysis in light of your reading on intellectual standards and virtues.
5. For the concept you focused on in number 2 above - inclusion, diversity, equity, or social justice - can you think of a time when you, or someone else, misused this concept? Was selfish or vested interest involved in misuse of the concept. For example, focusing on the concept of equity:
“Aubrey said something that Charles misconstrued as prejudiced. I could see the misunderstanding; but rather than explaining that I thought Charles was misinterpreting the situation, I sided with Charles and admonished Aubrey. I feared that by explaining what Aubrey actually meant, I might be accused of prejudice myself.”
6. What intellectual standards were not being considered or adhered to in your example from assignment #5 above?
Example: “My thinking failed to meet the standard of fairness when I admonished Aubrey as a means of protecting my social status. My thinking also failed to meet the standard of accuracy when I knowingly misrepresented Aubrey’s intentions.”
7. Sticking with the situation from assignments #5, can you think of ways in which the behavior may have worked against the concept you were hoping to advance?
Example: “I was hoping to be fair or equitable in the situation. But I ended up treating Aubrey unfairly, while taking Charles’ side inappropriately. Consequently Aubrey was offended by my false accusation and Charles was misled as to Aubrey’s intentions.”
Led by Dr. Gerald Nosich
International Authority on Critical Thinking
Wednesday, April 26th, 2023
8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
(5:00 p.m. Pacific)
Duration: 60 Minutes
There are a number of connections we must make conceptually and pragmatically to successfully advance educational curricula. Most school practices still cluster around or emerge from either a didactic conception of learning, or group-centered activities void of proper standards, both of which make the dominance of lower-order learning inevitable.
To get beyond this, students must learn to understand every subject as a mode of thinking – one that they must reason within and about using critical thinking concepts and principles. Substantial improvements can only occur by restructuring math classes so students learn to think mathematically, history classes so students learn to think historically, science classes so students learn to think scientifically, and so on. In other words, we must approach our disciplines not as bodies of content to be delivered and consumed, but as constellations of concepts to be reasoned through and internalized. By doing so, we provide a toolkit of actionable knowledge that can continue elevating our students’ thinking and learning long after they have completed our courses.
This webinar will provide some important principles and practical approaches for kindling students’ reasoning faculties, enabling them to internalize (not just memorize) significant ideas in your discipline, ultimately focusing the educational process upon learners’ engagement rather than the instructor’s “delivery” of content. There will be time at the end for questions.
Because this webinar Q&A partially depends upon your questions as participants, we recommend completing as many of the following activities as you can beforehand. These require an account in the Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users. You are not required to complete the activities to join the webinar, but doing so can be highly useful for your and others’ learning.
1. Read the article, “Distinguishing Between Inert Information, Activated Ignorance, and Activated Knowledge.”
2. Watch the video, “How to Teach Students to Seek the Logic of Things.”
3. After reading the content at the top of the page, complete the activity, “Analyze the Logic of a Profession, Subject, or Discipline” using the discipline or subject that you teach.
4. Review the transparency pack, “Content as Thinking.”
5. Read the article, “An Overview of How to Design Instruction Using Critical Thinking Concepts.”
6. Read this two-page document on teaching for depth of understanding and strategies that foster student engagement.
Led by Dr. Linda Elder
International Authority on Critical Thinking
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023
8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
(5:00 p.m. Pacific)
Duration: 60 Minutes
Egocentric thinking comes from the unfortunate fact that humans do not naturally consider the rights and needs of others, nor do we naturally appreciate others’ points of view or the limitations in our own. We become explicitly aware of our egocentric thinking only if trained to do so; we do not naturally recognize our egocentric assumptions, the egocentric way we use information, the egocentric way we interpret data, the sources of our egocentric concepts and ideas, or the implications of our egocentric thought. We rarely recognize our self-serving perspectives, and when we do, we often try to rationalize them with convoluted reasoning instead of working to correct them.
Egocentricity frequently has severe consequences for the thinker, the thinker’s social circle, and for humanity and other species at large. It results in tremendous ongoing losses of opportunity, resources, and good will, and has negative implications for one’s mental well-being. In this webinar, Dr. Elder will discuss the concept of egocentricity and how we can intervene in our irrational self-centered thinking.
Because this webinar Q&A partially depends upon your questions as participants, we recommend completing as many of the following activities as you can beforehand. These require an account in the Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users. You are not required to complete the activities to join the webinar, but doing so will help you better grasp the concept of egocentricity.
1. On pages 23 & 24 of A Glossary to Critical Thinking Terms & Concepts, read the entry for egocentricity.
2. Watch the following videos on egocentricity. (Please ignore the opening frame of each video, which in some cases will use the incorrect part number in the series.)
a. Human Egocentricity and Critical Thinking – Part 2
b. Human Egocentricity and Critical Thinking – Part 3
c. Human Egocentricity and Critical Thinking – Part 4
d. Human Egocentricity and Critical Thinking – Part 5
3. Complete the activity, “Analyze a Self-Centered Person You Know Well.”
4. Review your responses to activity #3 above. Try to think of ways in the past (especially recently) that you have exhibited, to some degree, these same behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and motivations. Briefly write out a summary of each case.
This can be a challenging exercise to complete in good faith. If you find yourself struggling, remember that the idea is not to assume you exhibit egocentric traits to the same extent as the person you reflected on in activity #3. Rather, you are looking for instances in which you exhibited these traits to some extent.
5. Reflect on activity #4 above. As you worked through it, what kinds of thoughts and feelings did you experience? Did you find yourself automatically trying to justify your egocentric thoughts and behaviors? Did you find yourself experiencing negative emotions, and did these emotions impede your ability to complete the activity or reinforce your efforts toward justifying your egocentricity?
Led by Dr. Linda Elder
Thursday, March 16th, 2023
8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
(5:00 p.m. PDT)
Exclusive to Members of The Center for Critical Thinking Community Online!
What are your questions?
Together we ponder or answer them.
Thinking is driven by questions. The quality of your thinking is determined by the quality of the questions you ask. Fruitful questions, when properly addressed, lead to knowledge. Knowledge leads to important understandings. Important understandings, when actively employed by the mind, can lead to increasingly more fulfilling, satisfying, and joyful lives. In teaching and learning, the quality of our teaching can largely be captured in the questions students ask in our classes and the questions they ask when they leave our tutelage (not on how much information they have stored in short-term memory).
Despite these insights, the importance of questions in thinking is – and always has been – largely ignored in human conversations, relationships and societies. The role of questions in thinking is rarely discussed in human life (though in academia, of course, there are some few classes on how to pursue questions, and some faculty do explore the role of questions in thinking). Theory about questions is still in its infancy. While Socrates believed the most effective way to teach was through questioning, 2,400 years later, his insights seemed to be little valued. Each of us needs to improve our ability to ask productive and rewarding questions.
In our regular (roughly monthly) question-and-answer webinars, led by one of our Fellows or Scholars, we open the floor to your questions about critical thinking and its unlimited applications to human life. Join us in this forum where you can practice asking questions similar to how we want our students to practice asking them – to improve their ability to ask powerful questions in everyday life. Some questions we will be able to answer easily; those that do not lend themselves to definitive answers, we will explore with you.
We will largely structure this Q&A webinar with the entire group together in one room, but on some occasions, we may break into smaller groups to explore a given question. We look forward to lively, convivial, and enlightening discussions based on your questions.
Led by Dr. Gerald Nosich
International Authority on Critical Thinking
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023
8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
(5:00 p.m. Pacific)
Duration: 60 Minutes
Questions with more than one arguable answer are not questions of fact or preference, but of reasoned judgment. These are questions with better and worse answers. The better answers are well-supported and well-reasoned; the worse answers are poorly-supported and/or poorly-reasoned. In reasoning through complex questions, critical thinkers seek the best answer(s) within the relevant range of possibilities. They systematically evaluate potential answers to these questions using universal intellectual standards such as clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicality, breadth, fairness and sufficiency. These questions are prominent in the human disciplines, such as history, philosophy, economics, sociology, psychology, and art, but can be found in most primary domains of thought. Here are examples within humanities:
Within the natural sciences (such as physics, biology, and chemistry) complex questions frequently emerge, including whenever natural sciences are applied to situations involving the interests of humans or other living creatures. Here are some examples:
In approaching complex questions, students (and others) often give impulsive answers because they lack the skills to reason through difficulties in these questions. In this webinar, Dr. Nosich will discuss complex questions and offer some approaches to reasoning through them using foundational tools of critical thinking (and teaching students to do the same).
Because this webinar Q&A partially depends upon your questions as participants, we recommend completing as many of the following activities as you can beforehand. These require an account in the Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users. You are not required to complete the activities to join the webinar, but doing so will make the session significantly more effective for yourself and others.
1. Read pages 8 & 9 in The Thinker’s Guide to Asking Essential Questions. Then, think of several examples of each category of question (questions of fact, of preference, and of reasoned judgement).
2. Read pages 11 & 12 in The Thinker’s Guide to Asking Essential Questions. Then, think of several examples each of simple and complex conceptual questions.
3. Read pages 5 & 6 in The Thinker’s Guide to Asking Essential Questions. Then, think of a time when you were pondering a difficult question of judgment and felt “stuck”; which of the sample questions on pages 4 & 5 of Asking Essential Questions might have helped you proceed more effectively?
4. Using a complex question of reasoned judgement, complete the activity, “Thinking Through Conflicting Ideas.” (Be sure to read the complete prompt at the top of the page first.)
Led by Dr. Linda Elder
International Authority on Critical Thinking
Wednesday, February 1st, 2023
8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
(5:00 p.m. Pacific)
Duration: 60 Minutes
It is essential that we do all we can, each of us, to make the world healthier and less endangered by human pollution (including artificial noise and light, solid garbage, industrial runoff, and greenhouse gases), wilderness encroachment with resulting habitat loss, and flagrant disregard for other species – including those on which our survival depends. A recent United Nations report warns that humans must act now if we are to avoid catastrophe.
We simply cannot afford to continue shortsightedly placing money before sustainability of the earth’s limited resources. The devastation humans have inflicted upon other sentient creatures, and upon ourselves, has been clear for many generations. But we humans are skilled at deceiving ourselves in all kinds of ways, including that our precious desires and whims are more important than the health of the earth, the health of our families, and the future of the planet. This is why critical thinking is so important – because it helps us see through our self-deception to the real facts before us.
But what can we do to help mitigate the problem? First, we need to put our support behind only those leaders and politicians committed to drastically reducing and reversing ecological destruction, and we need to hold them responsible to follow through on their promises. Second, we need to do all that is within our individual power to reduce our impact on the earth and to enrich nature. One way of doing this is to reconsider how we think of nature itself and our responsibilities toward it. When we are educated about nature, and about the relationships between humans, plants, and other animals, our values should change according to the new information we internalize. Consequently, we should then have a far better chance of dealing with the vast sustainability problems we face, having learned to value nature more highly as an asset to be protected and supported. All of this requires critical thinking.
In this webinar, Dr. Elder will discuss ways that critical thinking can improve our chances of a healthy, sustainable future on earth. Because this webinar Q&A partially depends upon your questions as participants, we recommend completing as many of the following activities as you can beforehand. These require an account in the Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users. You are not required to complete the activities to join the webinar.
1. Read pages 5, 6, 8, 9, 17, and 18 in The Thinker’s Guide to Asking Essential Questions.
2. On pages 23 & 24 of A Glossary to Critical Thinking Terms & Concepts, read the entry for egocentricity (also known as egocentrism).
3. On page 67 of A Glossary to Critical Thinking Terms & Concepts, read the entry for sociocentricity (also known as sociocentrism).
4. Read about speciescentrism on pages 72-76 in Liberating the Mind: Overcoming Sociocentric Thought and Egocentric Tendencies.
5. Consider these questions:
a. What reasons do people tend to give for flagrant disregard for the rights and needs of other sentient creatures?
b. Do any of these reasons serve as valid excuses for the behavior? Why or why not?
c. If you see any of these reasons as valid excuses for the behavior, do you believe your view would change if you were being treated in the same ways humans treat other sentient creatures when disregarding their rights and needs?
6. Considering your reading in assignments 1-3 above, write out some connections you see between egocentrism, sociocentrism, and speciescentrism. Consider whether any of these seem to emerge as byproducts of one or both of the others.
Led by Dr. Gerald Nosich
International Authority on Critical Thinking
Thursday, January 12th, 2023
8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
(5:00 p.m. Pacific)
Duration: 60 Minutes
Due to the world’s rapid changes with increasing complexity, humans at all levels of society – down to that of the individual – now face problems far more intricate and complicated than ever before. Solving these problems effectively requires self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective reasoning. It entails skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.
When you face a problem with an understanding of how to analyze, assess, and improve thinking, you are more inclined to:
• raise vital questions regarding the problem, formulating them clearly and precisely;
• gather and assess relevant data and information, using reasonable concepts to interpret them effectively;
• recognize what assumptions he or she is making and consider their soundness (or lack thereof);
• follow out the implications of various potential solutions;
• come to well-reasoned conclusions about how best to solve the problem; and
• where applicable, communicate effectively with others in articulating a reasonable solution and how to enact it.
In this webinar, Dr. Gerald Nosich will discuss how critical thinking can be used to solve problems effectively. Because this webinar Q&A partially depends upon your questions as participants, we recommend completing as many of the following activities as you can beforehand. These require an account in The Center for Critical Thinking Community Online, where a 30-day free trial is available for new users. Though you are not required to complete the activities to join the webinar, doing so will make the session more effective for yourself and others.
1. Review pages 12 and 14 in The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools.
2. Read the article, “The Elements of Reasoning and the Intellectual Standards.”
3. Using a complex problem you are now facing, complete the activity “Analyze the Logic of a Problem or Issue” and save it. (Be sure to read the content at the top of the page first.)
4. Read pages 19 and 20 in The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools.
5. Watch the following videos:
a. Intellectual Virtues by Dr. Linda Elder – Part 1
b. Intellectual Virtues by Dr. Linda Elder – Part 2
c. Intellectual Virtues by Dr. Linda Elder – Part 3
6. Return to your answers in the activity, “Analyze the Logic of a Problem or Issue.” Considering your reading and viewing on the intellectual standards (in assignments 4 and 5 above), how can your answers be improved or elaborated upon?