The goal of critical thinking is to establish a disciplined “executive” level of thinking to our thinking, a powerful inner voice of reason, to monitor, assess, and re-constitute — in a more rational direction — our thinking, feeling, and action. Source
No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavour. Source
This is an ongoing list. If you have suggestions for activities, please contact us!
We have run this activity many times with our own family, friends, and colleagues! Now it's your turn.
Open the powerpoint in google slides and read the notes for instructions on the activity and a presentation you may choose to present to your group.
We have also included a list of questions you may use ( or not!) for the activity. Feel free to modify and make it more or less contentious depending on your group.
Powerpoint not showing up for you? Click here to access.
Moral dilemmas are thought experiments which ask you to imagine a difficult situation and decide what you think the morally correct course of action would be. There is, of course, no 'correct" answer per se, but rather the questions asks you to compare the different moral and ethical choices based on what is important to you.
For example:
The Runaway Trolley
The Deliberate Infection
The Hostage Ecologists
The Life Insurance Policy
The Expensive Treatment
For a larger list and the full scenario, please visit this blog.
Have a list of divisive issues ( i.e soccer is better than basketball) for your group and ask them to stand on one side if they agree, and another side if they disagree. Give them 5 minutes to discuss with their peers of the same category.
This is where you bait and switch to have them argue on the opposite side of their original stance.