48 Critical Thinking Questions For Any Content Area
Critical thinking questions include, ‘Why is this important? What are the causes and effects of this? How do we know if this is true?”
What Are Critical Thinking Questions For Any Content Area?
by TeachThought Staff
Critical thinking is the heart and soul of learning, and–in our estimation anyway–ultimately more important than any one specific content area or subject matter.
It’s also an over-used and rather nebulous phrase — how do you teach someone to think? Of course, that’s the purpose of education, but how do you effectively optimize that concept into lasting knowledge and the ability to apply it broadly?
Looking for more resources to teach critical thinking? Check out our critical thinking curricula resources on TpT.
What Is Critical Thinking?
This question is what inspires the creation of seemingly endless learning taxonomies and teaching methods: our desire to pin down a clear definition of what it means to think critically and how to introduce that skill in the classroom.
This makes critical thinking questions–well, critical. As Terry Heick explains in What Does Critical Thinking Mean?:
“To think critically about something is to claim to first circle its meaning entirely—to walk all the way around it so that you understand it in a way that’s uniquely you. The thinker works with their own thinking tools–schema. Background knowledge. Sense of identity. Meaning Making is a process as unique to that thinker as their own thumbprint. There is no template.
After circling the meaning of whatever you’re thinking critically about—navigation necessarily done with bravado and purpose—the thinker can then analyze the thing. In thinking critically, the thinker has to see its parts, its form, its function, and its context.
After this kind of survey and analysis you can come to evaluate it–bring to bear your own distinctive cognition on the thing so that you can point out flaws, underscore bias, emphasize merit—to get inside the mind of the author, designer, creator, or clockmaker and critique his work.”
A Cheat Sheet For Critical Thinking
In short, critical thinking is more than understanding something — it involves evaluation, critiquing, and a depth of knowledge that surpasses the subject itself and expands outward. It requires problem-solving, creativity, rationalization, and a refusal to accept things at face value.
It’s a willingness and ability to question everything.
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Digital Thinking by Global Digital Citizen Foundation is an excellent starting point for the ‘how’ behind teaching critical thinking by outlining which questions to ask.
It offers 48 critical thinking questions useful for any content area or even grade level with a little re-working/re-wording. Enjoy the list!
48 Critical Thinking Questions For Any Content Area
See Also: 28 Critical Thinking Question Stems & Response Cards
TeachThought is an organization dedicated to innovation in education through the growth of outstanding teachers.
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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Digital Thinking by Global Digital Citizen Foundation is an excellent starting point for the 'how' behind teaching critical thinking by outlining which questions to ask. It offers 48 critical thinking questions useful for any content area or even grade level with a little re-working/re-wording. Enjoy the list!
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15 Questions to Encourage Critical Thinking What is one of the best ways to encourage critical thinking? By asking excellent questions! We have compiled a list of 15 questions that you, as a teacher or parent, can ask to encourage kids to think outside the box. Let's dive in.
The activities in this section will help strengthen students' critical-thinking skills by developing their ability to use multisensory clues and intelligences in making inferences and drawing conclu-sions.
A critical thinker does not always take things at face value and will question ideas. Learn effective critical-thinking questions to use in class.
Asking yourself these questions is all part of the process of giving feedback, and they can all be considered examples of critical thinking. You're literally critiquing the student's work and identifying opportunities for improvement.
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Use these creative and fun critical thinking questions to help kids think critically. Includes engaging questions for upper elementary, middle & high school.
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What is Critical Thinking? While making your academic assignments or thesis, you are required to do some research and analyze various things, or for making a career decision or any other decision you are required to think of all pros and cons of that decision. Well, the most important thing that helps us to effectively take these decisions is what we call critical thinking. Critical thinking ...
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