Title: CRITICAL THINKING
Headings: 

Content: It was received with limited enthusiasm because  the students had trouble understanding the significance of the concept and we had limited  opportunities for modeling it. When we re-designed the curriculum in 1991, we started  "teaching for thinking." We were able to achieve this particularly through the  use of facilitated discussion in the greatly expanded seminar environment we had designed. We also taught an elective session on critical thinking from 1993 to 1996 which focused on  "teaching for thinking." As we continue to evolve the curriculum, we are  starting to "infuse" critical thinking as we teach the content. One example of  infusion is in the segment "Sensing the National Will" where students are given  an area of the world to examine, and then have to respond to a complex realistic problem  from different perspectives. Another example is called the "Oilex" where  students have to deduce the concept and components of planning by creating a plan to  respond to an oil spill. Our overall philosophy has evolved to the point that we believe that people have to  understand what thinking is and that they are responsible for their own thinking. In order  to develop thinking you have to teach about thinking, teach for thinking, and infuse  thinking skills into the content. Critical thinking must then be modeled and facilitated  throughout the educational process.