Build Critical Thinking Skills in Any Classroom

Our students take in so much information every day. From classroom lessons to social media and real-world interactions, there are very few minutes when they aren’t encountering new information to analyze.

And with all that information comes learning how to make judgments and decisions about it, navigate misinformation, and figure out how what they hear or see fits into frameworks they already understand. 

While we can’t be with them 24/7 to help guide them through the experience each time they encounter new information, we can give them the skills to figure it out on their own: Critical thinking. Today, we’ll look at examples of critical thinking skills in action, discuss why they matter, and give you tips to incorporate lessons into the topics you’re already teaching.

• What are critical thinking skills?
• Why do students need to learn critical thinking skills?
• How to weave critical thinking into your lessons
• How do you assess critical thinking?

[What are critical thinking skills?](id-what)

Critical thinking is a cognitive skill that allows us to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information rationally and objectively to make decisions and judgments. To think critically, students need to use logic, reasoning, and creativity to draw conclusions and better understand the information they encounter.

Asking questions like “why,” “how,” and “what if” with an open mind and relying on evidence to support viewpoints and decisions are also hallmarks of critical thinking. Anyone, at any age or grade level, can learn these skills and can improve their critical thinking over time with practice.

[Why do students need to learn critical thinking skills?](id-why)

Critical thinking offers many advantages beyond doing well in school, even though it helps there, too. It can prepare students for situations they may encounter in their personal lives and future professional lives by:

• Promoting better decision-making: Critical thinking helps us weigh options, assess consequences, and make more informed choices.
• Enhancing problem-solving: These skills help identify problems, generate solutions, evaluate alternatives, and implement the best course of action to solve the issue.
• Increasing creativity and curiosity: When students look at things objectively and are open to new information, they can generate original ideas and become more innovative.
• Navigating misinformation: These skills can help students identify credible sources and avoid being misled by intentionally or unintentionally deceptive content.
• Highlighting bias awareness: When students learn to understand their own biases, question assumptions, and improve their thinking patterns, they can become more open-minded.
• Increasing career prospects: Employers often look for candidates with strong critical thinking skills that allow them to solve problems and adapt to new situations.

[How to weave critical thinking into your lessons](id-tips)

Integrating activities that build critical thinking into your classroom doesn’t have to be “one more thing” you have to check off your list. It can be embedded into your existing activities and curriculum by tweaking how you teach. Decide which area of critical thinking you want to focus on and choose a strategy that works for you and your students. 

Foster curiosity

If you want your students to focus on questioning information and becoming more open-minded, try one of these teaching strategies:

• Socratic questioning: Ask open-ended questions like “Why do you think that’s true?” or “What evidence supports that position?” to clarify thinking, uncover assumptions, and analyze concepts.
• Chain questions: Ask questions that lead to deeper thinking, like “What does this mean?” or “What do we need to assume or know to accept that conclusion?”
• Counterintuitive questions: Ask questions that challenge conventional thinking or the group opinion to help students think about situations from other perspectives.
• Text coding: Practice monitoring comprehension by having students mark important arguments, facts, agreements, or disagreements in the margins of a text. Bonus points if you use Newsela’s annotations to do it!

Build collaborative discussion

Get your students to work better together and learn from each other’s experiences and perspectives with the following techniques:

• Cooperative learning: Include group work in your lessons. Ask the groups to discuss what they need to do to complete the activity and how they’ll get there together.
• Debates: Hold in-class debates about lesson-relevant topics or issues. For example, you may have a mock trial after reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” or debate if specific actions taken during World War II were necessary.
• Claims and counterclaims: Ask students to state a claim on any topic and also challenge it. This will help them consider counterarguments and how to address them.
• “Because, But, So” sentences: Use the sentence frame “I believe… because… but… so…” and ask students to fill in the blanks with claims and counterclaims.

Nurture self-reflection

To get students thinking about their own thinking, try these self-reflection activities:

• Reflective journaling: Have students journal about their learning experiences. Offer prompts like, “What strategy did you use to solve a tough problem this week?” or “What was one moment this week where you changed your mind?”
• Self-checks: Ask students to check their work and think about it before they hand it in. Encourage them to ask questions like, “Did I use evidence to support my ideas?” and “Did I explain my thinking clearly?”
• Reflective sentence stems: Help guide reflections with sentence starters like, “One mistake I learn from was…” or “First I thought… but now I think…”
• Promote mistake culture: Make your classroom a safe place to make mistakes and ask questions. Remind students that mistakes happen on the way to success.

Make real-world connections

Critical thinking skills are essential in the real world, so teach them with relevant activities and strategies like:

• Using practical scenarios: Use texts that discuss real-world situations, make practical fictional scenarios for projects or questions, and give students the chance to practice with content and activities that are relevant to them.
• Asking “Is this real?”: Have students analyze viral content and trends by checking sources for bias, use of emotional language, or other markers of credibility.
• Conducting AI tool evaluation: Use AI tools to create content or answer questions. Then ask students to fact-check the answers against reliable sources and answer questions like “What did this tool miss, make up, or get wrong?”

Try critical thinking activities by grade band

Need an age-appropriate starter lesson? Try one of these for each grade band:

• Early Elementary (K-2): Use a sorting game with fact and opinion images or short statements. Encourage students to ask “why” or consider how they know something is true before they make a decision. Practice spotting basic cause-and-effect relationships.
• Upper Elementary (3-5): Have book talks to discuss if characters are making wise decisions. Require students to use evidence from the text and their lives to support their opinions.
• Middle school (6-8): Create a “news detective” activity where students analyze two articles on the same topic and look for bias and source credibility.
• High school (9-12): Hold debates on topics like the use of AI and require students to use evidence to address counterarguments.

[How do you assess critical thinking?](id-assess)

Assessing critical thinking is more complex than marking an answer right or wrong. Typically, you won’t assess these skills with quizzes or exams. Project-based assessments make it easier to evaluate these skills, but if you’re not able to implement a complete PBL lesson into your plans, you can try a few other strategies. 

Monitor the process, not just the final product. Check in with students while they’re working and learning, not just at the end of a lesson. Ask them to explain their thinking and conclusions while they work toward a final goal.

Rubrics can also help you grade more ambiguous concepts, like monitoring critical thinking skills. You can grade for criteria like reasoning, clarity, use of evidence, or consideration of other viewpoints.

Prepare students for life beyond the classroom with critical thinking

Teaching critical thinking skills in school helps prepare students for the real world. It gives them the tools they need to interact with information in society and contribute to it in a meaningful way. 

When we know we’ve helped our students become well-informed people who can make sound judgments, adapt to new challenges, and apply innovative solutions to complex problems, we can feel more excited and confident about preparing them for a world outside our classrooms.