{"id":185,"date":"2026-03-06T15:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/?p=185"},"modified":"2026-03-06T16:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:23:23","slug":"note-on-the-cac-discussion-of-critical-thinking-on-5-20-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/2026\/03\/06\/note-on-the-cac-discussion-of-critical-thinking-on-5-20-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Note on the CAC discussion of Critical Thinking on 5\/20\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I regret that I didn&#8217;t take the opportunity to frame the Critical Thinking ILO proposal as a draft at the beginning of our conversation. I suspect we might have had a more productive meeting on 2\/20. I was hoping to get more substantive feedback on the Critical Thinking proposal. Since you have read this material and given it some thought, I&#8217;d really like to hear what you think in more detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few points from our discussion deserve some follow up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The terminological suggestions have already been incorporated in the draft language on the BC Gen Ed blog (linked below). &#8220;Charitable&#8221; has been replaced &#8220;sympathetic&#8221;.&#8221; Are they better choices? ThinkArguments uses &#8220;systematic empathy.&#8221; &#8220;True&#8221; has been supplemented with a parenthetical clarification (accuracy, or correspondence with how things are). The critical thinking committee will be working on further revisions and would appreciate further input.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Process and participation came up. We welcome such oversight from the CAC. We&#8217;ve sought this kind of collaboration for a while.&nbsp;I&#8217;m sorry I was not prepared to address process and participation in the meeting. However, here are some details.&nbsp;The critical thinking proposal is the result of 14 meetings over the course of more than a year, attended by diverse faculty, philosophers always being in the minority. All college faculty were invited to multiple feedback sessions this past fall. Well over 100 collaborative faculty hours in meetings have gone into this proposal so far. I can estimate the total number of participants to be in the range of 30-40 (I&#8217;d have to track repeat and occasional attendees to get a more accurate figure). Meeting attendance typically varied between a half dozen a dozen faculty. A great many more hours have gone into reading, writing, and thinking things over by working group members. I feel I owe it to those who have collaborated on the Critical Thinking ILO to clarify the record on these points. If you need receipts, I can send you screenshots of Outlook invites.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It was asserted that having advanced degrees should make us all qualified to teach critical thinking. We should not just assume this. Most of us have never taken a course in critical thinking. In the 25 years I&#8217;ve been here this college hasn&#8217;t hosted any critical thinking professional development save for workshops that have been organized by members of the philosophy department. Critical thinking stands out as the only significant academic subject matter I can think of where faculty are not expected to have some professional preparation. Research referenced below shows that students have better critical thinking outcomes when faculty engage in critical thinking professional development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The meeting minutes show concern that the proposal in its current form is &#8220;philosophy centric.&#8221; This raises a number of pertinent questions that could aid your inquiry:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What is a philosophy specific conception of critical thinking?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What are the alternative less philosophical approaches to critical thinking (in some detail)?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In what ways specifically does this draft proposal (or some future proposal) reflect a more rather than less philosophy-specific approach?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How is the approach articulated in the current draft proposal generally fruitful or applicable only to philosophy?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEE model in the draft proposal does organize some elements of critical thinking that are prominent in critical thinking courses like PHIL&amp;115 which is taught in the philosophy department. However, PHIL&amp;115 is a course in general reasoning skills, philosophy is not part of that curriculum. The notion that philosophers have their own peculiar approach to critical thinking seems to be a widely held opinion. It is also one that betrays a lack of familiarity with typical developed critical thinking curriculum where students cultivate their ability with an integrated suite of general reasoning skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eventually, the CAC will be asked to approve language for a critical thinking ILO. I&#8217;d encourage CAC members review some developed critical thinking curriculum and research first (see links below). I suspect you will find that developed critical thinking curriculum as we might teach in PHIL&amp; 115 is not narrowly specialized for philosophy, but rather a broader more inclusive approach that already includes most of what people think of as critical thinking from their disciplinary perspectives. The challenge we face in crafting a meaningful infused critical thinking ILO is finding that vital core of the broader critical thinking curriculum that speaks to a wide range of more discipline specific conceptions across campus.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The current working draft of the critical thinking ILO is posted here: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/2025\/03\/05\/articulating-our-ilos\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Articulating Critical Thinking: \u2013 General Education Reform at BC<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note, the post includes links to some critical thinking resources that were not included in the proposal including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>ThinkArguments, an online competency based critical thinking curriculum designed for infusion. Faculty can create a free account and gain full access to the modules for review.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A link to an older edition of Parker and Moore, perhaps the industry standard among the many critical thinking texts on the market.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is a link to a summary of critical thinking research that has been helpful to us: <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/2025\/10\/02\/critical-thinking-what-the-research-says\/\">Critical Thinking: What the Research Says \u2013 General Education Reform at BC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I regret that I didn&#8217;t take the opportunity to frame the Critical Thinking ILO proposal as a draft at the beginning of our conversation. I suspect we might have had a more productive meeting on 2\/20. I was hoping to get more substantive feedback on the Critical Thinking proposal. Since you have read this material [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.bellevuecollege.edu\/gened\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}