Critical+Thinking

CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS
 * A great site to help students to develop their critical thinking skills can be found at **[|Annenberg classroom]**- it is an offshoot of FactCheck.org but it is geared toward helping students to become savvy media consumers. It gives students pointers on how to evaluate the information they find online. It includes [|lesson plans]for teachers and **guides** for teaching **critical thinking**, the proper use of sources, and how to **recognize deceptive arguments**.


 * Also, see the companion site. [|FlackCheck.org]is the political literacy site providing resources to help students recognize flaws in arguments in general and political ads in particular.

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 * [|Civic Online Reasoning] Help your students to critically evaluate the information that bombards them online. These assessments of //civic online reasoning help students// to judge the credibility of the information that floods their smartphones, tablets, and computer screens.
 * **Improbable Research** is a great site for discussing articles that may appear zany. They will make you laugh but are they bogus? "Our goal is to make people laugh, then make them think. We also hope to **spur people's curiosity**, and to raise the question: **How do you decide what's important and what's not, and what's real and what's not** — in science and everywhere else?"


 * [|Izzit] - Resources to encourage critical thinking skills and debate. Requires you to sign up for free membership.
 * Daily [|current event lessons] designed for middle and high school students. Each lesson includes a news article and discussion questions designed to promote critical thinking, challenge assumptions, and stimulate class discussion. In an attempt to offer variety, the two daily articles often are of different lengths and reading levels and occasionally offer different perspectives on an issue or event.
 * [|Streaming video] and teaching resources
 * They also offer [|one free DVD]  per year for members. We have a few of their videos in the media center.


 * [|TheLamp] - provides resources for youth, parents and educators to comprehend, create and critique media and technology.
 * [|MediaBreaker/Studios] is a free, online tool (created by TheLamp) that gets students to critically remix YouTube videos. Students can use the online video editor to add critical context to the video. For instance, students can challenge, critique, and point out unfair social representations of gender, race, sexuality, and/or class. The goal is to remix media into media "breaks" that call out misrepresentations and subtext, question sources of information in our media, or deconstruct narratives in music videos and commercials. See the video below:
 * [|Common Sense Education] - Review and additional info.
 * [|Quick Start Guide for Teachers]
 * media type="youtube" key="6qmEN_00-i4" width="560" height="315"
 * [|News Literacy Project] - teaches students (grades 7-12) to think about how they consume news and how to be critical thinkers. Professional journalists teamed up with teachers to create a curriculum to help students better analyze the reliability of news and information in core subjects (math, science, social studies and ELA).