MERLOT Materials

50 Activities for Developing Critical Thinking Skills

The purpose of this OER is to provide students with a simple and straightforward introduction to critical thinking. The... see more

The purpose of this OER is to show how arguments work and how one might go about constructing a complex argument.... see more

Clicking DOWNLOAD MATERIAL, will download the resource. The logical reasoner sticks to the issue, makes only relevant... see more

When scientists are trying to gain a deep understanding of how the world works, they seek general patterns rather than... see more

In exploring the concept of implication, which is at the heart of nearly all reasoning, we divided it into two types:... see more

Inductive arguments are more common than deductive arguments, and they are more difficult to analyze, but logical... see more

The purpose of this OER is to introduce students to the idea of flaws and weaknesses in arguments within a critical... see more

This material consists of a fairly long list of links to rubrics for evaluating critical thinking skills. The set of... see more

Articles about criticle thinkings.

This is a collection of resources exploring critical thinking skills in education, along with the ethics and logic of... see more

This first chapter explains what it means to be logical—to reason logically. It demonstrates the usefulness of logical... see more

We learned about how to improve writing, especially argumentative writing. Be sure your writing is clearly organized, or... see more

To defend yourself against the bombardment of propaganda, con games, political hype, and sales pitches, you should demand... see more

This chapter examined a variety of ways that writers and speakers communicate less well than we and they expect.... see more

Every argument contains at least one intended conclusion plus one or more supporting reasons, called premises. However,... see more

In this chapter we examined the notion of inconsistency, which plays such an important role in judgments of... see more

These exercises were written to accompany a course in critical thinking. Everything starts with a question so it's... see more

This is a faculty development workshop with an overview on how to teach critical thinking in the classroom (regardless of... see more

This lesson introduces users to the basics of argument recognition, analysis, evaluation, and construction by means of a... see more

This chapter focused on the logical forms of arguments in Aristotle's class logic. For deductive arguments involving... see more

This chapter explored the difference between a causal claim and one that is merely correlational. Causality and... see more

To be a good communicator, you should be precise enough for the purpose at hand. When faced with a claim that someone... see more

This chapter introduced the concept of a sentence's logical form and the concept of logical equivalence between... see more