Critical thinking and participation

Creator(s) of the module

About Dániel

I am Daniel from Hungary, a graduated English and media literacy teacher for high school students. I am also an employee of HEEDA (Association for Human Resources) for 2 years, where I help creating training materials and hold courses in different topics, such as energy saving and environment, media literacy, etc. Both professionally and personally I consider critical thinking to be one of the most important topics in education, during my school classes I also try to teach students to be critic and careful about any content they face online.

Introduction to the module

Critical thinking is an important skill that helps you make sense of information and make smart decisions. It’s about asking questions like "Is this true?" and "Who says so?" to figure out if what you’re hearing or reading makes sense. This skill also helps you see if someone’s opinion is based on facts or just their feelings. In our media-filled world, being able to think critically means you won’t be easily fooled by false information. In this module, we’ll learn how to think critically about everything from news articles to social media posts, helping you make better choices and understand the world more clearly.

Learning goals of the module

After completing this module, the learner will be able to:
- spot different kinds of arguments in things like articles, videos, and social media. They'll practice checking if these arguments make sense and if the information used to support them is good.

- get better at figuring out which sources of information are trustworthy and which might be biased. They'll learn how to tell the difference between good and bad information, helping them make smarter choices about what they believe.

- work on understanding their own thoughts and why they think a certain way. This goal is about getting them to ask themselves questions and be open to changing their minds when they learn new things or see different viewpoints.

Module content:

Chapter 1: Introduction to critical thinking
Chapter 2: Evaluating arguments and evidence
Chapter 3: Media literacy and critical thinking in practice