From the School of Law this framework provides students with an opportunity to use a particular model of critical thinking to draw their attention to how they might address aspects of ‘analysis’ and critical evaluation’.
The follow-on activities raise students’ understanding of how initial thinking and notes can be used and further developed in the construction of written pieces of work, such as assessments.
The framework has been used as the basis for a one-hour ‘introduction to critical thinking’ session:
- After an initial presentation and discussion of definitions of critical thinking, including the Plymouth University model, students are presented with the critical thinking framework (page 1 of the attached activity).
- In pairs, or individually, students will note answers to the questions.
- Students could be encouraged to share their ideas in slightly larger groups of 4 or 5.
- As a follow-on activity students will be asked to develop their initial notes into more of a draft paragraph, making use of the guidance provided (page 2 of the attached activity).
- An annotated paragraph is then provided for students to see a possible example of a critical paragraph which highlights some features of academic writing (e.g topic sentences, signpost language/connectives) which can be discussed in more detail with students.