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204 Teaching and Learning in General Education
reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in
seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of
inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward
this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with nurturing those dispositions
which consistently yield useful insights and which are the basis of a rational
and democratic society. (Facione, 1990a, p. 2)
Teaching General Critical Thinking Courses
By “general CT courses,” I mean courses aimed at enhancing CT ability
generally, under any circumstances, not specifically within a certain subject
or discipline. In this type of course CT is taught without a specific subject
as a background; rather, diverse materials are used to illustrate the general
principles of CT. I have been teaching this type of course for some years
and would like to briefly discuss my own experiences in this section. The
discussion will be divided into two parts — the first on cognitive skills, the
second on affective dispositions.
When teaching cognitive skills, I generally cover the following four
areas: A. Meaning analysis
B. Logical skills
C. Scientific reasoning
D. Fallacy analysis
I first learned about this framework as a student of Dr. Tien-ming Lee’s courses, as well as a
reader of his books. But my presentation of it below is my own understanding and involves
my own synthesis of his framework with other CT materials. He would not necessarily
endorse the result. Apart from these four areas, I will sometimes also touch on a topic such
as “cognitive biases,” which is related to fallacy analysis but is more akin to psychology
than to logic.