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CATEGORY 2: CRITICAL THINKING

(requires completion of the rest of the Liberal Education program)

Goal: To develop thinkers who are able to unify factual, creative, rational, and value-sensitive modes of thought. Critical thinking skills are taught and used through the BSU Liberal Education curriculum in order to develop students' awareness of their own thinking and problem-solving procedures. To integrate new skills into their customary ways of thinking, students must be actively engaged in practicing thinking skills and applying them to open-ended problems.

Student Competencies:

Students will be able to

• gather factual information and apply it to a given problem in a manner that is relevant, clear, comprehensive, and conscious of possible bias in the information selected.
• imagine and seek out a variety of possible goals, assumptions, interpretations, or perspectives which can give alternative meanings or solutions to given situations or problems.
• analyze the logical connections among the facts, goals, and implicit assumptions relevant to a problem or claim; generate and evaluate implications that follow from them.
• recognize and articulate the value assumptions which underlie and affect decisions, interpretations, analyses, and evaluations made by ourselves and others.