Critical Thinking Card Game

This is a useful gamification-based activity to help demystify critical thinking and analysis. It is adaptable to all levels of study. The accompanying Critical Thinking Cards are provided.

Contributor’s comments on the use of this resource:

Instructions for use:

1. Students are shown a statement, question or stat etc. on PowerPoint slide
2. Tutor uses a Critical Thinking card to make a statement about the prompting
   question (as an example for students)
3. Cards are put face down, students pick a card at random and see what
   question they have (give students time to think about this)
4. Using their chosen card as a prompt, each student makes a critical statement
   or asks a critical question about the statement, question or stat etc. on the
   PowerPoint slide
5. Tutor rounds up student statements to highlight that all students have
   engaged in critical analysis and to reinforce that critical thinking is not as
   difficult or mysterious as may have previously been thought.

Further Suggestions:

This activity can be incorporated into a teaching session when dealing with contentious issues or debates within a subject topic.

It can be used with small seminar groups or to make lectures interactive and encourage student engagement.

This activity can be levelled up by:

1. Using more complex and nuanced prompting questions and statements or by
   asking students to analyse competing statements from the literature.
2. Ask students to use Critical Thinking Cards to make competing claims about
   the prompting question, statement etc.