A couple of announcements regarding activity on this site and elsewhere.
First and foremost, I’m continuing to update a resource page for teachers needing help moving their courses online. I’ve curated material directly relevant to preparing aspects of courses, such as lectures and discussion, through online video. This will continue to be a high priority for teachers as online programs kick in over the next few weeks.
Since there seemed to be a dearth of material on creating online assessments and assignments that are effective for distance learning, I created a short course on how to apply professional test-design principles to creating such material (that short, < 1 hour, mini-course that is also available on YouTube).
The resource page was also recently updated with information provided by state departments of education to support teachers, parents and students.
Moving onto the topic I thought I’d be focusing on this month, MIT Press is running a book-talk series and I’m scheduled to appear on April 7th (the release date for Critical Thinking Essentials). The talk is entitled Essential Knowledge in a Time of Crisis: Critical Thinking and will focus on how we can develop and use our critical-thinking capacity to get through current challenges. I’ll send out registration information once it’s available.
While on the topic of applying critical-thinking skills to the affairs of the day, LogicCheck is continuing to educate people on how to apply principles of reasoning to better understand current affairs with a recent series on diagramming arguments. There’s a new curriculum page if you want to follow a sequence of reading to learn about the process of logic checking.
Speaking of learning, starting this Friday at the Degree of Freedom blog, we will be joined by my son Ben, a teenager who will be virtually going back to school tomorrow. While that is going on, he will also be learning (and reflecting on the process of learning) how to become a critical thinker with his own bi-weekly posting. More information how you can join him on this journey to follow.
I hope everyone is getting through the crisis as best they can and please reach out if I can help you with what you’re doing in any way. And let’s use the time we have to learn how to use the grey matter we’ve been granted to make better sense of the world, today and forever after.
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