TEACHING CRITICAL THINKING ON A FLAT EARTH

There is wide general agreement that we need to do a better job of teaching critical thinking. Unfortunately, that is where the agreement stops. There is no generally agreed upon definition for critical thinking, no straightforward way to teach it, nor a standardized exam that tests for it.

Reflecting on my own experiences as an undergraduate in college, I realized that a key way I learned to think critically was by watching others debate in a graduate seminar that I attended. There I saw them take an idea and find its weaknesses by putting it into context with what they already knew. In other words, modeling the behavior was, in my case, a way to learn to critically think.

To teach critical thinking to students in my introductory oceanography course, I added a module to the end of each lecture. At the beginning of the semester, we talk about what the dispositions of critical thinking are as well as information literacy. We then spend the next half of the semester dissecting flat Earth arguments. Flat Earthism was chosen as it is a relatively commonly known conspiracy theory that can be examined without immediately turning people off for political or religious reasons. In these short segments, I explain the argument and then show the students where the weaknesses lie. At the end of the semester, we pivot to applying our skills to climate change denial. We wrap up with a discussion about how the ‘empty vessel’ model of learning doesn’t work—the solution to conspiracy theories is not more facts. Critical thinking alone is not the solution to misinformation, but it is an important foothold.