Preparing Our Future Helping Professionals to Become Critical Thinkers: A Tutorial

Abstract

Critical thinking is increasingly recognized as an essential knowledge and skill for the helping professions. Yet, our pedagogical literature has provided infrequent guidance on how instructors can help students to understand what “critical thinking” means or how it might contribute to their professional lives. Therefore, the purpose of this tutorial is to provide guidelines on how instructors might teach future practitioners to become critical thinkers. The main topics address an instructional definition of critical thinking, the basic knowledge and skills that comprise critical thinking, a broad view of instructional approaches, and a summary of developmental milestones of adult critical thinkers. Specific teaching strategies from instructors who have hands-on experience with guiding their students to become critical thinkers are included.