Full disclosure: I receive a small affiliate commission for all purchases of this course
I am a fan of video courses, and given my use of Udemy.com for my own courses it should be no secret that I’m a big fan of that platform. Over the next little while I will be recommending some video courses which will appear on my recommended courses page. The first recommended course that I want to recommend today is the Critical Thinker Academy.
I audited a critical thinking course in my undergrad and really enjoyed it. I made a mental note at that point to educate myself some more on the subject. That time came two years ago when I was driving to New Brunswick to teach a course. I wanted to find an educational podcast I could listen to and stumbled upon the Critical Thinker podcast from the Critical Thinker Academy. I listened to all of those podcasts and really enjoyed them. Once I got home I consumed more of the content from the website. The Critical Thinker Academy has 6 video courses in all.
Last week as I was browsing Udemy, I was really excited to come across Critical Thinker Academy and immediately purchased it. The teacher in this course, Kevin deLaplante, has bundled all 6 of his courses into this one Udemy course, which means it is full of great stuff. Here are the 14 sections of this course:
- Introductions
- Why Critical Thinking is Important
- The Five Pillars of Critical Thinking
- Cognitive Biases and Critical Thinking
- Special Topics
- Basic Concepts in Logic and Argumentation
- Basic Concepts in Propositional Logic
- Common Valid and Invalid Argument Forms
- Introduction to Fallacies
- Reasoning with Probabilities: What is Probability?
- Reasoning with Probabilities: The Rules
- Fallacies of Probability and Judgment
- How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay
- How to Cite Sources and Avoid Plagiarism
There is a whopping 141 lectures in all. But what is great is that these are all in bite-size portions: they range from 3 minutes to 25 minutes long, which are very manageable. I also like the range of videos - there is plenty here for someone coming to critical thinking for the very first time as well as some more advanced work. Finally, I was so happy to see that deLaplante included his courses on essay writing and citing sources - these are very valuable sections for students.
I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in argumentation and critical thinking, as well as for students who are looking to learn more about essay writing and citing sources.