Recommendation: The Critical Thinker Academy course

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:

1. Introductions
2. Why Critical Thinking is Important
3. The Five Pillars of Critical Thinking
4. Cognitive Biases and Critical Thinking
5. Special Topics
6. Basic Concepts in Logic and Argumentation
7. Basic Concepts in Propositional Logic
8. Common Valid and Invalid Argument Forms
9. Introduction to Fallacies
10. Reasoning with Probabilities: What is Probability?
11. Reasoning with Probabilities: The Rules
12. Fallacies of Probability and Judgment
13. How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay
14. 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.