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Critical Thinking Cycle

Run the Critical Thinking Cycle MicroSim Fullscreen

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About This MicroSim

The Critical Thinking Cycle MicroSim presents five interconnected stages of critical analysis arranged in a circular diagram. Students can click any stage or use the Next/Previous buttons to step through a worked example. A dropdown lets students select from three different knowledge claims to analyze:

  1. "The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old" (scientific claim) -- default
  2. "Vaccines cause autism" (false claim)
  3. "Democracy is the best system of government" (value claim)

Each stage displays:

  • A guiding question for that step
  • A worked analysis applied to the selected claim
  • A student prompt encouraging personal reflection

The five stages of the cycle are:

  1. Question Assumptions -- Identify hidden premises and taken-for-granted beliefs
  2. Evaluate Evidence -- Assess the quality, quantity, and sources of supporting evidence
  3. Recognize Bias -- Detect cognitive biases and perspectival limitations
  4. Consider Alternatives -- Explore competing explanations and viewpoints
  5. Draw Conclusions -- Synthesize analysis into a reasoned judgment

Learning Objective

Use the critical thinking cycle to analyze a knowledge claim by stepping through questioning, evidence evaluation, bias recognition, and conclusion drawing.

Bloom's Taxonomy Level: Apply (L3)

How to Use

  1. Read the selected knowledge claim displayed below the title
  2. Click on any stage in the cycle diagram to see the analysis for that stage
  3. Use the Next and Previous buttons to step through the cycle in order
  4. Use the dropdown to switch between different types of claims
  5. Notice how the same five-step process applies differently to scientific, false, and value claims

Lesson Plan

Warm-Up (5 minutes)

Ask students: "When someone tells you something is true, what steps do you take to decide whether to believe it?" Collect responses and note which stages of critical thinking students naturally mention.

Guided Exploration (10 minutes)

Have students work through the default scientific claim ("The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old") stage by stage, discussing each guiding question as a class.

Independent Practice (10 minutes)

Students switch to the "Vaccines cause autism" claim and step through all five stages individually, noting in their journals what they find most compelling at each stage.

Discussion (10 minutes)

Switch to the value claim ("Democracy is the best system of government") and discuss: How does analyzing a value claim differ from analyzing an empirical claim? Which stages feel different?

Reflection (5 minutes)

Students write a brief response: "Which stage of critical thinking do you find most challenging, and why?"

References

  • Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2019). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. Foundation for Critical Thinking.
  • Facione, P. A. (2015). Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts. Insight Assessment.
  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.