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Critical thinking is a challenging term to describe but considered necessary for academic achievement, success in the global job market, and essential in developing a life-long learner (Dwyer, Hogan, & Stewart, 2012). Many definitions exist, but some of the components include the ability to analyse, reflect, judge, and strategise in a systematic way, to be able to solve problems (Dwyer et al., 2012). Some of the definitions, taxonomies, models, and theories of critical thinking have been built by Western culture, and the United States contributes information towards this Western approach (Nicholas & Raider-Roth, 2016; Wang, 2017). These definitions, taxonomies, models, and theories make a significant contribution to the pedagogical approaches to the teaching of critical thinking in the United States. This chapter details the structures that support the definitions of critical thinking and the history of the connections between critical thinking and classroom instruction in the United States.

Critical thinking is a necessary construct for twenty-first century learning and discussed in scholarly professional literature and popular media (Dwyer, 2017). The term is a part of the twenty-first century four Cs of learning: collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking (Cunningham, 2018). The teaching of critical thinking can be challenging, and this chapter presents an overview of some helpful pedagogical approaches, including project-based learning, project-based design, e-learning, and active learning and descriptions of instructional pedagogy including the general, infusion, immersion, and mixed approaches (Abrami et al., 2008; Dwyer, 2017; Ennis, 1989; Marin & Halpern, 2011; Willingham, 2008). Quality assurance is an essential component in ensuring pedagogical approaches to critical thinking are effective. The contribution of core standards in the teaching of critical thinking in the United States will be discussed.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.

The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This paper aims to suggest that classroom instructors should reflect and revise their pedagogy to lead a classroom designed to produce future information professionals who will be prepared to serve their communities in a radical way.

The paper reviews the literature related to radical and humanizing pedagogies and then features an auto ethnographic case study which details how the author implemented some of the strategies.

Formal study of pedagogy can improve the library and information science (LIS) teaching and learning process.

Examining pedagogy in a formal way yields concrete suggestions for improving classroom management and content delivery.

Using a radical pedagogy can improve relationships between teachers and learners, and learners will be able to model the classroom strategies in their own professional practice.

The study builds upon current examples of radical practice in the field and examines how such practices can be instilled even earlier in LIS graduate classrooms.

In this study, the authors draw upon 10 years of collaborative teaching and research as two, White, women literacy teacher educators to theorize the role of humanizing pedagogies within literacy teacher education and share explicit examples of how these pedagogies might be operationalized in actual classroom settings.

This study is based on 10 years of qualitative, teacher inquiry research on authors’ shared practice as literacy teacher educators and has included focus groups with students, the collection of student work and extensive field notes on class sessions.

Contextualized within decades-old calls for humanizing teacher education practices, this study puts forward a framework for teaching literacy methods that centers critical, locally contextualized, content-rich approaches and provides detailed examples of how this study implemented this framework in two contrastive teacher education settings comprising different institutional barriers, regional student populations and program mandates.

The proposed framework of critical, locally contextualized and content-rich literacy methods offers one possibility for reconciling the divergent debates that perpetually shape literacy teaching and learning. As teachers are prepared to enter classrooms, the authors model concrete approaches and strategies for teaching reading within and against a sociopolitical landscape imbued with White supremacist ideals and racial bias.

Recent studies in education attempt to ‘criminologise’ some of the current practices and policies of higher education institutions – that is, to deconstruct certain philosophies and practices which may be discriminatory, offensive, and biased to certain social groups. Recent theoretical frameworks problematize current higher education policies, many of which are taken for granted. This paper adopts a critical perspective, shedding light on some practices as they occur in higher educational institutions, by human and non-human agencies. The study applies a ‘detective’ approach examining some problematic uses of technology a higher education institution. In this proposed approach, researchers play the role of ‘detectives’, investigating possible breaches of good practice (possibly discriminatory) committed by higher education actors (referred hereafter as ‘defendants’). Most of these offences are committed through the use of educational and institutional technologies. The purpose of this theoretical approach is to empower alienated social groups against such practices by identifying ‘defendants’ and the implications of their acts. The study uses empirical data from interviews, visits, and observations to explain the ways in which defendants respond to the accusations levelled against them by other users of educational technologies. The investigation revealed that technology was used, among many other functions, to manoeuvre around the legal and ethical system serving the interests of some stakeholders. Then, the study categorises these manoeuvres, explaining the legal implications of each category, and recommending consideration of important academic and institutional issues.

Some problems have been pointed out in the literature, regarding how the various critical approaches to pedagogy have failed to properly promote autonomy of thinking and to prevent the imposition of knowledge. The criticisms include the incapacity of some approaches to highlight and question subtle or tacit forms of knowledge, and the implicit active imposition of knowledge by some others. With the possible use of critical systems thinking in pedagogy in mind, here we examine how the forms of critique used by three different approaches within this strand can deal with these criticisms. We will argue that, as presently conceived, the critical use of the system idea is susceptible of being criticised in the same way.

This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies.

This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted in Denmark, USA and Italy, and engaging more than 1,500 young adults. Multi-method pedagogical design trains students to conduct self-oriented guided autoethnography, situational analysis, allegorical mapping, and critical infrastructure analysis.

The techniques of guided autoethnography for facilitating sustained data literacy rely on inviting multiple iterations of self-analysis through sequential prompts, whereby students move through stages of observation, critical thinking, critical theory-informed critique around the lived experience of hegemonic data and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures.

Critical digital/data literacy researchers should continue to test models for building sustained critique that not only facilitate changes in behavior over time but also facilitate citizen social science, whereby participants use these autoethnographic techniques with friends and families to build locally relevant critique of the hegemonic power of data/AI infrastructures.

The proposed literacy model adopts a critical theory stance and shows the value of using multiple modes of intervention at micro and macro levels to prompt self-analysis and meta-level reflexivity for learners. This framework places critical theory at the center of the pedagogy to spark more radical stances, which is contended to be an essential step in moving students from attitudinal change to behavioral change.

Critical discussion of the social conditions that shape educational thinking and practice is now embedded in accredited teacher education programmes. Beneath beliefs that critique of educational inequality is desirable, however, lie more problematic questions around critical pedagogies, ethics and power. Emotional investments can work to protect habituated ways of thinking, despite attempts to move students beyond their comfort zone. This strategic process can shift attitudes and promote intellectual and emotional growth, but can also produce defensive reactions. This paper, a self-study in relation to an incident in a tertiary education programme, examines how student feedback on content and pedagogy positions teachers and learners. The purpose of this paper is to frame and reframe ways in which learner feedback to critical approaches might be read. The argument examines, through dialogue, the potential of disruptive teaching approaches for recontextualising both learner and teacher response. Such exploration articulates particular tensions and challenges inherent in critical teacher education pedagogies.

This is a reflective practitioner piece – involving journaling and the use of dialogue – to explore a critical incident.

This is an exploratory piece – the authors explore the workings of tension in critical/poststructural pedagogical work.

The deployment of dialogue as a method and as a way of presenting key issues is somewhat novel. The paper works through quite complex terrain in an accessible and reasonably clear fashion.

This qualitative research study examines classroom observations and transcripts, teacher and student interviews and student writing to investigate how white English teachers can cultivate students’ critical literacies regarding race and oppression through classroom literature. As research and practice in the field of critical literacy has yet to effectively center black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) lives and histories, this study aims to expand on existing critical literacy research by examining how literature teachers disrupt the perpetuation of whiteness through literature instruction that explicitly grapples with race and structures of oppression.

This research examines the pedagogical practices of two white English teachers through a yearlong investigation of classroom instruction and curriculum in an urban high school in a large Northeastern city. The overarching question of this study asks, how do white English teachers cultivate students’ critical literacies regarding race and social justice through classroom literature? Additional questions that guided this study are: How do students in these classes learn about structures of oppression? What language is used in these classrooms to discuss ideas about power? What texts and materials do these teachers use to engage students in critical literacy practices?

The findings of this study provide insight as to how white English teachers can foster students’ critical literacy development regarding race and oppression through their pedagogy and curriculum. The two teachers’ introduction of critical language and frameworks in the classroom supported students’ ability to critically engage with classroom literature and with their own social worlds. In addition, these teachers’ practices emphasize the need for white teachers to decenter their own knowledge and identities to effectively foster students' critical and sociopolitical development.

This research responds to McLean et al.’s (2021) call for a disruption of the “perpetuation of Eurocentric, hegemonic perspectives by white scholars” in the field by centering race in approaches to critical literacy development in the classroom. By analyzing data from classrooms in the same school with distinct curricular approaches, this study examines not only what but also how educators are teaching in classrooms designed to cultivate students’ critical and sociopolitical development through English Language Arts. This study offers hope for developing critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies among non-BIPOC educators who teach Black and Latinx populations.

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) has been improving in education and constantly evolving; however, the recent pandemic has catapulted it. Digital transformation of academia through online teaching demands new pedagogies to be adopted by faculty members. Academia embraces technological advancements in teaching-learning to ensure growth, development and sustainability. This paper aims to gain insights regarding the current status of literature, critical contributing authors, countries, areas, overall trends and future direction for research.

The bibliometric data was collected from two of the most widely referred databases: Scopus and Web of Science(WoS); tools like vosViewer and map builder were used for analysis. Short empirical evidence is added to the study to understand faculty members' current adoption of new pedagogical approaches in some prominent higher educational institutions.

Because of the corona pandemic, there is substantial digital transformation in the teaching-learning process. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend what faculty members can adopt critical pedagogies. Understanding the importance of pedagogy in learning outcomes, this study has attempted to synthesize available literature on ICT, pedagogy and higher education in the 21st century.

The study outlined flipped and blended learning as two teaching methods developed due to ICT integration in the classroom. Bibliometric insights from the study build the groundwork for academic advancement to remote online education. This is an attempt to corroborate such insights.