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The purpose of this paper is to describe a theoretically based coding framework for an integrated analysis and assessment of critical thinking in online discussion.

The critical thinking assessment framework (TAF) is developed through review of theory and previous research, verified by comparing results to previous research, and checked for reliability by comparing results for multiple coders.

Although process, structure, and quality of online discussions are assessed independently, a standard framework integrating these aspects for comprehensive assessment of critical thinking in online discussions is not found in literature review. The critical TAF described here offers a reliable and valid tool for integrating process, structure, and quality to assess critical thinking in online discussions.

The critical TAF serves as a methodological tool for assessing critical thinking in online discussion. Further research should further assess the validity and reliability of this tool and should integrate the framework with assessments for other aspects of discussion such as social or instructor presence.

The implementation of the critical TAF in future studies will ultimately help identify online educational activities and tools which best support development and application of critical thinking skills. Furthermore, it might be used to assess critical thinking of individual participants or small groups in a discussion.

The critical TAF described in this paper provides a valid and reliable tool for integrated assessment of the process, structure, and quality of critical thinking in online discussions.

The purpose of this study is to introduce a virtual collaborative learning setting called “Net Economy”, which we established as part of an international learning network of currently six universities, and present our approach to continuously improve the course in each cycle.

Using the community of inquiry framework as guidance and canonical action research (CAR) as the chosen research design, the discussion forum of the online course is assessed regarding its critical thinking value. We thereby measure critical thinking with the help of the according model provided by Newman et al. (1995), which differentiates 40 indicators of critical thinking from 10 different categories.

The calculated critical thinking ratios for the analyzed two discussion threads indicate a strong use of outside knowledge, intensive justification and critical assessment of posts by the students. But at the same time, there are also weak spots, like manifold repetitions. Based on these results, we derive changes for the next course cycle to improve the critical thinking of the students.

A comparison of the results after the next course cycle will then allow us to assess the effects of the implemented changes, which would not be possible without a critical thinking diagnosis approach.

This study looks at the development of critical literacy for three pre-service teacher participants, relevant support systems, and pedagogies. It considers how pre-service teacher participants construct knowledge on critical literacy within the methods course. The participants started with their own literacy histories in order to began developing internalization and critical consciousness within the methods and field experience course. Throughout the course, the participants took social action by using some of the critical literacy approaches that were presented as instructional strategies in the methods course. However, the participants were still internalizing two essential components of critical pedagogy in their own teaching: problem posing and dialogue. They acknowledged the value of problem posing and dialogue in their own learning but had some difficulty using these methods in their own teaching. The implications from this study suggest that teacher educators and future teachers take a stance on critical education and push for structural changes in common teaching practices and school curriculum mandates.

Educating the students to be capable practitioners for the future suggests that teachers be visionaries and futurologists to identify the skills required for the communication needs of society. The purpose of this paper is to argue for a sustainable curriculum – one that meets the needs of the present and prepares students to meet the demands of the future. Such a curriculum identifies the importance of developing student capability in critical thinking and in research methodology. It is an approach in which discussion, research activities and peer assessment can help to develop these dispositions and prepare students for effective participation in work and society for the long term.

The paper draws on the pedagogical literature on discussion-led learning for critical inquiry and the use of peer review and feedback to provide the theoretical framework for the paper. Response data were collected from a postgraduate public relations (PR) class where two initiatives were introduced.

Student responses to discussion-led inquiry and peer review were positive and provided an excellent basis for ongoing critical practice in the workplace. By encouraging criticality through small interventions at the undergraduate level, postgraduate and entry-level practitioners will sustain strong critical thinking abilities to apply in the work place.

The initiatives were introduced in one year and reviewed and adapted for the second iteration. The postgraduate classes are small which limits the implications of the research recommendations and conclusions.

By modelling the discussion process in class and encouraging students to articulate their thoughts and arguments, teachers are able to introduce learning moments and opportunities which can lead to further discussion. By these means, students learn to evaluate arguments and make ethical judgments about the practice of PR in a variety of different contexts.

Practising critical thinking skills, alongside the tactical vocational skills, provide future practitioners with the ability to extend their creativity in search of practical solutions to issues faced by society and organizations in the twenty-first century. University-educated graduates of PR can make a strong, ethical and creative contribution to society through constant questioning of basic assumptions and through their curiosity about power balances and issues. They will embrace technological innovation as another tool in the PR toolkit to engage stakeholders in creative ways.

By using a range of pedagogical strategies, it is possible for teachers to promote a critically informed approach to practice. Students learn to question basic assumptions and biases and to develop strong intellectual skills. These, in turn, will provide the basis for ethical communication practices and contribute to new and creative ways of thinking about society and its communication needs.

This manuscript describes the findings of an examination of 21 pre-service teachers and one literacy course instructor within the context of a program focused on urban teacher preparation. Using inductive thematic analysis of multiple data sources, the research team identified three themes. First, general agreement existed amongst the pre-service teachers that Barack Obama’s 2008 election was a critical, important moment in U.S. history with consistent rationales for why they should include information about President Obama’s life and work as part of the curriculum, especially for African American students. This theme comprised three trends: the importance of teaching civics, the historical importance of the first African American president, and the importance of President Obama as a role model. Second, pre-service teachers enacted and responded to barriers to teaching critical literacy about the Obama presidency. This second theme also comprised three trends: a reluctance to detract from President Obama’s positive image, an unease in teaching politics, and the references to developmental issues related to the ages of the kindergarten children they taught. Third, inconsistencies occurred amongst pre-service teachers’ understandings of critical literacy.

This paper aims to highlight a reconstructive lens on one white teacher’s critical approach to teaching literacy. This work equally highlights the importance of anti-racist approach to critical pedagogies centered on a humanizing ethic of cariño.

Drawing on portraiture and qualitative methods, this paper uses the reconstructive analysis of one white teacher’s efforts to disrupt white supremacy through critical pedagogies.

The author posits that Mr Hope was able to take on critical approaches to teaching literacy and design anti-racist pedagogies by honoring his students’ lived experiences. An ethic of cariño is embodied to design critical pedagogical choices and interactional moves that center the experience of immigrant-origin Latinx youth.

This study contributes to a growing body of literature on reconstructive discourse analysis. The author suggests that taking a “reconstructive” approach to discourse analysis requires that researchers move beyond a narrow focus on transcripts of classroom interaction. The author suggests that a reconstructive lens requires that focus is not solely placed on the interactional level of the transcript, but rather that interactional data be put in conversation with other data sources.

The author offers pedagogical implications for anti-racist teaching perspectives and offers key elements to critical pedagogies that engage Latinx students and center their experiential knowledge as a catalyst for curriculum design.

To date, few studies have explored how teachers of immigrant-origin Latinx students are intentionally resisting white supremacy and crafting anti-racist approaches to critical pedagogies.

This paper aims to examine language learners’ critical multimodal literacy practices with a moving-image text, focusing on text comprehension and interpretation rather than text production. It takes a critical perspective towards multimodality and proposes the simultaneous emphasis on critical and multimodal literacies.

This qualitative teacher-inquiry adopts critical multimodal literacy as the framework for understanding learners’ literacy practices. The course implementation highlights images, sounds and words as encompassing the five modes of visual, aural, linguistic, gestural and spatial (Arola et al., 2014) in emphasizing the multimodal in critical multimodal literacy, and the purposeful organization of the images, sounds and words as reflecting the critical in critical multimodal literacy. The analysis also adopts Serafini’s (2010) concentric perceptual, structural and ideological perspectives as the tenets of critical multimodal literacy.

The findings show that focusing on images, sounds, words and their purposeful organization enabled the students to critically examine a moving-image text through considerations for the multiple modes and arriving at the structural and ideological interpretive perspectives.

This study fills a gap in the literature, as very little research has been done to investigate the ways in which language learners engage with, that is, comprehend and interpret, moving-image multimodal texts. In addition, it presents a critical multimodal literacy framework based on Serafini’s (2010) tripartite perspectives and offers pedagogical suggestions for incorporating critical multimodal literacy in language classrooms.

English teacher candidates have limited opportunities to examine classroom-based discussions about LGBTQ-themed texts and heteronormativity in teacher education courses. This chapter presents one effort to address this issue using a video-based field experience in the English Methods course that demonstrated a critical unit of instruction about the play, Angels in America. The chapter provides a description of the project and English teacher candidates’ perspectives about what they learned for English educators interested in devising similar projects for their courses.

The purpose of this paper is to ask how we can think about critical reflection as a pedagogical practice given the “confessional turn”. By the “confessional turn” the author refers to the idea that “subjective, autobiographical and confessional modes of expression” have expanded exponentially across a wide range of social spheres, including education, the legal system, the media and the workplace. Examining these developments, this paper asks what these debates on critical reflection and confession mean for pedagogical practice.

The main approach is a review of key debates in the literature on critical reflection and also in the wider social sciences.

The discussion compares different debates. Thus it shows that for critics, the turn to the “first person” technologies is narcissistic, psychologistic and de‐politicising. On this view, critical reflective practice might be understood as an individualistic and individualising pedagogy in spite of its claims to be critical. The paper discusses how in contrast, others see this move to talk about the subjective and the self as an extension of the feminist project of the personal is political – i.e. that personal stories, feelings and issues have social and political roots and consequences. For them, reflection can be critical, leading to political consciousness‐raising, i.e. a new awareness about social, political and personal processes. It finishes by examining the view that the idea of reflexivity might help us out of the conflict between these debates.

The paper poses a number of questions in relation to critical reflection that can be taken up by practitioners in the field.

The paper brings new literature to bear on the practice of critical reflection and raises important questions relevant to academics and practitioners.

The author addresses ways in which secondary American history textbooks reflect and perpetuate the normative American story and identity by framing American Indians as the “first Americans,” while at the same time silencing indigenous voices in the telling of their own stories. This paper contributes to existing literature by providing an updated and critical analysis of a particular dimension of social studies texts and provides concrete examples and critical discussion of the master narrative at work in curricula. Suggestions are made for applying critical multiculturalism to the portrayal of the origins of humans in North America, using examples of indigenous texts currently used in classrooms that offer a truly multicultural resource for teachers.