Critical Thinking

 Critical thinking involves reading comprehension, argument analysis, evidence evaluation, and writing. These skills are relevant to the study of leadership because these skills enable people to better understand and evaluate leaders and to think for themselves. These skills are relevant to the practice of leadership because leaders and other professionals often use these skills in real time, under time constraints, in new situations. For these reasons, critical thinking is a crucial leadership competency. As Dr. Terry Price writes,

“Because arguments happen in real time, quick recall and near-automatic identification of fallacies are intrinsic to critical thinking. We will work throughout the semester to build these skills so that you are prepared to deploy them in everyday life, where arguments wait for no one.”

To develop these leadership competencies, students will develop their comprehension, analysis, evaluation, and writing skills through a series of time-constrained, in-class activities. These activities include quizzes, debates, in-class writing and revising, peer review, collaborative work, and simulations.

Many of the learning outcomes for this class involved timed skills. Assignments and activities are designed to build students’ ability to read, speak, and write under realistic constraints. Time constraints are crucial to the skills that these assignments develop and assess.