Critical Thinking and Media Literacy in an Age of Misinformation

Critical thinking is gathering and analyzing information to make a rational judgement. To be a acritical thinker, we must understand our own biases, but be open to new ideas and perspectives. During the past few decades, the rise in social media has coincided with the spread of misinformation. As political science faculty, perhaps more than faculty in any other discipline, the responsibility of teaching our students how to distinguish between factual and fake information is taking up more of our time in the classroom. This requires teaching more critical thinking skills and incorporating appropriate assignments into our courses to reinforce those skills. The bottom line is that we can no longer teach the way we used to – it is imperative that our students take ownership of their own learning experience beginning with their first entry into the college classroom.