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"Critical thinking is trendy these days. With 6.3 million hits resulting from a Google search -- six times "Bloom's Taxonomy" -- its importance is undeniable. Worldwide, critical thinking (CT) is integrated into finger-painting lessons, units on Swiss immigrants, discussions of Cinderella, and the Common Core State Standards. In short, critical thinking is more beloved than Egyptian cotton."

"For a brief period in the history of teaching, using PowerPoint automatically qualified you as a tech-savvy professor - an innovator who wouldn't settle for the usual combination of staticky black-and-white overhead films and hand-scrawled chalkboard notes. Now, it's hard to believe that PowerPoint was once considered innovative by anyone. Popular criticism includes everything from tongue-in-cheek comments about death by PowerPoint to serious claims that it fundamentally degrades how we think and communicate."

"Do you know what the most common electronic device that college student's possess? According to Joshua Bolkan, a multimedia editor for Campus Technology and The Journal, "85% of college students own laptops while smartphones come in second at 65%". If technology is becoming a common practice among our students, what are we doing as professors to incorporate it into our classrooms? How can students use technology to reflect on their work? How can instructors use technology as a supplement in reading and writing courses? How can technology be used to deepen our student's critical thinking skills? These are questions we should be asking ourselves in a world where technology is paving the way to learning. "

"How to Use the "4 C's" Rubrics - This excerpt appears in the Buck Institute for Education's book, "PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity." Rubrics for each of the "4 C's" are in the book, and we offer guidance below on how to use them in a PBL context."

"The humble question is an indispensable tool: the spade that helps us dig for truth, or the flashlight that illuminates surrounding darkness. Questioning helps us learn, explore the unknown, and adapt to change."