In the first phase of the project, we spoke with academic staff, as well as those who support learning in other ways, to explore how they understand and address critical thinking in their practice. Their insights shaped the development of a flexible critical thinking framework (Fig 1), one that moves beyond generic definitions and roots critical thinking in context-specific teaching practice. 

During Phase 2, this framework was used to design and run staff workshops at both institutions. These sessions supported educators to reflect on what critical thinking looks like in their subject (‘Critical Clarity’ and ‘Critical Context’), and to co-design small-scale interventions aimed at making critical thinking more visible and meaningful to students. In particular, the framework enabled staff to consider barriers which may undermine their learners’ critical thinking, enabling interventions to be tailored to the needs of students in their respective disciplinary and cultural contexts (‘Critical Capital’).

A range of creative approaches were developed to design tailored interventions, including applying critical thinking to a specific and relatable context, providing time and space for students to articulate the barriers they experience related to critical thinking and helping students to capture their critical thinking on the page to develop their critical writing skills.

Whilst the interventions reflected the varied needs of the students in their respective academic contexts, they all shared the common feature of making critical thinking more visible and tangible. The approaches developed were also designed to be small-scale, light-touch and manageable for busy academics with a hectic schedule.