This course adopts the following intensive structure to make the most of your valuable time.
Case Studies: Critical Thinking in Business
We present a number of real-life case studies in which critical thinking has led to effective business outcomes.
- Intellectual Property
- Music Royalties
- Market Acquisition
The Criticality Trajectory
We explore best practice in critical thinking via an exploration of our Criticality Trajectory (depicted below).
Auditing Critical Thinking
You will first be taken through three research-backed models of assessing critical thinking:
- The RED (Recognise assumptions, Evaluate arguments, Draw conclusions) model from Pearson's Watson-Glaser II Critical Thinking Appraisal
- Halpern’s Critical Thinking Assessment, and
- Bloom’s Taxonomy.
These will serve as background knowledge during a practical activity in which you will learn how to undertake a critical thinking audit, and appraise some common indicators of a deficit in critical thinking:
- An absence of business strategy
- Rapid changes in business strategy
- Intra-team conflicts
These indicators will be considered alongside signs of a sufficiency of critical thinking, such as work being completed on time and to an appropriate standard.
You will then be guided through the five key steps involved in an organisation audit of critical thiking.
- Assess a Business Product
This can be virtually anything concrete such as a physical product, a report, or a debrief on an individual or team task.
- Ask all stakeholders and participants to describe the requirement to the auditor. This should ideally be done on both an individual and group basis.
- Invite honest judgements on the effectiveness of the product
- Invite honest assessments of the implications of the work
- Competencies to Assess
- Observation
- Problem solving
- Team cohesion
- Communication
- Open mindedness
- Tolerance for ambiguity
- Time efficiency
- Deduction
- Inference
- Retroduction/ abductive reasoning
Insight into Action
The course will end with the creation of a brief initial action plan for improving critical thinking in each participant’s business context.
Dates, times and delivery
The Critical Thinking Skills (online) course will run from 30 January - 8 February 2024 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Each session will be 90 minutes.
These live video sessions will be held over Microsoft Teams at 09:30 – 11:00 (UK time) on:
- Tuesday 30 January
- Thursday 1 February
- Tuesday 6 February
- Thursday 8 February
A world clock, and time zone converter can be found here: https://bit.ly/3bSPu6D
This is a ‘virtual classroom’ course, and is designed to replicate the experience of a classroom. The sessions are ‘live’ and are not recorded.
No attendance at Oxford is required and you do not need to purchase any software.
Accessing your online course
Details about accessing the private MS Teams course site will be emailed to you during the week prior to the course commencing.
Please get in touch if you have not received this information within three working days of the course start date.
