CU:

Core Curriculum: Critical Thinking

(Revised 10/2009)

4. Critical Thinking (3 upper-division semester hours). Courses in this area encourage the active practice of critical reasoning, evaluation, and discussion. They do so by providing opportunities for student participation beyond those offered in ordinary lecture courses, labs, or seminars. Critical thinking courses address matters of controversy within a given field of study or in the society at large. Students learn how to construct, defend, and criticize arguments; identify and assess tacit assumptions; and gather and evaluate evidence. Critical thinking courses emphasize some combination of the methodology of acquiring knowledge in a specific discipline, key arguments in the discipline, and problems of interpreting original literature and data. In addition, they may subject arguments within the discipline to scrutiny from competing cultural, social, or methodological perspectives. Students must pass 3 credit hours of specified course work at the upper-division level that requires them to practice sustained critical thinking and to demonstrate such thinking in both written form and oral discussion. Students who take approved CU-Boulder course work to fulfill this requirement must take the course for a letter grade and receive a passing grade of D- or higher. Some of the listed courses are intended for specific majors. Others are open to all students with a general background in the field. Note the prerequisites before registering.

Courses offered at CU-Boulder that satisfy this requirement include the following: