Abstract

CUHK aims to enhance students’ global competitiveness by internationalizing its curriculum such that it is globally oriented, locally grounded, and culturally inclusive. Critical thinking as the core competency of the 21st century has become one of the most desirable learning outcomes globally and at this university. Then how can we pedagogically cultivate and evaluate the invisible and crucial cognitive thinking in our teaching and learning? Combining the University’s Aligned Curriculum Model, its conceptual framework on Internationalization of Curriculum (IoC), and Paul and Elder’s (2008) Critical Thinking table, this project is to identify and develop some effective pedagogical practices on critical thinking with the teachers in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Specifically, it investigates how, and with what challenges, teachers infuse, cultivate, and evaluate students’ critical thinking in their lesson plan design, pedagogical activities selection, teaching and evaluation. By sharing pedagogical practices among colleagues both online and through workshops, we hope to reach a shared understanding of critical thinking as a concept and practice, provide collegial support to each other, build a more cohesive community of practice (CoP) at the institutional level, and enhance teachers’ and students’ critical thinking awareness across the entire university.