Critical thinking, is there a formal way to do this?

I will teach a new course this spring semester on critical thinking in biology.

According to The Foundation for Critical Thinking (FCT), "critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it". "A well cultivated critical thinker 1) raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely; 2) gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively; 3) comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; 4) thinks open mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and 5) communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems."  In FCT's pamphlet, it states: "Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism. "

FCT generalizes elements of thought as: point of view, purpose, question at issue, information, interpretation and inference, concepts, assumptions, and implications. It describes intellectual standards as clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fairness.

FCT advocates that after training in critical thinking, students should achieve intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy, intellectual integrity, intellectual courage, intellectual perseverance, confidence in reason, intellectual empathy, and fairmindness.

As a trained scientist, I found the FCT materials quite useful, and gave me a new appreciation of critical thinking. FCT's  Critical thinking in everyday life: 9 strategies  really provide some practical solutions on this subject.

By Googling "critical thinking strategies" (which is really an irony here), I found teaching strategies to help promote critical thinking.  This site promotes a definition: Critical thinking is thinking that assesses itself. This definition can be actually linked back to a FTC's webpage, "structures for student self-assessment".  (It is funny that FTC teaching PDF materials did not mention this). I like this definition, because it emphasizes on the self-critique nature of critical thinking: people should be willing be admit and correct mistakes and adjust their own views. 

In the end, though, critical thinking is a skill that has to be learned by practice.  People have to learn swimming by actually doing it in the water, not through textbooks, social networking,  or clickering it, if a joke could be made here.

I need a list of potential projects with actual data for students to work on. One project could be the analysis of Olympics medals ~ GDP, population, etc. The 2012 London Olympics metal data is at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArLJZixvTlU7dFRxb0lOeEE1VUZGTGVQSkdRWl94N3c
I can ask students for find out the GDP data.

Another data source is the World Bank Public Data:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fpublicdata%3Fds%3Dwb-wdi&ei=E97yUNWkB4rC9QT93IHAAg&usg=AFQjCNGwERVubP7_XkqUQTaZiZIDNoIkjA&sig2=LHPYvVLdEIZclktEjtAoaA&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.eWU
This sites also provides plot for descriptive statistics.

The Google Public Data directory can be a place for students for look for data sets for their own research interests.
http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

One of my college suggests to use the case of arsenic in apple juice,  http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/arsenic-apple-juice.
FDA's test results are at http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/FoodContaminantsAdulteration/Metals/ucm273328.htm

To facilitate with student projects, I would ask all of them to set up Dropbox folders and share with me. 

References:

1. The Foundation for Critical Thinking