Infusing critical thinking skills into content of AI course

Abstract

This paper describes some of our efforts in infusing critical thinking skills into a course on artificial intelligence. Six thinking skills: parts-whole analysis, compare-and-contrast, decision making, causal explanation, prediction and generalization have been introduced at appropriate places in the course. Using a set of carefully chosen examples, we demonstrate that critical thinking skills can be naturally introduced in the course content of computer curricula at tertiary level. Our analysis shows that infusion of critical thinking skills into course content and their explicit introduction stimulates students thinking and improves their learning ability.