Cornell Module Builds Critical Thinking in AI Era

In the age of artificial intelligence, researchers at Cornell University have created an online module aimed at helping students build one of higher education’s most enduring—and often elusive—desirable skills: critical thinking.

Cornell piloted the asynchronous, 75-minute module in six introductory-level courses beginning in 2022. It provides students with a shared language and foundational framework around critical thinking, while helping instructors across disciplines connect those skills to their course content. Today, it remains in use across multiple classes, with roughly 7,000 students having completed it.

Mark Sarvary, director of biology teaching laboratories in Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, helped spearhead the module and has continued using it in his courses ever since.

“One of the reasons we developed the module, which grew out of a faculty survey, was to see whether faculty are actually teaching critical thinking,” Sarvary said. “Many of us include it in our learning objectives, but when you look closely at courses, it’s often not taught explicitly.”

From the survey, Sarvary noted, faculty who taught first-year courses found that roughly 83 percent of students lacked sufficient critical thinking skills. The module breaks critical thinking down into specific skills, including accessing relevant information, evaluating different points of view, considering evidence that challenges a line of reasoning, and accepting ambiguity or uncertainty.

“That’s especially relevant in the age of AI, when we’re asking whether critical thinking is being replaced—or is necessary to evaluate these tools,” he added. “If students don’t know when they’re using those skills, it’s hard for them to answer those questions.”

Christina Schmidt, director of curriculum development and instructional support at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a co-developer of the module, said such skills can be developed, but if they’re not taught intentionally, they can be difficult for students to identify.

“One of the obstacles to teaching critical thinking is having a clear definition, so that was one of the things we aimed to address with the module,” Schmidt said. “You don’t have to check all of these boxes for it to count as critical thinking, but these are all elements of it—especially if we want it to apply across different disciplines.”

“The inherent need for a pithy, short description of critical thinking isn’t as functional as being able to identify these different skills and dispositions,” she added.

The need for those skills is reflected in a recent Inside Higher Ed Student Voice survey of more than 1,000 two- and four-year students nationwide, which found that about 35 percent of respondents said they are seeking roles that emphasize uniquely human skills and want a better understanding of how AI is used in their field. Similarly, a study of human resources, learning and technical officers at global firms by the Learning Society at Stanford University found that AI technologies are “transforming demand for human capabilities, and reshaping work and workers as much as they are replacing tasks.”

“One of the real challenges is helping students connect those dots,” Schmidt said. “They often aren’t able to see patterns or transfer critical thinking skills between different contexts, which is ultimately what we want them to be able to do.”

How the module works: In addition to skills involved in critical thinking, the module outlined key dispositions of critical thinkers, such as a willingness to acknowledge and correct flaws in one’s own reasoning, awareness of gaps in one’s knowledge, comfort with saying “I don’t know,” and the curiosity to seek out missing information.

Schmidt said a questionnaire administered before and after the module highlighted its effectiveness. Prior to completing it, students with little or no experience in critical thinking reported low confidence in areas such as defining the concept and understanding its role in academic success. Afterward, their confidence increased measurably.

“One of the things we looked at was having students describe what they thought critical thinking was—like picking three words,” Schmidt said. “Before the module, many of their responses were fixed, innate concepts like ‘brain,’ ‘intelligence’ and ‘hard.’ By the end, words like ‘curiosity’ became some of the most popular, along with concepts such as perception and bias.”

“That demonstrated a dramatic shift from thinking about critical thinking as an innate skill to seeing it as something that can be developed, explored and practiced in class,” she added.

Why this is important: Sarvary called the module a “win-win” for students and faculty.

“This module benefits faculty as well because it’s discipline-independent and easy to implement in courses,” Sarvary said. “Helping students understand and evaluate AI outcomes is just a cherry on top.”

Schmidt highlighted its broader significance for higher education in the AI era.

“We’re at a pivotal moment where AI is effectively forcing higher ed to examine the unique value we provide,” Schmidt said. “The module gets the conversation started and gives students the foundational language to distinguish what’s artificial from what’s human intelligence.”

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