Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

I am often asked by my students what the best ways are to demonstrate critical thinking in their essays. The answer is quite simply to look both ways. Providing a balanced and objective argument where opposing perspectives are considered, is always a good foundation for criticality. But we can do much better than that. Critical analysis is where students can understand several ideas or theories, and can show how they are related. Critical evaluation is where they take the synthesis (coalescence) of these ideas and judge their collective and individual worth, in the context of the essay question.