Join our online scientific critical thinking network developed in collaboration with the University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley), Nobel Prize Outreach and Global Access Partners.

STANSW has partnered with UC Berkeley, Nobel Prize Outreach and Global Access Partners to provide NSW teachers training on practical activities that encourage critical scientific thinking amongst students.

2026 Critical Thinking Session 4: Skills for Evaluating Thinking 

In this session, our presenters from UC Berkeley will demonstrate a unit of work in which students learn and practice skills to help them evaluate a variety of information that they encounter in their lives, such as online information, social media posts, scientific investigations, and everyday situations. Students practice skills to help them determine whether information is factual and analyse the conclusions that are drawn from it. Students discuss the role of different types of cognition, such as cognitive shortcuts and biases (including confirmation bias), and consider the impact of these types of cognition on health decisions on individuals, scientific research, and society. Students will practice slow thinking techniques and an actively open mindset, which can be used to reduce the errors from fast thinking and cognitive biases when evaluating information and making decisions.

Further information and unit resources: Unit 5: Skills for Evaluating Thinking – Scientific Thinking for All: A Toolkit

S. Emlen Metz, PhD
Lawrence Hall of Science
University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Metz conducts qualitative and quantitative research on student and teacher thinking and learning about scientific critical thinking, using what she learns to develop curricula for high school and undergraduate classrooms. She is committed to building student understanding of key conceptual tools from science and psychology in such a way that they are able to use them beyond the classroom, towards more thoughtful and informed personal and societal decision-making. She is deeply interested in critical and scientific thinking as social practices, and strategies for scaffolding more effective dialogues. She earned a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017, working with Jon Baron, Michael Weisberg, and Angela Duckworth on the psychology of epistemology in adolescents and adults; and a B.A. from Swarthmore College in Philosophy and Psychology.

STANSW is a NESA recognised PD provider. This online session can be logged as 1 hour of PD towards maintaining Proficient Teacher Accreditation in NSW.