Caring and Critical Thinking: The Social and Ethical Dimension of an Educational Project

Abstract

The importance of critical thinking in innovative educational projects implies an appeal to finding means and ways to develop reasoning thinking activity. The problem of reorientation of the traditional information educational strategy raises questions of understanding the model of "learning as research". The university course "Logic and Critical Thinking" serves as a platform for the introduction of methodological principles of research education. The multilayered nature of the thinking process implies the integrative nature of its cognitive components and requires the study of the phenomenon of critical thinking, taking into account the appeal to the concept of "caring thinking". The theoretical foundations of pragmatism-instrumentalism are analyzed in order to identify the structure of the transformation of a problematic situation into a resolved one in the conditions of the organization of teaching critical thinking skills as a research process. The scientific novelty is represented by the understanding of "caring" within the framework of the educational project under study from the point of view of proclaiming and implementing the principles of the work of the study group as a community of researchers. The results of the socio-ethical nature obtained during the implementation of the program of the course "Logic and critical thinking", the methodological setting of which is the orientation to caring thinking, are shown.