Any debate or reflection on the impact of artificial intelligence on education and intelligence inevitably leads to a discussion of critical thinking . This technology is changing how students learn and how teachers assess learning, and in the face of this transformation, critical thinking is often presented as the appropriate pedagogical response.
But as AI changes the way we learn and teach, it’s easy to overlook a crucial question: what does critical thinking really mean in today’s world?
There is a real danger that it will become an empty buzzword, an overly simplistic and supposedly universal antidote to this new reality in which increasingly sophisticated information, explanations and results are just a click away.
Expanding the definitions
Critical thinking is generally understood as a complex and valuable set of skills and habits. It includes the ability to evaluate evidence, assess arguments, identify assumptions, distinguish stronger from weaker claims, and draw reasoned conclusions.
These skills remain vital, but they do not fully encompass what students need to cope with the cognitive challenges of an AI-driven world.
Recent research has begun to explore this distinction through concepts such as digital critical thinking , which incorporates the idea that online environments, shaped by opaque algorithms, personalization, and platform information, demand that people interpret not only the content they encounter, but also how they came to view it in the first place.
As the environments in which we learn and live evolve, so too should our understanding of critical thinking. As a civics education researcher, I believe the answers lie not in abandoning traditional definitions of critical thinking, but in broadening them.
Reflection and judgment
Critical thinking develops in two steps. The first is reflection, that vital micro-moment of pause and consideration that precedes the second step: the formation of a judgment.
Reflection requires people to question evidence, examine assumptions, compare opposing interpretations, recognize the limits of their own perspective, and be willing to revise their conclusions in light of stronger arguments or new information.
But modern digital spaces aggressively shape our attention . Digital platforms decide what is visible, reliable, and worthy of attention, and then deliver content to users in the form of short videos, brief reviews, and endlessly scrollable feeds .
Critical thinking is difficult in these digital spaces because the time and space needed for reflection disappear. Instead, users are likely to move directly from consumption to judgment.
Reflection, a necessary intermediary between consumption and judgment
However, we can still foster the crucial first stage of reflection outside of these digital environments. And, like any meaningful educational goal, this habit isn’t acquired solely through instruction. It’s cultivated gradually through repeated practice, feedback, reflection, and revision throughout the curriculum.
Although critical thinking begins with disciplined reflection, it doesn’t end there. Reflection prepares us to exercise judgment.
Judgment is where thought begins to guide action. It’s where we decide what deserves our attention, how much trust to place in our knowledge, and what responsibilities arise from that. It determines how we ultimately participate alongside others in situations where we can’t be 100% certain of what we know.
The key ingredient: intellectual humility
One of education’s less publicized achievements is that it helps students discover the limits of their own understanding. Wrestling with difficult ideas, constructing arguments, making mistakes, and revising one’s reasoning do far more than simply produce knowledge. These processes gradually calibrate judgment by teaching students the difference between arriving at an answer and meaningfully understanding a topic.
With AI-based tools, it’s easier than ever to produce work that, at first glance, appears thoughtful, persuasive, and sophisticated . A person can appear knowledgeable and eloquent without ever having done the difficult cognitive work of developing genuine understanding.
Therefore, students must be taught to distinguish between a response and genuine understanding. The ability to write a fluent and well-constructed text is a completely different skill from the ability to develop a sound argument. In fact, witty prose can often mask or distract from a lack of clear understanding.
Appearance versus depth
But the risk isn’t that AI will create students incapable of thinking. The risk is that it will become increasingly easy to mistake polished execution for intellectual depth, both in ourselves and in others.
This is where intellectual humility comes into play . It’s not about modesty or a lack of confidence, but about the ability to recognize the limits of one’s own understanding, to be open to revision, and to calibrate confidence based on what one actually knows. Intellectual humility is what prevents judgment from hardening into blind certainty.
This capacity makes critical thinking more than just a set of cognitive skills. It becomes part of a broader educational project, preparing students to exercise their judgment responsibly in relation to others and the shared world in which they live.
Protect democracy
Democratic societies depend on people who can weigh opposing arguments, recognize uncertainty without being paralyzed by it, and revise their opinions when necessary.
Although these abilities do not emerge on their own, they can be developed through educational experiences that repeatedly ask students not only what they think, but also how they arrived at a particular conclusion, what evidence might lead them to reconsider it, and how much confidence it really deserves.
Beyond an isolated skill
From this broader perspective, critical thinking cannot be reduced to an isolated skill, integrated into a single subject, or measured by a single assessment. It is cultivated across all disciplines through experiences that compel students to revise their conclusions in light of new evidence, defend opposing interpretations, explain the reasoning behind their decisions, and honestly reflect on the limits of their own understanding.
In practice, this translates into a scientific experiment that refutes a student’s hypothesis, a history class in which contradictory interpretations of the same event are compared, or a literary debate that explores multiple readings of a text.
These types of tasks require students to practice the same habit: exercising judgment with intellectual humility. The goal is not simply to arrive at the correct answer, but to learn to recognize when their own reasoning needs to be questioned, refined, or modified.
Ultimately, this habit prepares students for today’s real world, where challenges rarely have clear answers or complete information. Like all adults, students will have to grapple with conflicting claims and public debates, often on algorithmically managed platforms filled with AI-generated content.
In these spaces, trust tends to come before understanding.
Question and reconsider
Democratic societies need citizens who have practiced the difficult task of examining their opinions. The classroom offers a safe and low-risk environment to train this skill before putting it into practice in the real world.
Schools and universities have a duty to teach students how to exercise sound judgment in the face of uncertainty, disagreement, and complexity. This task does not begin by teaching critical thinking as an isolated skill, but rather by designing learning experiences that repeatedly invite students to question, review, justify, and reconsider their own thinking across all disciplines.
By doing so, intellectual humility becomes not just an academic exercise, but a deeply ingrained civic habit.
Author Bio: Sara Kells is the Director of Program Management at IE Digital Learning and Adjunct Professor of Humanities at IE University
