Critical Thinking: Logic, Argumentation, and Proofs (6-Week Course, 13-18 Teen)

Critical Thinking: Logic and Argumentation (8 Week Course)
Teacher Nathan Saint Ours MA

In this course, I will use power point slides and lectures to teach students basic logical concepts. I will also encourage in-class discussion and exercises that help students practice what they have learned. I advise that students take my single-day course on Introduction to Logic prior to taking the 6 week course, but this is not necessary. We will go into everything that I teach in the single course in more detail here. 

Week 1: What is an argument? This week we will learn about logical statements, premises, conclusions, and the structure of proper logical arguments. The students will practice coming up with arguments on their own and they will learn to differentiate arguments from simple statements. 

Week 2: This week we will practice writing arguments in standard form. We will practice reading passages that have arguments in them and I will ask the students to write each of the arguments that they find in standard form. 

Week 3: The students will learn the difference between inductive and deductive arguments. They will practice identifying and providing examples of each. They will also be introduced to some basic fallacies that can be applied to each argument. I will also be asking students cumulative questions each week to make sure that they have retained the material from the previous week.

Week 4: I will introduce the students to formal proofs. We will spend the class attempting simple proofs and learning the proper form of a logical proof. 

Week 5: We will practice more difficult proofs and learn about basic rules of inference in logic, like modus ponens and modus tollens. If there is time, students will be introduced to truth tables. 

Week 6:  We will learn more about truth tables and practice using them to prove logical arguments. We will also use truth tables to deduce the rules of inference that we learned in week 5.