It is an admirable representative of its type. And we believe no undergraduate education is complete without some use of the contrasting, active learning model. Active learning, often thought to be the most effective mode of improving critical reading, writing, and thinking, usually involves critical practice. For example, critical reading is thought to be improved by the experience of presenting one's interpretation of a text in discussion. Engaging in discussion of reasons for conclusions, relevance of textual citations, and criteria by which one might choose one interpretation over another is a powerful way of improving one's ability to understand texts.
Similar methods seem to work well to improve writing and thinking.
Essentially, they require practice in the presence of critical interlocutors. In our view, an important use of technology is to provide students with new occasions for critical practice. The expert confronted by a programmer must comprehend the subject in question with a kind of precision otherwise rarely necessary. Students probably benefit from reading hypertexts prepared by their teachers, from considering textual statistics gleaned by scholars in the field, or from observing the operation of AI programs like David Cope's Experiments in Musical Intelligence . However, we are convinced that making hypertexts, gathering statistics, and building story generators are activities which particularly engage students in critical thinking as they try to construct knowledge in the company of peers and teacher.