Critical Thinking Bootcamp Toolkit 2024

Sage’s fifth annual Critical Thinking Bootcamp explored critical thinking and global democracy. The event included a thought-provoking examination of how AI and social media impact on democracy, strategies for equipping learners with information literacy skills, and how democracy and science can learn from each other.

This toolkit offers resources from presenters and participants, and further resources from Sage on these topics.

This toolkit includes:

• Resources from the Bootcamp

  • Digital resources

  • Free-to-access articles and book chapters

  • Books

• Recommended resources from Sage

  • Digital resources

  • Books

• Speakers’ slides

If you have feedback or questions, please reach out to: press@sagepub.com

Resources recommended by our Bootcamp speakers and attendees.

Digital resources

Be MediaWise: A Misinformation Resilience Toolkit For Libraries | A toolkit that invites you to explore your engagement with online information and teaches you how to navigate the internet world safely and confidently.

Election Cycle Tracker | An interactive map from Anchor Change showing the 83 elections taking place over 78 countries in 2024, as well as elections in future years.

TrueMedia.org | Evaluates images and videos to assess whether they have been AI-generated.

The SIFT Method | Infographic from University of Oregon Libraries describing how to use the SIFT method for evaluating information in a digital world.

Political Advertising Literacy Tips | Tips on evaluating political advertising from the Political Advertising Literacy Research Group at the University of Tennessee and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Digital Threats to Democracy initiative | An initiative from The Carter Center that has developed tools and methodologies to assess a range of issues in the online/digital information ecosystem related to democracy, elections, and broader political processes.

Global Freedom Status | An interactive map from Freedom House that assigns a freedom score and status to 210 countries and territories.

Free-to-access articles and book chapters

From a crisis of confidence towards confidence in a crisis: What can we learn about the pandemic’s impact on democracy? | Free access to Reema Patel’s chapter in Governance, Democracy and Ethics in Crisis-Decision-Making: The Pandemic and Beyond, edited by Caroline Redhead and Melanie Smallman

Are Online Political Influencers Accelerating Democratic Deconsolidation? | The research outputs discussed in Rachel Gibson’s presentation. Rachel Gibson, Esmeralda Bon, Philipp Darius and Peter Smyth

Critical Thinking, Information Literacy and Democracy: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Tackle Misinformation and Prepare Students for Active Citizenship | Barbara Robertson and Tamra Ortgies-Young

Building Civic Competencies: Design and Outcomes in Media Literacy Instruction | Barbara Robertson and Tamra Ortgies-Young

Books

Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality - Renée DiResta

Trolling Ourselves to Death: Democracy in the Age of Social Media - Jason Hannan

How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future - Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power - Shoshana Zuboff

Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics - Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters for America

When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences - Eric Alterman

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business - Neil Postman

The Cruelty is the Point: Why Trump’s America Endures - Adam Serwer

Digital resources

Critical Thinking Hub | Free resources from Sage on Critical Thinking, including webinars, student resources, and a toolkit from Sage and the American Library Association.

How to think critically | A collection of free resources to help students develop critical thinking skills, including book extracts, webinars, and more.

Information Literacy online courses | A collection of courses from Sage Campus covering critical thinking, fact-checking sources, developing your search strategy, and the art of ChatGPT interactions.

Democracy and Elections Hub | Free resources for researching and teaching about democracy and the upcoming elections.

Previous Bootcamps | View recordings and toolkits from past Critical Thinking Bootcamps: 2023 Bootcamp - 2022 Bootcamp - 2021 Bootcamp - 2020 Bootcamp

Books

Download presentation slides from some of our speakers.