Empowering human thinking
Combining critical thinking skills with/ CT skills made to fit with the other human superpowers – creativity, imagination, empathy, intuition. Trainings and resources (created by a critical thinking teacher, author and examiner) designed for real world application.
... critical thinking & beyond
APPLIED CRITICAL AND ANALYTICAL THINKING
THINK CRITICALLY, CREATIVELY AND COLLABORATIVELY
THINK ALONGSIDE AI
Individuals
Individuals
Individuals
Individuals
Individuals
Individuals
Individuals
Maximise your thinking and its impact on the world. Whether you are an individual seeking to further your career, or an organisation seeking to improve its functionality, our stimulating and engaging workshops will sharpen and strengthen the most important resource you possess.
individuals
Tailored training and/ or coaching/ mentoring. Help individuals to maximise their thinking, giving them greater autonomy and agency. Develop strength and confidence in their judgment, the confidence to evaluate and propose ideas
teams and organisations
Group training to improve team alignment; the sharing of ideas. Maximise the most important asset of any team or organisation: the collective intelligence of its workforce
career progression and leadership
The need to make judgments and decisions is the hardest challenge of entering leadership or management roles. The skills we develop give you strength and confidence in your own judgment: the flexibility to act on your thinking but listen and adapt where necessary
Confidence in own judgment
Combine critical and creative thinking
Share your thinking more effectively
Link thinking to action
A matter of importance
WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO THINK CRITICALLY and to be able to this in complex, real-world contexts
Human thinking is amazing, but also vulnerable. If we don't take steps to empower it, we may lose the most valuable resource we possess.
WHY CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS ALONE ARE NOT ENOUGH to fully empower your thinking
HOW TO THINK ALONGSIDE AI so that it enhances and doesn't inhibit your thinking
THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT LEARNING A SKILL. IT'S ABOUT RECLAIMING THE POWER OF HUMAN THINKING IN AN AGE WHEN MACHINES THREATEN TO DO IT FOR US. THE URGENCY IS CLEAR: IF WE DON'T EMPOWER OUR THINKING, WE RISK LOSING OUR ABILITY TO DO SO."
Joe Chislett, KRITIKOS Founder
How we help
Expert-led critical thinking training
Real world critical thinking strategies taught by an expert in the field. Joe literally co-wrote the book A-Z of critical thinking, and has been teaching and assessing critical thinking skills for over 20 years.
"Maximise your thinking" workshops
The skills you need alongside critical thinking for your thinking to fully impact the world. Combine critical thinking with creative thinking, intuition, the skills to share your thinking with others - and to act on it!
Thinking with AI
We are embodied beings who have evolved to think in a social context. But we are also individuals with our own thoughts and needs. We now face a new challenge - technology that offers to do our thinking for us! Our AI-focused workshops help you to think independently and collaboratively - both with people and AI.
I FOUND THE SESSION VERY POWERFUL. IT HAS LEFT ME A LOT TO GO AND REFLECT ON!
Nick, Senior Leadership Team, Waingels College
A high stakes game...
We're at a tipping point with regard to our thinking: use it, or lose it. Use it, and you reap the full benefits from AI; lose it, and you lose your value, your very identity as a human being.
I’m Joe. For over twenty years I’ve worked at the heart of critical thinking—teaching it, assessing it, co‑authoring books and papers, and designing tests used around the world to measure critical and analytical thinking.
I understand the full value of this, and what it means to do it well. But I've also come to see the value of what the tests fail to test - the other aspects of human intelligence that we need alongside critical and analytical thinking for our thinking to be fully empowered. The ability to share and communicate our thinking effectively. To combine critical and creative thinking so that you can generate as well as evaluate ideas.
The onward march of AI has revealed to us the full value and range of human thinking - but also its vulnerability. With KRITIKOS, I use my knowledge and expertise of what the tests assess but also my insight into what the tests fail to test.
I take you through critical thinking and beyond so as to fully empower your thinking.
Introducing our programme areas
Our workshops and trainings fall into three main areas: core critical and analytical thinking skills; the skills you need alongside these for your thinking to be fully empowered; and how to meet the particular challenges to our thinking posed by AI. Click on a particular workshop to find out more about the specific learning outcomes and running times.
Critical Thinking
CENTRAL THEMES
WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO THINK CRITICALLY; CHALLENGES FACED; PRACTICAL STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME
CRITICAL THINKING EMERGENCY SURGERY
The focus here is on clearing away popular misconceptions of what critical thinking involves and replacing them with some more useful, accurate, practical strategies.
This is the best short introductory workshop on critical thinking you will find!
CRITICAL THINKING THAT WORKS (Standard programme)
Goes beyond mere emergency surgery into proper reconstruction: a tour of the fundamentals of critical thinking and how to apply them to real world contexts.
CRITICAL THINKING THAT WORKS (Full course)
A deeper dive into the skills and concepts involved in high level, strategic, critical thinking. This course also includes a chance to fully test your skills acquired across the course in an extended practical challenge.
WHY CHOOSE A CRITICAL THINKING WORKSHOP
In today’s world of overwhelming information and machine-generated answers, judging what is true or important is more vital but also more difficult than ever before. Critical thinking is the engine behind making good judgments. Not only is it harder than ever to think critically, however. Popular advice about critical thinking is all too often unhelpful or lacks clear practical application.
KRITIKOS corrects this. Drawing on decades of experience designing thinking skills tests, teaching, and assessing critical thinking, we provide advice that is:
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practical
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relevant
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genuinely helpful
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in tune with the needs of real people and the real world contexts they think in.
Beyond Critical Thinking
CENTRAL THEMES
WHAT ELSE WE NEED TO DO FOR OUR THINKING TO BE TRULY EMPOWERD. HOW TO COMBINE THINKING CREATIVELY AND COLLABORATIVELY WITH THINKING CRITICALLY, LINK THINKING TO ACTION
CRITICAL THINKING AND BEYOND: Maximise your thinking and its impact on the world
Although essential critical thinking skills are not sufficient for our thinking to be truly empowered. For our thinking to impact the world, we need to be able to generate ideas as well as evaluate them; we also need to be able to share our thinking effectively, and also act on it. This unique programme takes you on a tour of the human mind, and provides you with the training and skills you need alongisde your knowledge for your thinking to truly impact the world.
MAXIMISE YOUR THINKING (Full course)
As above but goes more extensively into the challenges posed in thinking critically, creatively, interpersonally and expeditiously.
SHARING THINKING
Focused workshop on the challenges involved in sharing and communicating thinking. How to agree - and disagree - productively; avoid groupthink; defend and argue for own ideas without alienating others
COMBINING CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING
Focused workshop on the challenges involved in combining the two most important aspects of human thinking, but which are sometimes in tension: our ability to think critically and creatively.
WHY CHOOSE A 'BEYOND CRITICAL THINKING WORKSHOP
Critical thinking is essential, but it’s not enough on its own for our thinking to truly be empowered. Humans are not machines—we are logical and creative, rational and emotional, instinctive and imaginative. Our thinking happens in bodies, in communities, in conversation, and increasingly alongside AI.
That’s why KRITIKOS goes beyond critical thinking. We teach you not only how to evaluate ideas, but how to:
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Generate new ones through creativity.
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Share them effectively with others.
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Challenge and refine the outputs of AI.
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Link thought to action, so ideas make a real-world impact.
Thinking with AI
CENTRAL THEMES
HOW TO THINK EFFECTIVELY ALONGSIDE AI: HOW TO USE AI JUDICIOUSLY; HOW TO ENSURE THAT AI BECOMES A THINKING PARTNER, NOT A REPLACEMENT
THINKING ALONGSIDE AI
How do we continue to think effectively alongside AI? Does it threaten to erode our thinking, or can we use it to challenge and extend our thinking
SHARING THINKING: WITH PEOPLE AND MACHINES
Sharing our thinking effectively with other people already presents its challenges. How can we do this more effectively? What about when we are sharing our thinking with AI? Can we use the same skills we need to use for sharing our thinking with it as we do with people?
CRITICAL THINKING AND AI
For people who already have taken one of the critical thinking courses or whose critical thinking skills are already advanced: how can we apply them best to dealing with the output from AI?
WHY CHOSE A THINKING ALONGSIDE AI WORKSHOP
For our thinking to be fully empowered - and to benefit from the advantages technology brings, we need AI to become a thinking partner, not replacement. Now that machines offer to make our judgments for us - both in terms of what we receive, and what we put out - the temptation is all too great to give in to them. Before long we lose the confidence and ability to think for ourselves.
KRITIKOS gives you the confidence to continue to think and judge for yourselves, meaning that you:
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Use AI judiciously, maintaining a critical distance
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Have the confidence to go with your own ideas and contributions rather than always defer to those of AI
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Understand where and how AI can support your thinking or challenge it
putting together your training
Diagnosing your needs
We always like to begin by finding out where, as an individual or an organisation, your main areas of strength are, and which areas where you would like further support. We can help you to diagnose these, with some simple interview or survey questions, which you can do in person or virtually. Often the issue is as much one of confidence as anything else, and this is something - with our focus on interpersonal/ sharing thinking - we are strong on.
Focus on desired area
Once we know which area or areas to target, we are able to personalise the training you need, with special focus on the desired area or areas.
To find out more about the ways we could support you and the training options available, please get in touch. Examples of activities and things you learn are often shared on LinkedIn so consider following us there
teaching approach and pedagogy
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teaching background
Joe is an experienced teacher and teaching coach; he spent 17 years teaching 16-19 year olds so he knows how to keep lessons interactive and engaging!
avoid cognitive load
Joe is careful to avoid the use of unnecessary technical terminology. The aim after all is to bring clarity to people's thinking, not further clutter. He only selects the ideas that have the most cognitive fluency, and that are the most directly effective in terms of developing the four skill areas above
practical application
The focus throughout is on real world application. Ideas are applied to real world situations and contexts; delegates learn by doing, and discussing - and solving - problems together.
TESTIMONIALS
Our Clients Say
“The critical thinking course has made me more conscious of my thinking and equipped me with practical and easily applicable points for critical thinking. The refresher documents on the four principles provided after the course were particularly helpful, reinforcing my memory and awareness of these key points. It's heightened my awareness of biases in communication, enabling me to communicate more effectively. I feel more confident and empowered in my thinking and this course has truly helped me in my ways of communicating, both professionally and personally.”
Anne-Sofie, Graduate Training Programme, Stibo Systems, Aarhus, Denmark
BACKGROUND
KRITIKOS: the origin story
KRITIKOS evolved from my work in both logical, analytical thinking, but also in more 'human' areas, for example teaching Literature, Drama, Creative Writing, and on emotionally-charged projects and contexts, which involved actual behavioural change (projects to prevent violent extremism).
From out of this combination, I saw what was powerful about analytical, critical thinking; but I also saw its limitations. Increasingly, I became interested in how humans really think and operate – what goes on when we think, and what makes our thinking special.
From this, I developed an approach to empowering human thinking that was true to our nature, and to the context we think in.
My background
My background spans teaching and examining higher order thinking skills as well as teaching Philosophy, English Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing. I have worked with emotionally vulnerable people on initiatives to prevent violent extremism, and run poetry workshops in a local primary school. I have delivered workshops and training programmes to both schools and businesses (see testimonials.) A skilled teacher and teaching coach, I pride myself on delivering engaging trainings that fully engage all aspects of people's thinking,
In terms of my work in thinking skills, I have over 20 years experience designing and writing for high stakes aptitude tests, including questions that assess critical thinking, data analysis, logical thinking and problem-solving. I was a senior examiner for the UK A level in Critical Thinking, and am currently a senior examiner for the International A level Knowledge and Inquiry. I have co-authored textbooks and papers in Nature magazine on how to assess evidence across different academic fields, as well as acting as a consultant on programmes to help people assess claims in health and medicine. Prior to teaching I worked in radio.
