The following is an excerpt from chapter 1, “Critical Thinking in PBL” from PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Creativity, published in 2015 by BIE; principal author Suzie Boss.

Discussions of 21st century learning consistently emphasize the need for critical thinking, as if this were a new goal for education. Of course, these competencies are far from new. The teachings of Socrates — exhorting us to seek evidence and examine assumptions for bias or faulty logic — are as applicable today as they were 2,500 years ago.