Evolution of Critical Thinking - Cognitive Science and Multi-modal Learning
- Kiran Goojha
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Over the weekend, my best friend shared an old article that I had written for our undergrad newsletter - part of our Journalism program (Queens College ftw!) and I had completely forgotten that I had written it. Or any related articles. And one of the first thoughts I had after reminiscing with her was how grateful I am to have had that formalized training in research, analysis and storytelling, even though back then I had dreams of being an on air anchor (I was later advised that I'd be a stellar producer) and this was just one of the skills I needed to address to get me there.
When I see how much in the last 20+ years critical thinking has been slowly leeched away from general knowledge and public discourse, I can't help but connect the dots.
The defunding and dismissal of liberal arts education didn't happen overnight. It was a slow, quiet shift — one where "practical" degrees were elevated and the humanities were rebranded as a luxury. An elitist indulgence. Something you studied if you could afford not to be employable. But here's what got lost in that framing: journalism, philosophy, literature, history — these weren't just subjects. They were the training ground for how to think. How to ask the right questions. How to sit with complexity and not reach for the nearest comfortable answer.
And we are living in the consequences of that trade-off right now.
The rise in confirmation bias isn't just a social media problem — though the algorithms absolutely pour fuel on the fire. The deeper issue is that we stopped formally teaching people how to interrogate information. How to identify a primary source. How to hold two conflicting things as simultaneously true while you figure out what's actually going on. When we stripped those skills from standard curricula and told an entire generation that a liberal arts foundation was somehow less-than, we didn't just change what people studied. We changed how they process reality.
And no — before we blame TikTok and ChatGPT for everything — the erosion started long before the FYP existed.
That said, I don't think the answer is to pretend the world hasn't changed. Because it has. Visual learning is real. Short-form content has rewired attention in ways we're still measuring. The students in front of educators today are not the students of 20 years ago, and meeting them where they are isn't a compromise — it's good teaching.
The research actually backs this up. Studies in cognitive science and education have consistently shown that multimodal learning — combining visual, auditory, and text-based instruction — improves retention and comprehension across age groups. And yes, TikTok-style formats can be a legitimate on-ramp to deeper engagement if they're used with intention and not as a replacement for the harder work.
Because the harder work still matters enormously. Reading long-form. Writing with structure. Building an argument from evidence rather than vibes. These aren't nostalgic preferences — they're neurologically significant. Sustained reading builds the kind of deep attention, vocabulary, and inferential reasoning that no 60-second video can replicate. Writing forces you to organize thought in ways that speaking alone simply doesn't.
We don't have to choose between honoring how young people actually learn today and insisting they develop the cognitive foundations that will serve them for life. That's a false binary — and frankly, thinking in false binaries is exactly the problem we're trying to solve.
We need educators, institutions, and yes — employers and industry leaders — to stop treating critical thinking as a soft skill and start treating it as the infrastructure it actually is. Because a population that can't evaluate information, can't tolerate nuance, and can't distinguish between a primary source and an opinion piece dressed up as one is not just an education problem.
It's an everything problem.
My Journalism and English classes gave me the tools to think before I had the wisdom to fully appreciate them.
Grateful doesn't quite cover it. 🎙️
Sources: "Techniques That Reduce Extraneous Cognitive Load... during Multimedia Learning" – A very current look at how modern mobile and digital learning tasks manage the brain's "mental effort." "Design of an integrated multi-modal machine learning framework..." – This study uses AI to estimate cognitive load in real-time and confirms that multi-modal frameworks significantly optimize learning outcomes.
Comments