What does good "Critical Thinking" look like?

Any survey of employers, such as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and others, of characteristics they are looking for from today's students, in the top 3 will be 'critical thinking.' In general, this is being able to take a complex problem or situation and think it through logically and with an open mind, finding and using evidence to support whatever answer or conclusion you come up with for that problem. It is also being able to research the problem using credible, reliable sources of information to do so.

Here is a pretty good guide or rubric to determine whether you are doing a good job with critical thinking, on a 4-point scale:

1. does not contribute to the solution, using opinion instead of independent evidence;
2. answers question but without justification, agree/disagree but without saying why, incomplete sentences/thoughts and punctuation;
3. justify your position, opinion or answer to the problem, say why you agree or disagree, using complete sentences and thoughts;
4. justify your position, opinion or answer using text evidence (from credible, reliable sources) and real-world examples, ask questions of others, use complete sentences and thoughts with correct punctuation and grammar