Critical thinking is a series learned skills. In each chapter of this book you will find a variety of skills that will help you improve your thinking and argumentative ability. As you improve, you will grow into a more confident person being more in charge of your world and the decisions you make.

Arguments in Context is a comprehensive introduction to critical thinking that covers all the basics in student-friendly language. Intended for use in a semester-long course, the text features classroom-tested examples and exercises that have been chosen to emphasize the relevance and applicability of the subject to everyday life. Three themes are developed as the text proceeds from argument identification and analysis, to the standards and techniques of evaluation: (i) the importance of asking the right questions, (ii) the influence of biases, cognitive illusions, and other psychological factors, and (iii) the ways that social situations and structures can enhance and impoverish our thinking. On this last point, the text includes sustained discussion of disagreement, cooperative dialogue, testimony, trust, and social media. Overall, the text aims to equip readers with a set of tools for working through important decisions and disagreements, and to help them become more careful and active thinkers.

Arithmetic | Algebra provides a customized open-source textbook for the math developmental students at New York City College of Technology. The book consists of short chapters, addressing essential concepts necessary to successfully proceed to credit-level math courses. Each chapter provides several solved examples and one unsolved “Exit Problem”. Each chapter is also supplemented by its own WeBWork online homework assignment. The book can be used in conjunction with WeBWork for homework (online) or with the Arithmetic | Algebra Homework handbook (traditional). The content in the book, WeBWork and the homework handbook are also aligned to prepare students for the CUNY Elementary Algebra Final Exam (CEAFE).

This course is an arithmetic course intended for college students, covering whole numbers, fractions, decimals, percents, ratios and proportions, geometry, measurement, statistics, and integers using an integrated geometry and statistics approach. The course uses the late integers model—integers are only introduced at the end of the course.

The text is mostly an adaptation of two other excellent open- source calculus textbooks: Active Calculus by Dr. Matt Boelkins of Grand Valley State University and Drs. Gregory Hartman, Brian Heinold, Troy Siemers, Dimplekumar Chalishajar, and Jennifer Bowen of the Virginia Military Institute and Mount Saint Mary's University. Both of these texts can be found at http://aimath.org/textbooks/approved-textbooks/.
The authors of this text have combined sections, examples, and exercises from the above two texts along with some of their own content to generate this text. The impetus for the creation of this text was to adopt an open-source textbook for Calculus while maintaining the typical schedule and content of the calculus sequence at our home institution.

History of Art Survey course covering from prehistoric art to the Italian Renaissance. Cover image Lascaux Cave_France

History of Art Survey course covering from prehistoric art to the Italian Renaissance. Cover image Lascaux Cave_France

Courses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Librarianship in ALA-accredited Masters of Library and Information (MLIS) degrees are rare. We have all been surprised by ChatGPT and similar Large Language Models. Generative AI is an important new area for librarianship. It is also developing so rapidly that no one can really keep up. Those trying to produce AI courses for the MLIS degree need all the help they can get. This book is a gesture of support. It consists of about 95,000 words on the topic, with a 3-400 item bibliography.

Overview: Courses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Librarianship in ALA-accredited Masters of Library and Information (MLIS) degrees are rare. We have all been surprised by ChatGPT and similar Large Language Models. Generative AI is an important new area for librarianship. It is also developing so rapidly that no one can really keep up. Those trying to produce AI courses for the MLIS degree need all the help they can get. This book is a gesture of support. It consists of about 100,000 words on the topic, with a 4-500 item bibliography. It is the 2024 Second Edition of a 2023 book. It is about 100 pages longer than the first edition.

Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. “Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage,” Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. “Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. … It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one’s hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a “heroic” profession.” What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world’s jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology.

The materials within this guide are intended to support multidisciplinary teams in or during the pre-production phase of serious game design as they collaborate in a facilitated workshop. It is critical that the workshop facilitators are familiar with the conceptual framework and proposed methodology in order to better support participants as they collaborate in the game design brainstorming and protoyping steps.

This is an Arts 1303 - Art History I survey course designed based on Smarthistory.org, an OER art history textbook. Sources include Smarthistory as well as online materials produced by art museums including videos and art-historical essays. This is a Texas Core Course in Creative Arts. Developed by Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Texas A&M University-Commerce. This resource will continuously be updated throughout 2022.This course was developed for Texas art history instructors to replace expensive commonly used textbooks with OER content adaptable for use with various learning manage systems.*Unless otherwise noted all entries are licensed Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This is an Arts 1304 History of Art II course that compiles online OER resources primarily from Smarthistory.org, an OER art history textbook, and other online materials produced by art museums including videos and art historical essays.  Developed by Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Texas A&M University-Commerce, this is a Texas Core Course in Creative Arts designed to replace expensive commonly used textbooks with OER content adaptable for Texas art history instructors using various learning manage systems.*Unless otherwise noted all entries are licensed under Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 

This open textbook was created with the support of an ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Topics include art integration, music integration, physical education / dance integration, and the theoretical foundations of arts integration in education

Astronomy is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of one- or two-semester introductory astronomy courses. The book begins with relevant scientific fundamentals and progresses through an exploration of the solar system, stars, galaxies, and cosmology. The Astronomy textbook builds student understanding through the use of relevant analogies, clear and non-technical explanations, and rich illustrations. Mathematics is included in a flexible manner to meet the needs of individual instructors.

Astronomy for Educators provides new and accomplished K-12 instructors with concepts and projects for low-cost, high-impact STEM classroom instruction that is built around the National Academies National Research Council's K-12 Framework for Science Education.

Intended for all audiences, this textbook is an introduction to the nature of the universe. Use it to research or review our solar system, stars, galaxies, and the history of the universe. Each chapter has a set of corresponding homework questions.

The goal of this Renal Pathology Atlas is to provide teaching material to veterinary pathologists and nephropathologists. The atlas demonstrates the breadth of lesions that can occur within a cohort of dogs presenting with the clinical sign of protein loss in the urine. Kidney samples were examined with multiple modalities including: histopathology, immunofluorescence and electron microscopy. Integration of these comprehensive evaluations with the clinical history can help veterinary pathologists and nephrologists to better understand the etiology and prognosis of renal lesions in proteinuric dogs.

The U.S. political system suffers from endemic design flaws and is notable for the way that a small subset of Americans—whose interests often don’t align with those of the vast majority of the population—wields disproportionate power. Absent organized and persistent action on the part of ordinary Americans, the system tends to serve the already powerful. That’s why this text is called Attenuated Democracy. To attenuate something is to make it weak or thin. Democracy in America has been thin from the beginning and continues to be so despite some notable progress in voting rights. As political scientists Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens wrote, “The essence of democracy is not just having reasonably satisfactory policies; the essence of democracy is popular control of government, with each citizen having an equal voice.” (1) Since this is likely to be your only college-level course on the American political system, it is important to point out the structural weaknesses of our system and the thin nature of our democracy. Whenever you get the chance—in the voting booth, in your job, perhaps if you hold elected office—I encourage you to do something about America’s attenuated democracy.