Dr Peter Ellerton
About Peter
Curriculum Director, University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Affiliate Senior Lecturer in Education
Fellow of the Rationalist Society of Australia
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Critical and Creative Thinking
Peter’s areas of focus include Public Reasoning, Science Communication, Argumentation and Critical Thinking in education. Peter has been a teacher educator and a syllabus designer for the International Baccalaureate Organisation, the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). Peter was one of a small team of academics redeveloping the 2021 ACARA Critical and Creative Thinking General Capability within the Australian Curriculum. He has consulted and produced papers for a variety of organisations including the European Commission Joint Research Centre, the NSW Department of Education, the Australian Defence Force, the Queensland Office of the Coordinator General, NSW Ombudsman and many private and public schools. He has delivered professional development in Teaching for Thinking to thousands of educators throughout Australia and internationally and has been invited to deliver programs at the University of California Los Angeles, Pepperdine University Los Angeles and Simone Fraser University in Canada and across South Africa. Peter's passion is working with educators to enable a teaching for Thinking focus across all year levels and subject areas.
Live projects:
Peter is one of a small team of academics to recently rewrite the Australian Curriculum General Capabilities in Critical and Creative Thinking.
Peter also sits on the ACARA National Assessment Program for Scientific Literacy (NAP-SL) working group.
Australian Research Council linkage grant on Problem Based Learning in STEM with Monash University, Brisbane Catholic Education and Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools.
Peter is an expert contributor to the European Commission Joint Research Centre's Enlightenment 2.0 project, involving public reasoning in political processes and developing meaningful and ethical communication.
Thinking Schools India — A project linking leading Indian schools and educators with students and parents to deliver a thinking focussed education.
The Aspiring Thinkers Network linking thousands of educators and institutions internationally to deliver professional learning in a Teaching for Thinking pedagogy.
Teacher comments on Teaching for Thinking workshops
Media
Peter's TedxBrisbane Talk: The right to be heard is not the right to be taken seriously
Peter's articles on The Conversation (over 2.7 million reads)
A video abstract of our paper: Cook, John, Ellerton, Peter and Kinkead, David (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 13 (2) 024018, 024018. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaa49f
Some resources for teachers
Peter's Youtube Channel for educators involved in critical thinking
A philosophy and critical thinking course developed by Peter and colleagues at the University of Queensland on the EDx platform.
Register below:
https://learning.edx.org/course/course-v1:UQx+META101x+1T2020/home
A critical thinking matrix to map critical thinking skills
Some publications
Ellerton, P., & Kelly, R. (2021). Creativity and Critical Thinking. In A. Berry, C. Buntting, D. Corrigan, R. Gunstone, & A. Jones (Eds.), Education in the 21st Century: STEM, Creativity and Critical Thinking (pp. 9–27). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85300-6_2
On Critical Thinking and Collaborative Inquiry: Occasional paper commissioned by the NSW Department of Education National Initiatives & Performance
PREPRINT: On critical thinking and content knowledge: a critique of the assumptions of cognitive load theory. Ellerton, P. (2021, June 18). https://doi.org/10.31231/osf.io/vy687
PREPRINT: Critical thinking and the methodology of science. Ellerton, P. (2021, June 29). https://doi.org/10.31231/osf.io/xvwu7
Working from theory: developing the bases of teachers’ critical thinking pedagogies through action research
Hegazy, Hind, Ellerton, Peter, Campos-Remon, Hannah, Zaphir, Luke, Mazzola, Claudio and Brown, Deborah (2021). Working from theory: developing the bases of teachers’ critical thinking pedagogies through action research. Educational Action Research, 1-16. doi: 10.1080/09650792.2021.1877757Foundations of the DEFT Project: tertiary educators Developing Expertise Fostering Thinking
Osborn, Judy-anne, Larkins, Jo-Ann, McBain, Bonnie, Ellerton, Peter, Black, Joel, Borwein, Naomi, Breuer, Florian and Roberts, Malcom (2020). Foundations of the DEFT Project: tertiary educators Developing Expertise Fostering Thinking. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 28 (2), 2-15. doi: 10.30722/ijisme.28.02.001Reichenbachian common cause clusters
Mazzola, Claudio, Kinkead, David, Ellerton, Peter and Brown, Deborah (2020). Reichenbachian common cause clusters. Erkenntnis. doi: 10.1007/s10670-020-00269-6Reasons: a digital argument mapping library for modern browsers
Kinkead, Dave, Brown, Deborah, Ellerton, Peter and Mazzola, Claudio (2019). Reasons: a digital argument mapping library for modern browsers. Journal of Open Source Software, 4 (37), 1044. doi: 10.21105/joss.01044Critical Thinking in Adolescence
Ellerton, Peter (2019). Critical Thinking in Adolescence. The Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development. (pp. 1-1) edited by S. Hupp and J. Jewell. London, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9781119171492.wecad370Understanding our political nature: How to put knowledge and reason at the heart of political decision-making
Mair, D., Smillie, L., La Placa, G., Schwendinger, F., Raykovska, M., Pasztor, Z., van Bavel, R. and Ellerton, Peter (Expert Contributor) (2019). Understanding our political nature: How to put knowledge and reason at the heart of political decision-making. Luxembourg, Belgium: Publications Office of the European Union. doi: 10.2760/374191Reasons: a digital argument mapping library for modern browsers
Kinkead, Dave, Brown, Deborah, Ellerton, Peter and Mazzola, Claudio (2019). Reasons: a digital argument mapping library for modern browsers. Journal of Open Source Software, 4 (37), 1044. doi: 10.21105/joss.01044Detailed list of studies identified in systematic review of published research examining the critical thinking of higher education students
Lodge, Jason, Pezaro, Charlotte, Brown, Deborah, Kent, Kirsty, Corbett, Brooklyn and Ellerton, Peter (2019). Detailed list of studies identified in systematic review of published research examining the critical thinking of higher education students. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2019.964Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors
Cook, John, Ellerton, Peter and Kinkead, David (2018). Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors. Environmental Research Letters, 13 (2) 024018, 024018. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/aaa49fHow to read an ethics paper
Jansen, Melanie and Ellerton, Peter (2018). How to read an ethics paper. Journal of Medical Ethics, 44 (12), 810-813. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2018-104997Pragmatic epistemology, inquiry values and education for thinking
Ellerton, Peter (2017). Pragmatic epistemology, inquiry values and education for thinking. The Routledge international handbook of philosophy for children. (pp. 111-118) edited by Maughn Rollins Gregory, Joanna Haynes and Karin Murris. New York, NY United States: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315726625Settling Science - why the scientific method confuses us
Ellerton, Peter (2017). Settling Science - why the scientific method confuses us. The Best Australian Science Writing 2017. (pp. ---) Sydney NSW Australia: NewSouth Publishing.Metacognition and critical thinking: some pedagogical imperatives
Ellerton, Peter (2015). Metacognition and critical thinking: some pedagogical imperatives. Palgrave handbook of critical thinking in higher education. (pp. 409-426) edited by M. Davies and R. Barnett. US: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-1-137-37805-7_25
Full list of publications