There are many ways to design a study group for the purpose of developing one’s critical thinking abilities and character traits. They will entail certain key ingredients if they are to be successful.

First, those in the study group must be clear about their purposes and share the same basic purposes in studying and learning the material.

Second, the material must be carefully chosen with sufficient depth to engage the members of the group throughout the study group process.

Third, those in the study group must all agree to complete certain assignments or tasks in between each study group session – and they must follow through on this agreement for everyone to significantly benefit from their participation.

The study group process should involve a reasonable length of time, something that everyone in the group can commit to, and which is long enough for participants to benefit from the time spent in the study group. We suggest six weeks as a beginning place, with a meeting each week.

For the meetings, participants should arrange to meet online through Skype, Google Hangouts, or any other format that allows for live remote conferences.

At the first meeting, you should set the stage for the study group, and the group should agree upon the reading material and processes to be used.

For each subsequent meeting, here is a basic format that can be used:

1. Discuss the papers written for the meeting. This is described below under the heading, ‘Format for Papers for Each Meeting.’
2. As an optional follow-up to the above discussion, further discuss the reading material. For the readings, answer these questions:
   1. What do you understand these pages to be saying? In other words, how are you interpreting the content that was to be read for this session?
   2. How does this content relate to previous content learned in critical thinking?
   3. What are some important implications for teaching and learning, and for professional and personal life? In other words, considering implications, how would we live differently if we take this content seriously? How might students or trainees think about instruction differently? How might people in business and government think differently? How might _________ [fill in the blank] think differently?
3. Discuss how the concepts and principles of critical thinking that you are learning help you in any part of your life.
4. Optional:
   
   Bring in a classic quote or otherwise significant reading that connects with the readings or learning you are doing. In this way, you interrelate critical thinking concepts and principles with other readings important to the development of human ideas, ideals, and more sublime ways of living. For suggestions, see the list on our article, 'Reading Backwards.'
5. Agree upon the reading material for the next session. Videos can also be used from our Video Library.

We suggest that each person write a paper based on the reading or video assignment, using the following format, and share it with one another prior to each meeting:

1. State the main point or points being made in the reading or video material.
2. Elaborate the main point or points using four to five sentences for each main point.
3. Give at least one example from real life that illuminates the importance of the main point or points.

Sharing the papers can be optional, and exchanging them with one another in advance can also be optional. Remember that the goal is to learn at the highest level possible and in the most meaningful way, not to be overly rule-oriented.

In addition to the classic readings suggested in our article 'Reading Backwards,' here are our recommendations for reading material for your study group. Consider this a good beginning place for internalizing basic critical thinking concepts and principles:

1. 30 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living Through Critical Thinking by Linda Elder and Richard Paul. This book will help you internalize the principles of critical thinking for personal life, which will help you foster critical thinking in the classroom, in your family, in business settings, and in all parts of human life where you have influence. You can begin with the introduction for the first week, and then focus on one of the book’s 30 powerful ideas per week. You might begin with six week; if your group wants to continue working together afterwards, this can be extended to 30 weeks, focusing on one idea per week. This book can be purchased though Pearson’s website.
2. Excerpts from the Thinker’s Guide Library in our Library for Everyone, choosing one or more guides to focus on in a six-week (or longer) study group. The full titles can be purchased in print through Rowman & Littlefield’s website.
3. Beyond the Thinkers Guide’s, teachers and faculty may choose material from our Library for Educators, including the Handbooks for teachers and Richard Paul’s anthology, Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World.
4. Once the fundamentals are internalized, from studying either 30 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living Through Critical Thinking or a combination of our Thinker’s Guides – including the Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts & Tools, the Thinker’s Guide to Analytic Thinking, the Aspiring Thinker’s Guide to Critical Thinking, and the Thinker’s Guide to the Human Mind – we suggest that you focus on deepening your understanding of criticality and its important role in human life by studying our other materials and videos in our Libraries, as well as expanding your focus on reading classic literature. Again, see the article 'Reading Backwards' for our recommendations.

Whoever creates a Study Group automatically becomes the administrator of that study group, and this role entails additional responsibilities. If you are an administrator of a Study Group, you will be responsible for messaging the other group members with any announcements (for example, changes in meeting times), and will also be responsible for removing disruptive members of the group (the website’s Terms of Use provide robust guidelines on what constitutes disruptive behavior). Furthermore, you will have the ability to ‘Request more Members,’ which will allow users of the website to see that your group is seeking additional participants. The buttons and links for these functions will be clearly laid out once you create a new Study Group.