Students generally experience difficulty in writing an argumentative essay. This could be due to their inability to examine and analyze the topic critically or to find evidences to support their main points. Consequently, the work of the students tends to be lacking in content and demonstration of students’ critical thinking skills are not evident. Therefore, a partnership was formed with Educational Technology Division to develop the students to think critically through problem-based learning (PBL) using ICT. Hitherto, research studies revealed that PBL is an effective instructional approach to develop and promote transferable critical thinking skills amongst students, while they simultaneously acquire domain-specific knowledge or content in education as well as the medical field (Chee, 2001; Hmelo & Lin., 2000; Iwaoka & Rhee, 2010; Kek & Huijser, 2011; Shepherd, 1998; Sungur & Tekkaya. 2006; Vernon & Blake, 1992; Weissinger, 2004). Problem-based learning engaged students using a real-life scenario which required them to solve a problem. Using CoRT strategies and questions from Lynch and Wolcotts’ steps for better understanding, students are to work collaboratively in solving the problem. An online portal, ReACT portal and Google document were also used to document their thinking processes. At the end of the lesson, the students produced an argumentative essay based on the problem given. ReACT portal is an online platform designed to help create and deliver integrated self-assessments for the development of critical thinking skills. It seeks to assess and promote student’s development of the six critical thinking skills: deduction, analysis and evaluation, synthesis and classify, compare and contrast, problem-solving and creativity as prescribed in the Chinese Language syllabus SDL: With teachers serving as knowledge experts and facilitators in discussion, students exhibit drive and self-regulatory dispositions to manage flow and development of ideas through their research on the Internet. CoL: The approach promotes collaboration among pairs of students throughout the stages of design thinking. Through collective idea improvement, the community of learners deliberates on the diverse ideas for the purpose of refinement and solution development. The output, namely the analyses using CoRT thinking tools and the evidence found on the internet were saved on the Google document, and became a showcase of students’ cognitive processes and the trajectory of idea progression occurring during the social discourse. Initial findings suggested that students from class of Secondary Two Higher Chinese students and Express Chinese students have improved progressively in content generation after two rounds of curriculum intervention.
