| Anotácia | This book represents one of the key outcomes of the project titled "Coaching approach as a new form of the development of students’ critical thinking in higher education" funded by Slovak grant scheme KEGA. The idea to develop such a project and to write a comprehensive publication on a given topic has been in our minds already for a few years. It started to materialize when results of testing the critical thinking skills of university students and findings from various surveys turned out to be alarming. They showed a significant lack, among the students at Higher Education Institution (HEI), of those skills which frame the ability of critical thinking; for instance, developing good arguments, evaluating and understanding relevant data, decision making, and formulating conclusions. Critical thinking should be an essential skill of every highly educated person and its importance is even more crucial in the present digital era. Our opinion is that if we want students to learn to think critically, then their teachers must identify themselves with such an approach. In the first place, it always depends on the teacher what methods and techniques they apply and how they approach the students and their learning process. This means that the educators who have the skill to think critically will more likely support different views and opinions of students and will more likely not require uniformity nor prefer only their own statements or only one assertion. Critical thinking as a key skill of every teacher is essential in guiding students through how to analyse, understand and evaluate vast amounts of information, how to argue, solve problems, recognize new possibilities and form their own opinion. More precisely, this book aims to present several practical exercises, techniques, case studies and examples which can be used in all educational classes with activities including tutoring students, preparing a final theses at all three stages of university study, and also in research activities of students as well as teachers. Our approach, to use elements of coaching as a fundamental base to foster critical thinking, at the HEI is fundamentally based upon “questioning”. The ability to develop a meaningful and reflective discussion between teacher and students consists of open-ended questions which are a key prerequisite to developing critical thinking skills. We would also like to acknowledge the fact that our inspiration and practical abilities of critical thinking and coaching were sharpened during our attendance of several training workshops provided by local as well as foreign entities, e.g. Živica Zaježova, PDCS Bratislava, SAKO (Slovak Coach Association), Solution Focus, Switzerland and University of Cambridge. Some of the activities have been developed and tested in cooperation with students from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, United Kingdom. Although the publication is primarily aimed at university teachers, its content provides a number of practical examples, assignments and case studies, which students can use: in essentially arbitrary study programs and subjects, in teamwork, in their own personal development as well as in their preparation for future employment. This book, together with its Slovak twin-sister titled "Rozvoj kritického myslenia koučovacím prístupom vo vysokoškolskom prostredí" and written by a multidisciplinary team of authors (Theodoulides et al., 2020), provides comprehensive knowledge and skills for those teachers and students who are interested in educating and learning in the way demanded by the challenges of the present times.
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