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<article xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/1.1/xsd/JATS-journalpublishing1-mathml3.xsd" dtd-version="1.1" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">erd</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Education Reform and Development</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn>2652-5364</issn><eissn>2652-5372</eissn><publisher><publisher-name>Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.26689/erd.v8i7.15932</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Article</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title>Research on the Mechanism of Blended Teaching Empowering the Development of College Students’ Critical Thinking</title><url>https://artdesignp.com/journal/erd/8/7/10.26689/erd.v8i7.15932</url><author>ChaiLiang</author><pub-date pub-type="publication-year"><year>2026</year></pub-date><volume>8</volume><issue>7</issue><history><date date-type="pub"><published-time>2026-08-13</published-time></date></history><abstract>Against the backdrop of deepening digital transformation in higher education, blended teaching has become the mainstream model of classroom teaching reform in universities, profoundly reshaping college students’ learning styles and thinking development paths. As the core component of college students’ higher-order thinking ability, critical thinking is a key competency for cultivating innovative talents, supporting academic inquiry, and realizing lifelong development. It also serves as an important goal of morality education and ability-oriented cultivation in colleges and universities. This paper deconstructs the internal mechanism of blended teaching empowering the development of college students’ critical thinking and analyzes the practical problems existing in the current implementation of blended teaching. 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