Developing critical thinking

1.Main features of critical thinking process

As defined in A Greek-English Lexicon the verb krino- means to choose, decide or judge. Hence a krites is a discerner, judge or arbiter. Those who are kritikos have the ability to discern or decide by exercising sound judgment

Critical thinking is reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skillful that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. A person who thinks critically can ask appropriate questions, gather relevant information, efficiently and creatively sort through this information, reason logically from this information, and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world that enable one to live and act successfully in it. True critical thinking is higher-order thinking, enabling a person to evaluate society's need. Critical thinking enables an individual to be a responsible citizen who contributes to society.

Children are not born with the power to think critically, nor do they develop this ability naturally. Critical thinking is a learned ability that must be taught. Most individuals never learn it. Critical thinking cannot be taught reliably to students by peers or by most parents. Trained and knowledgeable instructors are necessary to impart the proper information and skills.

Critical thinking can be described as the scientific method applied by ordinary people to the ordinary world. This is true because critical thinking mimics the well-known method of scientific investigation: a question is identified, a hypothesis formulated, relevant data sought and gathered, the hypothesis is logically tested and evaluated, and reliable conclusions are drawn from the result. All of the skills of scientific investigation are matched by critical thinking.

Critical thinking is scientific thinking. Many books and papers describing critical thinking present its goals and methods as identical or similar to the goals and methods of science. A scientifically-literate person, such as a math or science instructor, has learned to think critically to achieve that level of scientific awareness. But any individual with an advanced degree in any university discipline has almost certainly learned the techniques of critical thinking.

Critical thinking is the ability to think for one's self and reliably and responsibly make those decisions that affect one's life. Critical thinking is also critical inquiry, so such critical thinkers investigate problems, ask questions, pose new answers, and discover new information. Most people, therefore, do not think for themselves, but rely on others to think for them. Most people, therefore, do not think critically.

So we can define critical thinking as the ability to improve one’s thinking by systematically subjecting it to intellectual self-assessment.

2 Stages of critical thinking process There are predictable stages through which every person who develops as a critical thinker passes by.

Stage One: The Unreflective Thinker

Unreflective thinkers are largely unaware of the determining role that thinking is playing in their lives ; lack the ability to explicitly assess their thinking and improve it thereby; lack the knowledge that high quality thinking requires regular practice in taking thinking apart, accurately assessing it, and actively improving it; unaware of the appropriate standards for the assessment of thinking: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicalness.

Stage Two: The Challenged Thinker

Thinkers move to the “challenged” stage when they become initially aware of the determining role that thinking is playing in their lives.

Challenged thinkers may develop an initial awareness of thinking as involving concepts, assumptions, inferences, implications, points of view, etc., and as involving standards for the assessment of thinking: clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, logicalness, etc., though they have only an initial grasp of these standards and what it would take to internalize them. Challenged thinkers also develop some understanding of the role of self-deception in thinking, though their understanding is limited. At this stage the thinker develops some reflective awareness of how thinking operates for good or ill.

Stage Three: The Beginning Thinker

Thinkers at this stage recognize that they have basic problems in their thinking and make initial attempts to better understand how they can take charge of and improve it. Most importantly, they lack a systematic plan for improving their thinking and hence their efforts are hit and miss.

Stage Four: The Practicing Thinker

The defining features of thinkers at this stage require a sense of the habits they need to develop to take charge of their thinking. They do not only recognize that problems exist in their thinking, but they also recognize the need to attack these problems globally and systematically.

Stage Five: The Advanced Thinker

Thinkers at this stage have now established good habits of thought which are “paying off.” Based on these habits, advanced thinkers not only actively analyze their thinking in all the significant domains of their lives, but also have significant insight into problems at deeper levels of thought. While advanced thinkers are able to think well across the important dimensions of their lives, they are not yet able to think at a consistently high level across all of these dimensions.

Stage Six: The Master Thinker

Master thinkers not only have systematically taken charge of their thinking, but are also continually monitoring, revising, and re-thinking strategies for continual improvement of their thinking. They have deeply internalized the basic skills of thought, so that critical thinking is, for them, both conscious and highly intuitive.. And they are able to internalize highly effective critical thinking in a practical way.

3 Ways of applying Critical Thinking

Critical thinking can be presented or emphasized in all classroom areas: lecture, homework, term papers, and exams. Critical thinking can be taught during:

1.Lectures: Enhancement of critical thinking can be accomplished during lecture by periodically stopping and asking students searching and thoughtful questions about the material you have just presented, and then wait an appropriate time for them to respond.

2. Laboratories Students inevitably practice critical thinking during laboratories in science class, because they are learning the scientific method.

3. Homework Both traditional reading homework and special written problem sets or questions can be used to enhance critical thinking. Homework presents many opportunities to encourage critical thinking.

4. Quantitative Exercises Mathematical exercises and quantitative word problems teach problem solving skills that can be used in everyday life. This obviously enhances critical thinking.

5. Term Papers The best way to teach critical thinking is to require that students write. Writing forces students to organize their thoughts, contemplate their topic, evaluate their data in a logical fashion, and present their conclusions in a persuasive manner. Good writing is the epitome of good critical thinking.

6. Exams Exam questions can be devised which promote critical thinking rather than rote memorization. This is true for both essay question exams and multiple-choice exams.

Debate is one of the most effective methods of teaching critical thinking. Because debate requires active learning and calls upon students to be prepared to defend their arguments, debate preparation and actual debating encourage critical thinking. While traditional educational methods teach students content and concepts, debate takes that knowledge and encourages students to use it as the beginning of a journey of self-exploration. Because students are responsible for their own claims in the debate, debaters are quick to explore the roots of their claims. Rather than being satisfied with what they are told about a subject, debate encourages students to seek out their own understanding, and often to challenge ideas by researching and critiquing the foundation of arguments.

4. Critical thinking classroom strategies.

1 To look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken. Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one.

2. To visualize. When someone thinks through a problem, he should find it necessary to formulate the subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams or visualized solutions.

3. To produce Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

4. To make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations. The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.

5. To form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects. Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves.

6. To think in opposites.

Physicist Niels Bohr believed that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.

7. To think metaphorically. Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.

8. To prepare yourself for chance. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?"

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future."

5 Problem solving and decision making

Step 1: Defining the problem & gathering information

Consider these questions: What is the problem? Can I solve it? Is it worth solving? Is this the real problem, or merely a symptom of a larger one? If this is an old problem, what's wrong with the previous solution? Does it need an immediate solution, or can it wait? Is it likely to go away by itself? Can I risk ignoring it? What conditions must the solution satisfy? Will the solution affect something that must remain unchanged?

Gather Information

Facts & data. Research Results from experimentation and studies Interviews of "experts" and trusted sources Observed events, past or present, either personally observed or reported

Step2. Developing, evaluating, and deciding on alternatives

Look at the problems in different ways; find a new perspective that you haven't thought of before.Brainstorming, or rapid noting of alternatives no matter how silly, is an excellent discovery process. Once you have listed or mapped alternatives, be open to their possibilities. Make notes on those that: need more information , are new solutions ,can be combined or eliminated ,will meet opposition ,seem promising or exciting , weigh alternatives.

After listing possible alternatives, evaluate them without prejudice, no matter how appealing or distasteful
While a suitable solution may solve the problem, it may not work if resources aren't available, if people won't accept it, or if it causes new problems

Techniques in weighing alternatives:

Matrix: Suitability, Feasibility & Flexibility

Suitability: refers to the alternative itself, whether it is ethical or practical. Is it appropriate in scale or importance? Is it an adequate response? Is it too extreme?

Feasibility: refers to how many resources will be needed to solve the problem (i.e. Is it affordable?)
How likely will it solve the problem?

Flexibility: refers to your ability to respond and unintended consequences, or openness to new

Select the best alternative as "perfect solution."
If there were, there probably wouldn't be a problem in the first place

Consider your intuition, or inner feelings in deciding on a course of action

Return to your trusted outsider:
Is there something you missed?

Compromise
Consider compromise when you have a full grasp of the problem, and your alternatives.

Step 3: Implementing decisions

Adaptive techniques for solving problems are a combination of logic and common sense, and while not precise, can produce satisfactory solutions.

If you cannot follow the complete problem solving process, use these techniques when you

have little time for research

don't need exhaustive analysis

can accept the risks

can make reversible decisions

Decision making

Managing by exception
Work on matters critical to you; leave off matters that are not. Strategizing and prioritizing

Decision staggering
Make incremental decisions to achieve an objective and avoid total commitment to a decision you cannot change.

Exploration
Use information available to probe for a solution. Exploring is a modified trial-and-error strategy to manage risk. Unlike a throw of dice, however, it requires a firm sense of purpose and direction. Use this technique to move cautiously in small steps toward a solution.

Intuition.
These are options based on your experience, values, and emotions. While often able to arrive at the truth through intuition, don't rely on it exclusively. It can trigger snap judgments and rash decisions. Use logic first, then your intuition to make the decision "feel" right

Delay.
If an immediate decision isn't necessary and there's time to develop options, go slow or let it wait. Sometimes doing nothing is the best decision; the problem either goes away, or events overcome it

Delegation to another: if the problem can be solved better by someone else, if the problem is not really yours in the first place, or your resources (time, money, etc.) will not be adequate

Vision, opportunity, and options. Focus on the future to uncover hidden opportunities and options. With options, we make better decisions. Without them, decisions become forced choices. By finding tomorrow's opportunities and developing options, you can make enduring, quality decisions.

So, Critical thinking is the active skill of applying knowledge to new problems. However, critical thinking does not just mean thinking hard about a problem. It means applying ideas and concepts in new ways. Critical thinking happens when a student takes a concept they have learned and applies it to a new

Project work