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Critical Thinking:: What Is It? Why Is It Important? How Does It Improve Teaching and Learning?

This document discusses critical thinking, including what it is, why it is important, and how to engage in it. Some key points: 1) Critical thinking is a self-directed process of analyzing and assessing our own thinking to improve its quality and eliminate biases. It involves disciplined, probing analysis rather than spontaneous thought. 2) Critical thinking has been emphasized as important since at least the 1600s, as it allows us to rationally justify our views and eliminate irrationality. 3) Our normal thinking involves both high- and low-quality spontaneous thoughts, but critical thinking helps us distinguish between the two and improve the quality of our thinking.

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98 views

Critical Thinking:: What Is It? Why Is It Important? How Does It Improve Teaching and Learning?

This document discusses critical thinking, including what it is, why it is important, and how to engage in it. Some key points: 1) Critical thinking is a self-directed process of analyzing and assessing our own thinking to improve its quality and eliminate biases. It involves disciplined, probing analysis rather than spontaneous thought. 2) Critical thinking has been emphasized as important since at least the 1600s, as it allows us to rationally justify our views and eliminate irrationality. 3) Our normal thinking involves both high- and low-quality spontaneous thoughts, but critical thinking helps us distinguish between the two and improve the quality of our thinking.

Uploaded by

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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Critical Thinking:

What is It?
Why is it Important?

Active Engagement In
Lecture
Person A states his/her
understanding of what has
been said, then elaborates.
Person B agrees or disagrees
with the interpretation, or
adds to the interpretation,
then gives an example of it,
relating the idea to something
in life.

Active Engagement In Lecture


(cont.)
Person B states his/her
understanding of what has been
said, then elaborates.
Person A agrees or disagrees with
the interpretation, or adds to the
interpretation, then gives an
example of it, relating the idea to
something in life.

Why Concern
Ourselves With
Thinking?

Because whenever we
are dealing with
human life, we are
almost always
dealing with thinking.

Thinking is the way


that the mind makes
sense of the world.

There is no way to
understand anything
except through
thinking.

Thinking tells
us:
what there is

what is happening
what our problems are
what our options are
what threatens us
what is important
what is unimportant
who our friends are
who our enemies are
what our history is
who we are
who loves us

Thinking determines:

what we learn
how we learn
what we think is important to learn
what effort we should expend
what we think is true
what we think is false
how things should be viewed
whether our learning is of high or low quality
whether our learning is deep or superficial

Everything we know,
believe, want, fear and
hope for, our thinking
tells us.

Think of some problem


behavior your students
engage in.
See if you can identify the
thinking that leads to the
behavior.

Thinking
is
the core
of the curriculum

Critical Thinking
Is a Self-Directed
Process
By Which We Take
Deliberate Steps
To Think at the Highest
Level of Quality.

Red Thinking:
Higher order executive
functioning.
Thinking that analyzes,
assesses and improves green
Thinking.

Green Thinking:
Instinctive, automatic,
spontaneous thinking.
Unconsciously guided

Critical Thinking Is Not New


In 1605, Francis Bacon, wrote the first book on
critical thinking, The Advancement of Learning,
in which he documented various forms of
human irrationality and the need to establish
new habits of thought through education.
Socrates 2,400 years ago discovered by a
method of probing questioning that people
often could not rationally justify their
confident claims to knowledge.

Green Thinking
Unconscious Mixture Of High Quality
And Low Quality Thinking
Spontaneous

Subconscious

Impulsive
Unanalyzed

Self protecting

Reflexive

Self validating

Uncontrolled

Includes ideas that are valid, as well as nonsense,


confusion, stereotypes, prejudices. The key is that we
cannot distinguish the difference between high and low
quality thought in green thinking mode.
Green thinking goes without assessing itself.

Red Thinking
Red Thinking stops and assesses itself before going
forward.
Disciplined

Seeks the truth

Critical Thinking Self correcting

Self assessing
Probing

In red thinking mode, we actively work to eliminate


prejudices, biases, dysfunctional thinking from
our thinking. We actively work on our thinking.
We rigorously apply intellectual standards to our
thinking.

The Critical Thinking Mind

=
The Educated Mind

Read
It

Write
It

Substantive
Learning
Hear
It

Say
It

Apply
It

Critical Thinking
Something you add onto everything else
Rather
The Way You Do
Everything You Do

Activity: What is Critical


Thinking?
To be clear in writing:
1)
state
2)
elaborate (In other words)
3)
exemplify and/or illustrate

Write out the most important thing you know


about critical thinking, in this form:
1) Critical thinking is ..
2)In other words
3)For example of

Think for Yourself: 1-1


Beginning to
To begin to think about your thinking, make a list
Think
About you
Your
Thinking
of any problems
believe
currently exist with
your thinking. Try to be as explicit as possible.
The more problems you identify the better. For
each problem you identify, complete the
following statements:
1. One problem with my thinking is
2. This is a problem because
3. If I adequately addressed this problem, the
quality of my life would improve in the following
ways

Think for Yourself: 1-2


Critique Your Thinking
Consider your thinking in these domains of your life: at work, in
personal relationships, in teaching, in intimate relationships, as a
reader, as a writer, in planning your life, in dealing with your emotions,
in figuring out complex situations. Complete these statements:
Right now, I believe my thinking across all domains of my life is of
______________ quality. I based this judgment on _________________.

1. In the following areas, I think very well


2. In the following areas, my thinking is OK, not great, but not terrible
either
3. In the following areas, my thinking is probably of low quality
List at least three areas for each of the above.

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