quotes about critical thinking

quotes about critical thinking

The Importance of Critical Thinking

1. Introduction

The essay is a review of an academic sense switching book by Tim van Gelder (2005a), Teaching Critical Thinking: How to Teach Critical Thinking in Schools: a guide. The content is for a book, aimed essentially at K-12 instructors, which is intended to serve two main goals. First, it is designed to improve critical thinking skills of elementary and secondary class students. The text is intended as a guide to instructors on ways to incorporate critical thinking skills into regular instruction of the subject matter. Second, the book is designed to improve instructors’ skills, by providing a guide on very effective teaching methods with respect to fostering critical thinking. The ultimate goal is to improve student outcomes through improving instruction on critical thinking. Given this focus, Gelder’s book is a very useful tool to fulfill the first goal of this review. This review has several audiences. It is likely to be of interest to anyone who is interested in teaching critical thinking, at any level. This includes instructors in all academic subjects, professors of critical thinking, and anyone who is a parent or guardian. It is also likely to be of interest to those who are interested in improving teaching methods in general, irrespective of the quality of the content being taught. One key audience for this review is instructors at professional schools in psychology, law, and other fields where critical thinking is part of the professionals’ training.

2. Benefits of Critical Thinking

Improves language and presentation skills. Critical thinking involves addressing problems step-by-step, and it involves evaluation which ultimately leads to decision making. That decision could be based on the analysis that you might have conducted to evaluate a situation. With this in mind, valuable decision making skills can be developed, providing you with the ability to make well-informed decisions and to avoid disastrous and costly mistakes. Critical thinking can be considered the overarching umbrella that sets a path to success, and the other benefits listed are the tools that will help take you there. It also encompasses self-driven learning as critical thinking sees beyond the surface of every little thing, and a mastery of this skill will also mean having an increased ability to learn new knowledge, new information, and a new understanding. This will enable efficient and effective use of newly learned knowledge in any given context, and what has been learned can be built upon.

3. Developing Critical Thinking Skills

2. The challenged thinker: At this stage, the thinker is confronted with the awareness of significant problems in his thinking. But at this stage, he has one thing in mind at a time, significant growth in thinking through only certain questions at the stage when one has some perplexity with them. In schooling, with students, some general ways the problems are dealing with one problem at a time and trying to make a reasoned choice of solution. This is the challenged thinking needs on the same problem. So in teaching through a subject matter, we would want students to pick some kinds of questions said about what they are doing, ask to be clear, ask questions to get to the heart of the matter, try to solve a problem with the set of other alternative problem solutions, and choose the best one, and so on. The challenged thinker is also limited in his capacity to take charge of his thinking because thinking is not yet that difficult if he tries to improve it on a complex issue. However, the challenged thinker has begun to take control of his thinking in the specific area.

1. A beginning thinker: We must recognize that many students do not learn to think well. They are largely unaware of how poorly they think. When they try to think through something, they often have problems that reflect their immature understanding. If schooling does not show them the improvement, the good examples of thinking in that discipline, if it does not foster an intellectual work ethic, then students still in the development of their thinking may simply be of the view that they are just fine the way they are.

Unlike the previous two sections, which dealt with issues, concepts, and theological grounding for critical thinking as a desirable educational goal, this section and those that follow suggest instructional strategies for how teachers might build critical thinking skills in their students. First, we must understand that there are stages required for development as a critical thinker:

4. Applying Critical Thinking in Daily Life

You may find it useful to take part in a coaching session in which you get a friend or relative to ask you questions about your thinking on the problem and its justification. Create a ‘strategy’ as it were for practicing things out and checking them over. The more you have at stake and the more you will lose by getting it wrong, the more you need a thinking strategy because the more your emotions and motivations will interfere with your reasoning. And if you have a thinking strategy which you think is good, try applying it to other problems and decisions. Repeat and refine. This is all difficult and slow but it is an immensely valuable life skill.

Try to apply some of the stages of critical thinking outlined above to a problem you have at work or at home. An example might be planning a new venture at work or solving a problem with your computer. Use what you have learned so far about critical thinking to begin this process. How will you define the problem? What information are you taking for granted? What assumptions are you making? What inferences are you drawing? And how does your plan stand up when it comes to assessing it? You are really trying to construct the most detailed and accurate picture possible before taking action.

Once you understand the theory of critical thinking, improving your critical thinking skills takes persistence and practice. Here are some suggestions as to how you might apply critical thinking to some different areas.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, critical thinking is an imperative aspect in the decision-making and problem-solving process. With regard to decision making, critical thinking helps reduce time in making the decisions due to the fact that well-thought-out decisions are more likely to be efficient. One of the benefits of critical thinking is that it contributes to a wide variety of areas. It also enhances the logical, intellectual, and problem-solving skills. In the decision-making process, it helps to challenge the underlying assumptions as well as analyze the problem from different perspectives. It broadens one’s understanding of the problem and helps formulate more valid solutions. With better understanding, it helps minimize the probability of making decisions based on false information. This makes the decision more credible and justifiable. Due to the systematic nature of critical thinking, it will reduce the bias, allowing a more accurate, data-driven solution. This will also reduce the probability of having to reopen the case and come up with a new decision. In life, being able to make a quick decision that is also well-constructed is an asset in gaining leadership or management positions. In these positions, one would have to make decisions that have a larger impact and with great responsibility. This type of decision is known as a high-stakes decision. Using critical thinking to solve high-stakes decisions will be a long-term benefit.