why is critical thinking important for students

why is critical thinking important for students

The Importance of Critical Thinking for Students

1. Introduction

An outline of implementation as you develop your critical thinking skills. Given the variety of definitions and explanations, developing your skills as a critical thinker requires an in-depth method of self-evaluation. This assignment is designed to help you develop this critical habit of questioning and evaluating. Listed below are suggestions for steps focusing on critical thinking a student should take in writing an essay. Steps in this outline are based on several sources, including The Simple Steps to Better Critical Thinking Skills at the Critical Thinking website. Find a few sources relevant to a course assignment and compare their reliability, relevance, and how often they are citing their sources. This exercise provides an opportunity to assess the possibility of bias in several articles on the same topic. Buy a fine-toothed comb and read whatever you are evaluating one more time. While reading the material, take notes writing down the central points of the article and its supporting arguments. Cross-reference your notes with the actual material to make sure you’re not just guessing what the author says and taking it out of context. Now that you know exactly what the author is saying, critically evaluate it. Are their arguments logical, do they rely on fallacies, do they provide sufficient evidence for their claims? Are there any gaps in the author’s reasoning or any possible objections to what he is saying? Any contradictions in the text? Any implications in the author’s reasoning that can be carried out to original or contradictory conclusions? With all this in mind, try and reconstruct the arguments and points made by the author in your own notes. Now that you have a good understanding of the article and have critically analyzed it, it’s time to compare the claims that the author has made to the evidence produced and the logic used to derive any conclusions with other sources on the same topic.

2. Benefits of Critical Thinking

There are multiple benefits of critical thinking. First, critical thinking helps students better express their ideas. Critical thinking helps students to think on a deeper level and be able to express what they are thinking. Being able to express what they are thinking will help students not only in school but in the real world as well. Second, critical thinking helps with decision making. Instead of making decisions on a whim, critical thinking forces students to research the pros and cons of a situation to make an informed decision. An informed decision is far more likely to be the correct one. Third, critical thinking helps solve problems. Every day we are faced with different problems. If the students have a mastery of following steps in the critical thinking process, it helps them not only build upon other knowledge but instead find a path that leads to the solution and it will be less likely to be a dead end. Finally, critical thinking helps make better decisions. Critical thinking forces students to consider all possibilities and to not make decisions based on emotions or from a biased standpoint.

3. Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Being a critical thinker is being a responsible thinker. That is, one who is not driven by impulses and prejudices, motivated by reasons, and restrained by a fair assessment. Good thinkers are always trying to figure out the implications of what they are saying, or what they believe. What would be the result if everyone acted this way? What are the consequences of that choice? What are you trying to accomplish? People who think like this have a plan, and a focus. This is another trait especially of college students, who are so immersed in the moment and do not usually have long-term goals. A main goal of a college education is to help the students that their long-term goals are the most important thing, and to equip them to achieve these goals. This indicates that college students are in great need of education in thinking.

Training students to think critically is ultimately the goal of critical thinking. There are specific guidelines for thinking critically. All humans waste; the student is the one who is most conscious of squandering time, the one most frustrated because he or she is not free from guilt of wasting time. The objective of education should be to guide the student into shaping their character and self to have a strong sense of self-command. Education should cultivate the will, and at the same time should enlighten the understanding.

Effective critical thinking often begins with a thinker having an attitude of willingness to try to think better. In a critical thinking process, the thinker will improve the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities, as well as a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism. Many college students do not get trained in critical thinking, even though they are the most impressionable to do so because of their great potential. Every day they are unconsciously developing more and more bad habits, which prevents them from thinking critically.

4. Applications of Critical Thinking in Education

After discussing the relationship between critical thinking and learning, the research suggests a possible application to enhance the students’ thinking skills in education. There are several possibilities, such as the development of an educative process, the preparation of teacher competency in developing students’ critical thinking, and the establishment of an academic atmosphere and culture that supports the development of critical thinking. Most exploration found in the effort to integrate critical thinking into an educative process. It is seen in the practice of a method to teach and learn, which is directed towards the development of students’ higher order thinking skills. Through various implementations, it is proven able to bring up an enhancement in students’ thinking skills. The development of a lesson plan or teaching material, which is progressively arranged and based on scientific evidence, is the most often used method. In the next level, a teaching process with Socratic questioning method is proven able to develop students’ critical thinking.

5. Conclusion

Having the ability to think critically, in all aspects of life, is the key to success. Teaching students to think critically may be more difficult than one might think. This is a skill that will take time to be developed but it is an essential one. If we hope for the next generation to be prosperous and successful, critical thinking is the way. Critical thinking provides the tools for this process of self-evaluation. Good critical thinking is the foundation of science and democracy. Science requires the critical use of reason in experimentation and theory confirmation. The proper functioning of a liberal democracy requires citizens who can think critically about social issues to inform their judgments about what would be for the common good. Critical thinking enables the development of autonomous, self-directed and self-monitored thinking. Critical thinking, when deeply understood, enables you to take control of the thinking you are doing in every part of your life. It enables you to solve problems more effectively, make better decisions, as well as recognize pathological and manipulative thinking.