Critical Thinking:
What is It?
Why is it Important?
How Does it Improve Teaching and
Learning?
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
Why do we think?
1. In order to decide what to do
2. In order to decide what to believe
3. For fun (stories and jokes).
If we genuinely care about our decisions, 1 and 2 tend to activate
the careful, logical, reasonable part of our mind – a part of our mind
that is important for quality critical thinking in psychological science.
Quality critical thinking is not a prerequisite for 3.
Everything we know,
believe, want, fear and
hope for, our thinking tells
us.
Exercise:
What problem behavior you
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.
Critical Thinking: What is it?
• Critical thinking is purposeful judgement
which results in:
• Analysis Critical thinking is in fact a set of
skills we can all use to judge
information that is presented to
• Evaluation us on a daily basis.
• Inference
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.
The Critical Thinking Mind
=
The Educated Mind
Read Write
It
It
Substantive
Learning
Hear Apply
It Say It
It
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
Think About Your Thinking
• To begin to think about your thinking, make a list of
any problems you 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.
Critical Thinking
• “Critical thinking is thinking that assesses itself"
(Center for Critical Thinking, 1996b)
• Critical thinking is reflective reasoning about
beliefs and actions. It is a way of deciding whether a
claim is always true, sometimes true, partly true, or
false.
• Critical thinking asks us to consider whether a piece
of knowledge could be rationally justified with clarity
and logical consistency. One sense of the
term critical means crucial; a second sense derives
from Greek meaning discerning judgment
Critical Thinking Skills (www.rasmussen.edu)
• Observation
• Interpretation (i.e., a particular
version or adaptation of a work, method,
or style)
• Analysis/Discrimination of Data
• Inference (i.e., a : the act of passing
from one proposition, statement, or
judgment considered as true to another
whose truth is believed to follow from that
of the former; b : the act of passing from
statistical sample data to generalizations
(as of the value of population parameters)
usually with calculated degrees of
certainty)
• Evaluation
• Explanation
• Meta-cognition/Self-regulation
(i.e., awareness or analysis of one's own
learning or thinking processes)
Critical thinking calls for the ability
to:
1. Recognize problems or situations and 6. Interpret data, to appraise evidence and
circumstances requiring concentrated evaluate arguments (e.g., what is the
thought (e.g., persistent resistance of real meaning and impact of words,
people on a team to interact with, behaviors, tone, body language, habits,
relate to, and support one another) etc.)
2. Understand the importance of 7. Recognize the existence (or non-
prioritization and order of precedence existence) of logical relationships
in problem solving (e.g., what is the between propositions and draw
underlying priority/priorities in the warranted conclusions and
situation….harmony, productivity, generalizations
avert dissention/conflict, service, etc.) 8. Put to test the conclusions and
3. Gather and marshal pertinent generalizations at which one arrives
(relevant) information 9. Reconstruct one's patterns of beliefs
4. Recognize unstated assumptions and and behaviors based on wider
values experience
5. Comprehend and use language with 10. Render accurate judgments about
accuracy, clarity, and discernment; specific things and qualities in everyday
expunging generalist terms (e.g., do life
not say:“we want people to get
along”)
