BBDM3043 Critical Thinking in Organisation (Academic Year 2021/2022, April/May Examination)
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iRubric: Critical Thinking VALUE Rubric
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What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & ExamplesPublished on May 30, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023. Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment . To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources . Critical thinking skills help you to:
Table of contentsWhy is critical thinking important, critical thinking examples, how to think critically, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about critical thinking. Critical thinking is important for making judgments about sources of information and forming your own arguments. It emphasizes a rational, objective, and self-aware approach that can help you to identify credible sources and strengthen your conclusions. Critical thinking is important in all disciplines and throughout all stages of the research process . The types of evidence used in the sciences and in the humanities may differ, but critical thinking skills are relevant to both. In academic writing , critical thinking can help you to determine whether a source:
Outside of academia, critical thinking goes hand in hand with information literacy to help you form opinions rationally and engage independently and critically with popular media. Don't submit your assignments before you do thisThe academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students. Free citation check included.  Try for free Critical thinking can help you to identify reliable sources of information that you can cite in your research paper . It can also guide your own research methods and inform your own arguments. Outside of academia, critical thinking can help you to be aware of both your own and others’ biases and assumptions. Academic examplesHowever, when you compare the findings of the study with other current research, you determine that the results seem improbable. You analyze the paper again, consulting the sources it cites. You notice that the research was funded by the pharmaceutical company that created the treatment. Because of this, you view its results skeptically and determine that more independent research is necessary to confirm or refute them. Example: Poor critical thinking in an academic context You’re researching a paper on the impact wireless technology has had on developing countries that previously did not have large-scale communications infrastructure. You read an article that seems to confirm your hypothesis: the impact is mainly positive. Rather than evaluating the research methodology, you accept the findings uncritically. Nonacademic examplesHowever, you decide to compare this review article with consumer reviews on a different site. You find that these reviews are not as positive. Some customers have had problems installing the alarm, and some have noted that it activates for no apparent reason. You revisit the original review article. You notice that the words “sponsored content” appear in small print under the article title. Based on this, you conclude that the review is advertising and is therefore not an unbiased source. Example: Poor critical thinking in a nonacademic context You support a candidate in an upcoming election. You visit an online news site affiliated with their political party and read an article that criticizes their opponent. The article claims that the opponent is inexperienced in politics. You accept this without evidence, because it fits your preconceptions about the opponent. There is no single way to think critically. How you engage with information will depend on the type of source you’re using and the information you need. However, you can engage with sources in a systematic and critical way by asking certain questions when you encounter information. Like the CRAAP test , these questions focus on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information. When encountering information, ask:
Critical thinking also involves being aware of your own biases, not only those of others. When you make an argument or draw your own conclusions, you can ask similar questions about your own writing:
If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.
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Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and to be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own. Like information literacy , it involves evaluating arguments, identifying and solving problems in an objective and systematic way, and clearly communicating your ideas. Critical thinking skills include the ability to: You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information. Ask questions such as:
A credible source should pass the CRAAP test and follow these guidelines:
Information literacy refers to a broad range of skills, including the ability to find, evaluate, and use sources of information effectively. Being information literate means that you:
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with our pre-existing values, opinions, or beliefs. It refers to the ability to recollect information best when it amplifies what we already believe. Relatedly, we tend to forget information that contradicts our opinions. Although selective recall is a component of confirmation bias, it should not be confused with recall bias. On the other hand, recall bias refers to the differences in the ability between study participants to recall past events when self-reporting is used. This difference in accuracy or completeness of recollection is not related to beliefs or opinions. Rather, recall bias relates to other factors, such as the length of the recall period, age, and the characteristics of the disease under investigation. Cite this Scribbr articleIf you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator. Ryan, E. (2023, May 31). What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved June 18, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/critical-thinking/ Is this article helpful? Eoghan RyanOther students also liked, student guide: information literacy | meaning & examples, what are credible sources & how to spot them | examples, applying the craap test & evaluating sources, get unlimited documents corrected. ✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts  Translate this page from English... *Machine translated pages not guaranteed for accuracy. Click Here for our professional translations. A Sample Assignment Format
Webinar Transcripts: Demonstrating Critical Thinking in Writing AssignmentsDemonstrating critical thinking in writing assignments. Presented June 27, 2017 View the webinar recording Last updated 7/19/2017 Visual: The webinar begins with a PowerPoint title slide in the large central panel. A captioning pod, Q&A pod, and files pod are stacked on the right side. The slide says “Housekeeping” and the following:
Audio: Beth: Hello everyone and thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Beth Nastachowski, and I'm going to get us started by going over a couple of quick housekeeping notes before I hand the session over to our presenter today, Melissa. So, a couple of quick things here, everyone. The first is that you may have noticed that I've started the recording for this webinar and I'll be posting the recording in full in our webinar archive probably by this evening if not a little bit sooner, and so if you have to leave for any reason or if you'd like to come back and review the session, you're more than welcome to do so. And you can find that recording in our webinar archives. And I also like to note here that we do record all of the webinars in the Writing Center so you're more than welcome to access those webinars at any time if you ever see a session that’s being presented live that you can't attend, you can always find the recording. Additionally, we have those recordings available any time so if you're looking for help on a particular topic you can always find a recording in the webinar archive as well. There are lots of ways for you to interact with us, and with our presenter Melissa, today. So, I do encourage you to do that. I know Melissa has a poll and a couple chats put together throughout the session here, but also note that you can download her slides in the files pod at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. There are lots of links to additional information and resources in this webinar so you can access those links. You can click on them as Melissa is going through them in the webinar itself, but you can also save them by downloading those slides in the PowerPoint files pod on the bottom right-hand corner. So, feel free to do so. You can just click on the slides file and then click download files and it will save it to your computer. The other way that you can kind of interact with us today is through the Q and A box. So, I will be monitoring that Q and A box throughout the session today. And I’m happy to respond to any questions or comments that you have throughout this session. So, do let me know how I can help, what information I can get you, what questions I can help you in that Q and A box, and then I also like to note that if you do have a question and maybe it's at the very end of the session and we just aren't able to get to it or if you come up with a question after the webinar, you think of it later, do make sure to e-mail us at [email protected]. We are happy to help and respond via e-mail as well, so do let us know. And then finally, if you have any technical issues I am happy to help. I have a couple of tips I can give you if you're having technical issues, so do let me know if that Q and A box, but I also like to note there's the help button in the top right-hand corner of the screen and that's Adobe Connect's help option and that's really the best place to go if you're having significant technical issues. Alright, and so, with that, Melissa, I will hand it over to you. Visual: Slide changes to the title of the webinar, “Demonstrating Critical Thinking in Writing Assignments” and the speaker’s name and information: Melissa Sharpe, Writing Instructor, Walden Writing Center Audio: Melissa: Great. Thank you, Beth. Hi everybody. My name is Melissa Sharpe and I'm a writing instructor here at the Walden Writing Center and thank you for joining us today where we're going to be looking at what critical thinking is, as well as how to demonstrate it in our course work and academic writing. So, let's begin. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Agenda Critical Thinking:
Audio: This is our agenda for today and we will return to it throughout the webinar to help stay on track just to remember where we've been and what's coming up next. The purpose for this webinar is to define critical thinking and then look at how we make it obvious that we're thinking critically in our writing. We hear the word "critical thinking" a lot but we may wonder, okay, how do I think critically in writing or how do I make it clear that I have used critical thinking skills. So today in this webinar we will look at the definition of critical thinking and then we'll see how we demonstrate that thinking in our thesis statement, in our paraphrases, in analysis and synthesis. And these are things that we include in our writing and when they are done strong, they provide the evidence that we have put critical thinking into our writing so we'll get to look at that relationship today. You may find yourself realizing throughout this webinar that you're already demonstrating critical thinking in your work. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Critical Thinking
Audio: So, we'll start off with that definition of critical thinking and the definition of critical thinking that we will use throughout this presentation, and it's a widely accepted definition, and that is critical thinking is an original and informed assessment of an idea, theory, or phenomenon. And really the keywords here are first original, and that means critical thinking isn't just repeating what someone else said. Critical thinking contains some amount, maybe a touch or a whole bunch of your original thought. The next keyword is "informed," and that means your original ideas and thought don't come, you know, out of nowhere. Instead they are informed through the research, and that means high quality scholarly research and that becomes the foundation for critical thinking. If you aren't rooting your thought in those things, it's really easy to discredit your ideas. Last, we have the keyword "assessment" and in this context, the word doesn't mean text or quiz. Instead, it means a position, a stance, a position. And that ties right back to it being an original idea, an original thought. When we put all of this together we can see that critical thinking means using research to say something new. It's really that thought process that you go through after reading the research. We could all read the same three articles on a topic, but as we think about it ourselves and apply our own background knowledge and experiences and opinions, what we have to say about it would be different if we were to sit and talk about those articles, and that's what critical thinking is, and so that process that we go through when we're thinking or talking about these things with people, what we're going to look at today is how that becomes evident in our writing. Demonstrate that you can develop new ideas, perspectives, or research.
Audio: So critical thinking is especially important in graduate level writing because you use it to show that you have something to add to the conversation, and as you near your capstone document, whatever that may be, for many degrees you have to propose or complete original research or forward some sort of new, original thought, idea, theory on a topic, and critical thinking shows that you're able to do that because it is an original and informed assessment, and outside of those major documents I'm sure you'll recognize that all regular course work needs critical thinking as well. You may see it appear in some of these tasks that are on the screen. Maybe you're asked to look at the similarities or differences between ideas or you read about a theory and apply it in a new setting. Maybe you read about a theory and you apply it in your daily work life. Maybe you're asked to create a suggestion for change. That would be something new that is based on existing research. Sometimes we discover new connections or argue the importance or need for something. And these are the types of tasks that appear in a lot of writing prompts, and all of them by nature require critical thinking. Bad Example:
Good Example:
Audio: So, here's what critical thinking may look like in a discussion post. And a bad example would be if you were to write a discussion post that just defines two educational philosophies. That's definitely going to be based on research but there isn't anything new. There's none of us, the writer, the thinker in there. So as a discussion post that one does not require any critical thinking. A discussion post that does demonstrate and show critical thinking would be a post where you are comparing two educational philosophies and reflecting on the way that those philosophies could or could not be used to inform teaching in your classroom or a classroom you observed, and this discussion post we still have that research comparing and contrasting the two philosophies but we have that new idea, that new perspective, that new application and that is tying those philosophies into a classroom environment, so in that bad example we see a discussion post where critical thinking is not evident but in this better example the critical thinking is clear. There's that new application.
Audio: And in a short essay we may also see critical thinking in the following ways. First, we'll take a look at the bad example. If a person were to write a short essay detailing the steps taken during admissions in an inpatient facility, that’s just research. It's just repeating something that was looked up. There really isn't any critical thinking going on there because there aren't new ideas, perspectives or a proposal of new research. Here we have a better example, and this example shows critical thinking. So, if somebody were to write a short essay where they recommend changing the steps during the admissions process and those steps are based on current research, this does demonstrate critical thinking because there's that new idea, that new perspective. Once again, it's based on research, but it is a presentation of some sort of new idea or thought. So, critical thinking sometimes appears in the subject matter or prompts that we're given, and when those are completed following directions you're kind of as a writer forced to critically think, but we're still going to look at all the ways that we can pull it into our writing. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Critical Thinking Red Flags
Audio: And sometimes it helps to know how to do something by looking at what not to do. So, if you see any of these four things in your writing, it's a little red flag that there just isn't enough critical thinking, yet. So, if in an essay that you see yourself supporting an idea using a single source over and over again, that might be a sign that the writing could be more informed. There's strength in numbers, I guess, if you are writing on a topic and you have a lot of sources that you've used to inform yourself and your opinion, it's just going to be stronger than if you were relying on a single piece of research because if you rely on a single piece of research even if it's really, really good, it helps to have that validated or backed up in other places as well. Also, any time there's an essay that has extensive quoting if there's quote after quote all over the place, that also is a red flag that there isn't quite enough critical thinking yet and this is for a couple reasons. First having a lot of quotes means they're just taking up a lot of space. You're letting other writers do the talking for you, and it is just -- it's costing you time and space on the page. As the writer, you want to be in control of that and so instead of relying on other sources even if they happen to be amazing sources, it helps to paraphrase and that's one of the things we'll look at today. Also, if there's a lot of quotes, it means you haven't -- you've lost that space of where you're going to comment and explain what they mean and connect it to other ideas. Quotes just -- they cost you space. So, the next one to look at would be having sources that have questionable credibility so if you look at your reference list and there's some kind of iffy sources, not a lot of named authors could be a red flag. A lot of sources that come from general websites, not websites of academic journals or other reliable sources. If you have something that's particularly tough to put on your reference list, sometimes even that can be a red flag because a journal article has a really straightforward pattern of what to include to put on the reference list and it's relatively easy to plug those in providing can you find them all on your page of course but some of our, like, website resources can be a little trickier to cite and if you notice that you have some sources with questionable credibility that means what you're basing your ideas on is a shaky foundation. You want to have a little bit more solid research. And then the last red flag, is if you find yourself just restating what sources said over and over again, it means we're missing that new original thought, your argument, your assessment. So, if any of these four things you notice when you're revising your work or reading through a draft you can say okay, I think I need to add a little bit more critical thinking. And so, today we're going to look at four of the things that we include in our writing that are great places to show and demonstrate that we are critically thinking. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Chat: What parts of critical thinking do you struggle with the most? [The webinar layout changes to open a chat box for students to type into in response to the chat question.] Audio: So, as we're getting ready to look at those, how we demonstrate critical thinking in our thesis, our paraphrase, our analysis, our synthesis. Before we start that I want you to tell me in the chat box, which of these four you struggle with the most and, if you wish, why you feel you struggle with them most. [Pause as students type.] Right away I see a lot of thesis coming in, and I think one of the reasons why we sometimes think the thesis statements are difficult is because they have a really big job to do. They have to kind of preview the main idea and argument of the entire piece of writing, and unlike a paraphrase, analysis, and synthesis the thesis appears really in this one spot. We may repeat it or reflect on it throughout but a thesis statement sort of happens just once, and maybe that makes it feel higher stakes. We have a lot of great resources for thesis statements and some of these, I'll share links with you at the end of this presentation. I also see a lot of paraphrasing coming through. Actually, it looks like we are touching on all of them, which is great because we will look at all four of these things, today. And throughout this webinar even though we touch on all four of these we're going to look at how doing them well demonstrates critical thinking. We won't be going into detail about how to do all four of these, at least not into great detail. However, in our Writing Center both on the website and in other webinars, we have some tools that will help you go into detail if you need help like, how do I even start to write a thesis? We have a webinar about that. So, if you need any of those resources, you could even send us a question in the Q and A box and I'm sure Beth could get those links for you. All right. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Thesis Statement: A sentence that states your main argument ; must be:
The purpose of my paper is to discuss dark chocolate. My paper will explore dark chocolate. Audio: So, the first part of writing a text and that could be an essay, a major assessment, a discussion post but the very first thing we're going to look at is the thesis statement, and here you can see in this checklist the things that make for a good and a strong thesis. A thesis states the main argument of an essay, that main idea, the purpose, what's going to happen in the writing. And so, it should be argumentative and what that means is, it doesn't have to be combative in nature, but it should state an opinion, it should state the opinion that you are going to present and forward and develop throughout the writing. And that means the thesis also has to be capable of advancement and what that means is, your thesis has to be something you can continue to write about over the length of an essay. If a thesis is something that you can't expand on, if you could say everything you have to say about it in a paragraph but your essay is supposed to be five pages long, that thesis isn't as strong as it could be. Next a thesis should be concise. And that means not too long or wordy. Yes, we want to preview what the work is going to do, the ideas that are coming forth in the writing, but it has to be digestible. A reader should be able to read that thesis, beginning to end, and understand it. We don’t want anybody to get lost along the way. And a thesis should also be supported and much like being capable of advancement that means your thesis has to be supported with research, proof, and evidence. Otherwise that writing and the ideas in it are going to be a little bit faulty. These four things are what we use to make sure a thesis statement is sound. If you take a look at that red box on the bottom of the slide we'll see two thesis statements that, they just are not quite good enough, yet. And so, let's take a look at the first one. “The purpose of my paper is to discuss dark chocolate.” Well, that is great. We definitely know your topic. But I don't see an argument or an opinion. I don't also have like a direction. As a reader, I'm not sure where this is going to go. Like, what are we going to discuss about dark chocolate? If it's everything about dark chocolate that could be an entire book, that could be a series of books. So, this… Although there's a lot that could be said, it's not really capable of advancement because it's too broad. Sure, it is nice and short, but this doesn't have enough of a focus for us and it doesn't help us to present an opinion. Same thing with the second one. “My paper will explore dark chocolate.” Well… Again, we're going to wonder what? Where is this going to go? And so, these two thesis statements do not demonstrate critical thinking because we cannot see any thought process. It's just a statement of topic. We're missing that originality that critical thinking is based on. In this paper I argue that dark chocolate has more positive benefits than other types of chocolate. My discussion shows that dark chocolate contributes to people’s happiness and satisfaction. Audio: So here are the revised thesis statements. These are better because they meet the four criteria and therefore they're going to demonstrate some critical thinking. In that first example thesis, it says, “in this paper I argue dark chocolate has more positive benefits than other types of chocolate.” Here we have an argument and that is that dark chocolate has positive benefits, that are lacking in other chocolate. Great. We have an opinion. That means we have this original thought that's going to be supported throughout the writing. I would personally prefer to see this thesis statement stated without “in this paper I argue.” I think we can do away with that stylistically, but we're here just to take a look at the critical thinking and not the wording. The second thesis statement for a discussion post also has that original thought because there is an argument here. “My discussion shows that dark chocolate contributes to people's happiness and satisfaction.” As a reader, I know after reading that thesis that I'm going to read a discussion post that's going to tell me how dark chocolate makes people happy, might have a paragraph or two about that, and I'm going to read about how dark chocolate makes people satisfied. We'll have a paragraph or two about that. This thesis statement presents an opinion that's argumentative. It can be advanced because we can use research to support those two points and it's short enough that when I read it I get the idea. So, here we have a thesis statement that's strong and that is showing critically thinking because I can tell there's gonna be research, yet the writer is sharing their thoughts. The writer has decided that dark chocolate contributes to these two things and there is that newness that we're looking for. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Thesis Poll Practice: Which thesis statement is argumentative ? [The webinar layout changes to open a poll for the students to respond to the question.] Audio: So, we're going to practice to try to find a thesis statement that shares an argument, a thesis statement that has that new and original thought. So, here there should be a poll on your screen and I want you to use that poll to choose which of these three thesis statements presents an argument. [Pause for students to participate in the poll.] Sometimes it helps us to find the one that is, by first finding the ones that are not. And so, we want to find a thesis statement that presents an opinion. Our thesis should not just repeat existing research. Remember if something repeats existing research alone, it's informed, but in critical thinking it also needs to be original. So, definitely a thesis statement that just repeats existing research is not going to be argumentative, so -- and I'm assuming, and I apologize if I'm wrong, but these are appearing in the same order on your screen as they are in mine but this first thesis statement, the on “in his article Jefferson insisted,” that one is just repeating what an article said. If that's a thesis the entire post or essay would be a summary of an article and that's not an argument so we do not want to identify that as being the argumentative one. The next thesis statement here says that “social media can create distractions for high school students as they focus on talking with their friends rather than their studies.” Now, this is an argument. It is I believe pretty narrow in focus, so perhaps it is more appropriate for a discussion post or a short essay rather than something long because it is very narrow in focus but it does present an opinion because you could disagree with it. I could say social media does not create a distraction or I could say it creates a distraction but not because high school students are talking with their friends, but for some other reason. So, this is argumentative. This is a thesis statement that shows critical thinking provided that the writer has drawn this conclusion his or herself. If this had a citation at the end showing that this also came from the Jefferson article, then it becomes just another paraphrase or a summary, and as a thesis statement that would mean the entire essay would also be a summary and that's not what we're looking for. In our last example thesis statement, which is “the purpose of this paper is to consider positive and negative ways that social media affects high school students.” This is kind of an in-between thesis statement. It could maybe be an argument. It also could maybe not be one. For me as a reader, I'm not exactly sure where this essay is going to go. I think it's a great topic but there's so many different ways it could affect high school students. Perhaps that could be narrowed a little bit. There's just some ways to make this more specific so there's probably an argument brewing underneath in this thesis. It's just not as obvious as that option in the middle. And I'm pleased to see that the majority went with that option in the middle, which is an argumentative thesis. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Thesis Statement: A statement of the main idea of the text, which is argumentative, capable of advancement, concise, and able to be supported. Social media can create distractions for high school students in schools as they focus on talking with their friends rather than their studies. Audio: All right. Now we know what a good thesis is and we know what critical thinking is, so how does a good thesis demonstrate critical thinking? Remember our keywords for the definition of critical thinking are original and informed assessment. A good thesis is argumentative. That means it is a new and original argument. Argument is assessment as we talked about earlier today. A good thesis is also able to be supported. That means it is informed by the research. Here is that sample thesis that we said was argumentative, and when we look at it we can see that original idea which is that it creates a distraction in these ways, and we can tell that it's going to be informed at least ideally unless this particular writer gets sidetracked. It's going to be backed by research showing that social -- that students focus on talking with their friends and that perhaps they're spending less time studying and paying attention to school work. All of that research has informed the argument that social media is a distraction. Before we -- well -- oh, here are my arrows. I apologize. Look at this. I have connected these two thing for you. So, we can see how the keywords are repeated in the definition of critical thinking and in the definition of thesis. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Questions? [Slide includes an image of a question mark.] Audio: I'm going to stop here before we move on and just see if any questions came into the Q and A box that I haven’t touched on yet or that we should look at before moving forward. Beth: Yeah. Thanks so much, Melissa. We had a great question where a student was asking, you know, whether you had any suggestions or strategies for how to come up with a thesis topic. Anything, if students are kind of struggling with that. Things to keep in mind or things to do to help with that. Melissa: Yeah, I think that sometimes it helps to keep your thesis statement alive as you're writing. So, what that means is just because you've written a thesis statement doesn't mean it's going to stay that way forever, so when I'm writing I will look at my prompt, or my directions, my purpose first and after doing all the reading and research and I'll say, okay, what am I going to do, and it can help to start off by saying in this paper I will, and start listing what you're going to do. That is not my favorite type of thesis to see in a final draft but it is the -- it is a good way to stay focused on that idea as you're writing. Now, you can write your whole draft, come back and make sure that the paragraphs that you create still match the thesis statement, and if they do, then it's time to try rewriting that thesis statement in a few different ways trying to really nail it down into a sentence or two and then going back and applying that checklist. Okay, is this an argument. If you are doing this after you've written the essay you can probably say, yes, I have been able to advance it, and then if you continue to struggle with the thesis or wonder if it is as good as it can be, this is where you might want to make an appointment in the Writing Center and in that appointment form say, you know, I need some help with my thesis statement, or you might want to go and watch the recording of our thesis webinars but just know that that thesis statement is going to change and grow and shift with the writing. Beth: Fantastic. Do you mind if I note a couple of other things that I mentioned in my response? Melissa: Oh. Please do. Beth: I love what you were saying about shifting and sort of working with the thesis as you're writing. But a couple other things I also said was go ahead and take a look at your notes again, once you’ve taken a look at your assignment prompt. Maybe you have some ideas in your notes where you say wow I was really interested in this part of this topic and maybe that's where I can focus my paper this week but also, we presented on sort of using your discussion posts as a basis for a paper a couple weeks ago. That was a webinar we did and that might be another idea is to take a look at your discussion post and the discussion forum for the week and see if there's anything that catches your eye and that might help you kind of come up with some ideas to focus your paper too. Melissa: Yeah, that's a great idea because if we're looking for that original thought in the presentation of our own argument, we have to go digging back through our ideas. Beth: Sure. Yeah, I think that's all we have for now, Melissa. Audio: Melissa: Okay. Great. That means we can move on to the next part of our writing that we can use to demonstrate critical thinking and that would be paraphrasing. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Paraphrasing Placing ideas or information from a source in your own words
Audio: So first we're going to define a paraphrase, and a paraphrase is when you take source material and we take that source material and put it in our own words. For example, if I read an article about a health care bill and I repeat the key points in my own words, as soon as I do that I have paraphrased, so some additional details about paraphrasing is that it's preferable to direct quotes and that's because it allows us to maintain our role as the writer. There's nothing wrong with including quotes especially when the writer has said it in a way that you just can't duplicate, but as we are the writer of our own work we want to keep as much of it in our own words as possible, so paraphrasing is preferable because of that. Know when that when you paraphrase you also have to cite the paraphrase but including the page or paragraph number is optional and that's because unlike a quote which definitely exists on a page or a specific paragraph, a paraphrase could include information that's not all on one page or all in one paragraph. A paraphrase is also usually shorter than the original, although it can be of a similar length. You could take two sentences and paraphrase it and that paraphrase will still be two sentences long. In a paraphrase our purpose, of course, is to condensed, reframe, restructure, restate the author's idea in our own words, but we don't want to change the idea itself. We want to maintain what the original point of information or expert opinion is. And then the purpose of a paraphrase is not just to repeat that information, but it gives us a point to relate the author's ideas to what we are writing about. A paraphrase is that first step. If writing does nothing but paraphrase, it's kind of like piecing together, you know, like cutting up a bunch of articles and gluing them on a piece of paper. We still need our own ideas in there, and a paraphrase helps us to connect what we are saying to the larger conversation. Read passage until you understand its meaning Consider context of assignment: What will you do with this evidence? Look away from passage to write main points of what you read Cite source in your paraphrase
Audio: And it's important to look at how we paraphrase. It sounds easy, just put it in my own words. But really this is something academic writers struggle with because it often ends up not being in our own words enough, and then it would be an issue with academic integrity or plagiarism or maybe the paraphrase feels like it just isn't saying the right thing or, sure, I can paraphrase the article but where am I actually going to put it in my own essay. So, these are some things that can make paraphrasing difficult. So when you paraphrase the first step we start at the very top of this circle you’ll see how we move through a paraphrase. The first step is to read that passage until you understand its meeting. Read it over and over again, take some notes. In order to repeat the ideas, we have to know what the ideas are. So, start by reading that passage until you really get the meaning. Then we want to consider our assignment. What are we doing? What is the purpose of this discussion post? Why am I writing this essay? And once you know that, you can try to figure out where this paraphrase will fit in. Does it support one specific idea that you know you’re going to say? How can I use this? Knowing how you can use the paraphrase before you're drafting or how you can use your sources before you draft, maybe if you're a person who creates detailed outlines it just helps you prepare to insert that research in a way that makes sense. And then when you're actually writing that draft, look away from that original article, look away from the passage when you're writing your main points and you’re repeating it. If you have your article next to you as you're typing that paraphrase it becomes easy to start borrowing some of the words and phrases and at that point it's not really a paraphrase and needs to be quoted. And when you're working on that you want to kind of stop and you can revise your paraphrase, you can rework it a bit. Okay? If you are really struggling with how to put this in my own words just imagine you're explaining it or telling it to someone else and see how it comes out. And if you don't like that version, like I said, just revise, rework and go ahead and what you need to. Now, once the paraphrase is complete remember the citation. It's a really good habit to get into to cite as soon as you write the paraphrase because it becomes very difficult to try to figure out where the citations go after the fact. And sometimes students will put “citation needed” as a reminder to themselves to add that citation, but if you're working with 7 sources you might forget what source it is. So, citing as soon as you're done with the paraphrase is a really good habit to get into. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Paraphrasing: Example “The most significant contribution of this work is the explicit focus on the informational resources available via social media and their role in the process of applying for, planning to attend, and feeling confident about succeeding at college. Importantly, and perhaps not surprisingly, social media does not play a major role for non first-generation students but does for first-generation students. This may be due to the fact that first-generation students are less likely to have these instrumental and informational resources available in their immediate household, as they do not have parents who have experienced successfully graduating from college” (Wohn, Ellison, Khan, Fewins-Bliss, & Gray, 2013, p. 27). Wohn, Ellison, Khan, Fewins-Bliss, and Gray (2013) discussed the role social media plays for students’ actions and feelings about college. First-generation students are more affected by social media’s in their decisions related to college. First-generation students sometimes don’t have the experience of people around them to use as they make decisions regarding college, one reason social media might have more of an impact for them. Audio: And so, here's an example of how to paraphrase. You're going to see this rather long paragraph from an article. As an academic writer, it's my job to read this as an academic writer over and over until I know what the main idea is. I'm going to look away from it when I write my paraphrase, and when I do that my paraphrase may look something like this. Right away you can see that this is shorter than the original. And that's a good sign. If we compare the wording of the two, there's no -- there isn't a point at which I've used more than two words in the same word order as the original source. And that means this wording is totally new, the wording is all my own. Also, I have cited it. Note that this citation comes at the beginning of the sentence and what matters is that I have the names of the writers and the year of publication. I could have cited it at the end if I wanted to and then I would have a parenthetical citation where the name and year was all in. That stylistically is up to you as long as it is cited. While social media can be a distraction to high school students during school hours, Wohn, Ellison, Khan, Fewins-Bliss, and Gray (2013) found that social media can help first-generation students successfully apply and be accepted to college. Audio: Here is another example of what a paraphrase could look like and this is what I think is my better one, I apologize, that is short and has a clear citation. In this previous example I had too much going on. There we go, there's my good one. Okay. So, this is the one that's nice and short and I have a citation. The citation you can see appears at the beginning but not the total beginning of the paraphrase and that's okay because the work is still cited and once again I can cite at the beginning, I can cite at the end. As a writer, I get to choose stylistically what works best for me. Paraphrase:
Audio: And so now the big question. How does paraphrasing actually demonstrate that I'm critically thinking. We know that a paraphrase is repeating existing information. So where is the originality coming from? Well, a paraphrase is your original restatement, so the connection here is that you have put that information or research in your own words. Remember critical thinking is creating something original and new out of the existing research. So, remember it doesn't take any critical thinking to copy a quote, but it does take critical thinking to create and craft a paraphrase. Audio: Again, I'm going to pause to make sure I haven't left anything out or there's any lingering questions so let me know, Beth. Beth: Yeah, thanks so much, Melissa. We did have a student asking sort of about quoting and asking whether they should never quote or it there is a certain number of quotes they can use, that kind of thing. Do you have any suggestions or guidance on that since we're talking about paraphrasing and kind of comparing the two? Melissa: Yeah, you know, each assignment is going to be different when it comes to when, where, how often to quote. I think that if you're able to paraphrase, it's usually the better choice. Occasionally, there are sentences or phrases that you can't state any better, maybe their research dense or the phrasing is beautiful, maybe somebody was a great writer when they presented some information or fact and you want to keep that original phrasing, or you're quoting an expert in the field, and it just supports your research, and you really want to give that expert credit for saying it, just because they carry so much weight. All of those are cases where quoting is fine. I think if you have back-to-back quotes or quotes that appear very close together, then that's a sign that the number should be reduced, either it would help to say more in between them or to turn one into a paraphrase. It’s really… You have to look at each specific assignment to see if there are too many quotes and I think if you look at your page, like if you have a whole page pulled up on the screen and you kind of step back, you can see the quotes and I think really what's most important is that space between them. Beth: Awesome. Thanks so much, Melissa. So, we had another question come in, so do you have another minute for another question? Melissa: Yes, of course. Beth: Okay. Awesome. So, when you are paraphrasing and sort of thinking about the process of paraphrasing we had I student ask about synonyms and asking whether synonyms are acceptable for paraphrasing and king of how those work into the process of paraphrasing. Could you talk about that a little bit? Melissa: Yeah, so there's, well, there’s kind of a bigger idea that is lingering under that question of using synonyms and that is if you're going to take a sentence and just hit up every other word and change it to a synonym, that's not going to be the strongest paraphrase and it might come out sounding a little awkward. So, in a paraphrase, it's both about kind of shuffling the order of words in addition to changing some of them. In some research, there may be words or phrases that are technical or specific and in which case we wouldn't want to rephrase them. I'm thinking like “differentiated instruction” in the world of education. Calling that something else might be a little clumsy. So, we would want to maintain that word. But a paraphrase is both about changing the order of words as well as what they actually are. Beth: Perfect. Thanks so much, Melissa. I think that's it for now. Audio: Melissa: Okay. Great. So, taking a look at our agenda today we just finished talking about paraphrasing and that means we are ready to move on to analysis. Visual : Slide changes to the following: Analysis
Audio: And analysis is one of the words that I think we hear a lot. It appears -- I know we talk about it a lot in the Writing Center. I see it in assignment prompts but it may not be something that's easy to have a solid definition of. We have a lot of great resources related to analysis spread throughout the Writing Center including the website and other webinars and I think these are four things that really help to define analysis in as brief of a way as we can get through here in this webinar. So first an analysis is your own interpretation of other authors', writers' ideas. It's what you think, what you get out of it, what occurs to you after reading that source. And analysis shows that you are not just summarizing the research you completed but that you're using it to support your argument. You have read research on a topic and now here's what you think. The analysis is where we kind of present that “here is what I think.” So, there's a lot of weight and importance to including an analysis. The analysis is that actual support. If you have facts and statistics and all this research based on a topic and you just present it on the page, the reader could draw their own conclusions. The analysis is the conclusions you have drawn, and that's really how you support the thesis or how you support your argument. The sources give you what you need to make those claims and to share those ideas, but you have to yourself as the writer make the claim and share the idea. And the analysis is where all of that happens, and it's important to include in every paragraph. Now I'm going to say every paragraph but of course each assignment may have different purposes and goals so occasionally there are types of paragraphs where we don't have analysis but I think if this is something you're worried about not including just try to get it in there in every paragraph. The short of all of this is analysis adds you to the writing. Analysis is where you happen. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Analysis: MEAL Plan M ain idea: Topic sentence—what subject will the paragraph be about? E vidence: Research, data, and sources Analysis: Interpretation of research, data, sources for your reader L ead out: Emphasize main point, reiterate a conclusion, explain significance of information Audio: One place where you may have heard the word analysis is the MEAL plan and the MEAL plan is a paragraphing plan we refer to a lot here in the Writing Center. It's featured on our website, all throughout the blog. Maybe Beth could put a link or two in the Q and A box if you want to learn more. Or if this is something you just aren’t’ familiar with yet. But the shortest explanation of the MEAL plan is that it helps you write a paragraph so long as you include the four parts, and the four parts are the main idea. The main idea is the topic sentence or the first sentence or two of the paragraph and that's where we state what the subject of the paragraph is, what the paragraph is all about. Next an MEAL plan paragraph includes evidence, and that evidence is all of our research, our statistics, data, other sources. It's everything we've looked up. After evidence, we have analysis and the analysis is that interpretation, what it means, exactly what we just looked at on the previous slide. It's you, your thoughts, what you have to say about it. And then an MEAL plan paragraph ends with some sort of lead-out where you can repeat the main idea of the paragraph. Reiterate your conclusion, explain the significance. There are a lot of strategies you can do at the end of the paragraph. When we look at this MEAL plan one thing to note is that the paragraph could have a topic sentence, two sentences of evidence, three sentences of analysis and a lead-out and that could be it, but an MEAL plan paragraph could also open with a topic sentence, have some evidence followed by analysis, a little bit more evidence and more analysis and then lead out. So, it's not an exact template that you can just drop one sentence into for each. There's flexibility with this, how long each of those four things are, and if your evidence and analysis repeats or not. But the MEAL plan can be very, very useful. Visual: Slide change to the following: Handout: Including Analysis and Explanation in Your Writing Audio: Now, before we take a look at examples of adding analysis, I do want to point out that we have a handout that is down in that files pod near the bottom of your screen, and in this handout, it will explain how you can include analysis and explanation in your writing. And this is useful if that's something that you feel stuck on or right now you're sitting here thinking you need a little bit more information about that. So, you'll see this handout and even though we're looking at examples of what analysis looks like, if you want those specific steps or information about doing it yourself, you're going to find it here, and I just wanted to draw your attention to that before we check out the following example. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Analysis According to recent data, 88% of patients in the United States needing to see a health care specialist are able to do so within a month (Roland, Guthrie, & Thome, 2012). According to recent data, 88% of patients in the United States needing to see a specialist are able to do so within a month (Roland, Guthrie, & Thome, 2012). This statistic shows that more than 10% of the population needs to wait to receive what might be urgent medical care. According to recent data, 88% of patients in the United States needing to see a specialist are able to do so within a month (Roland, Guthrie, & Thome, 2012). In other words, in terms of seeing a specialist, the U.S. health care system is meeting the needs of the majority of patients. Audio: And so, one trick to doing analysis is to include a quote or paraphrase and then just follow it up with what you think. This way it forces you to include that analysis right away, and because we know analysis is how we add more of ourselves to the topic, more of ourselves to the research, we want to say this, we want it to be something new and from our own brains and responding immediately to a paraphrase helps us with that. It's a good habit to get into. First here I have a paraphrase which is awesome because I'm presenting the facts in my own words, but I add even more critical thinking by analyzing or saying something new about it right after. So here I have my paraphrase. “According to recent data 88% of patients in the United States needing to see a health care specialist are able to do so within a month.” There's my paraphrase, so here's one example of analysis. Immediately after I could say “this statistic shows that more than 10% of the population needs to wait to receive what might be urgent medical care.” So, as a writer I read that article. I paraphrased it and I thought that is not good. That means there's a lot people who are not getting the help they need, so I had that idea and I put it into writing and that becomes my analysis. But because analysis involves adding my own thoughts, it can look different in each paper. So, here's another example. I read that same article, and my analysis is, “in other words, in terms of seeing a specialist the U.S. health care system is meeting the needs of the majority of patients.” So, in this case I'm a writer who read that article and said 88%, that's amazing and I’ve included that in my analysis. So, see how the one paraphrase could be used to support two totally different ideas? That's because analysis is coming from me as the academic writer. It's me. I'm not just repeating what I read in the article, I’m adding my thoughts. So, on the one case, I'm a student who thinks this article shows the health care system is great and on the other hand, I'm a student who read the article and thought it showed that health care system needs to be improved. Two totally different ideas. Both are good. Neither is better than the other. The point is that analysis is going to come from you, so you could read the research and have one idea. Someone could read it and have a different idea, but both are correct. Provide analysis of my paraphrase Audio: And just to demonstrate how people can read the same bit of research and draw their own conclusions, I want you to write an analysis of this paraphrase, what this -- what I'm asking you to do is to read through the paraphrase and then share a follow-up conclusion, observation, thought, something new. What does this make you realize? I'm going to give you a couple minutes to complete this task, and as you work or after you're done, take a look at the variety of responses. So, when I take a look at some of the analysis that's coming in I see some people are using this research to focus on communication. Some people are going to use this to help forward an opinion about students going on to further their education. Some people are focusing on how social media becomes a learning tool. So, this one paraphrase could be used to support four different essays, no problem. And that's because the analysis is coming from us. And you may notice that sometimes people will use the same sources for totally different papers, totally different purposes and that's because that analysis is all about how you have chosen to use it. So, I hope you what can see here is that in the analysis we have a demonstration of critical thinking, it's what we think about that topic. Thank you so much for participating in this chat. This one requires a lot of -- well, no surprise, critical thinking, so thank you. Critical Thinking
Audio: And so, we can solidify how including analysis demonstrates critical thinking and we'll return to that definition, critical thinking is an original and a form of assessment and an analysis we provide our own ideas, our own interpretation. Our ideas and interpretations are original, so we have that match up well and because those ideas are based on other authors' ideas and work it is informed. So, see if you include analysis you're demonstrating critical thinking. Audio: Once again, I'll pause just to see if there's anything I should address before we move on. Beth: Yeah, I don't really think so, Melissa. I think we're pretty good. Audio: Melissa: Oh, great. Okay. So here we are. The final way to show critical thinking in our writing which is synthesis. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Synthesis Combining independent elements to form a cohesive whole
Audio: And synthesis I think you may feel that these are getting a little bit more complex concepts as we move along, but synthesis is when we take a whole bunch of stuff, independent elements and we take all of those things and pull them together into something new into a cohesive whole. So really those independent elements that could be a whole bunch of research like five different articles. So, for example I synthesize when I read those five articles about school reform and then I create my own plan or I plan new school reform. I've taken a lot of independent elements, those five articles, and I've used them to create a cohesive whole and that would be my plan. Originally those five ideas had nothing to do with each other, maybe the two authors had dinner once or something, but the articles all existed totally separate. It was me and my brain that pulled them together to create something new. I did the synthesizing. And, so, in order to synthesize we use a lot of brain power because we have to analyze the sources. We have to compare and contrast what they say. We have to evaluate and interpret the information and then we still have to use it to create something new.
è Your recommendation of how to combat the negative effects of social media on high school students. [Slide shows the three bullet points as balls put into a funnel, with the recommendation coming out as the result.] Audio: So, here's a visual I like to share whenever I talk about synthesis. Imagine putting all these things into a funnel or a bowl or something and you mix them up and squeeze it out through your brain and there it is, something new that you created. So, for example, I could take statistics about high schoolers' use of social media, I could read a bunch of articles about what experts advise when it comes to social media and high school students. I could see what they say, what's the same, different, what's valid, what is flawed. I could also read a research longitudinal research study on the topic and I would think, think, think about all of these things. I would draw conclusions. I would compare and contrast and then I would present my synthesis. And that's my recommendation how to combat the negative effects of social media on high school students. Nobody else wrote that recommendation. That's all me. So, synthesis is taking a whole bunch of pieces and using them to make them new whole thing. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Synthesis: Not Quite According to Peterson (2008), 83% of teenagers claimed that social media had no impact on their academic performance. Carol (2010) noted that teenagers who used social media reported a higher dissatisfaction with their academics than did teenagers who use little or no social media. Audio: And here’s an example of synthesis that isn’t quite there. Let’s take a look. Here I have “according to Peterson 83% of teenagers claimed that social media had no impact on their academic performance. Carol noted that teenagers who used social media reported a higher dissatisfaction with their academics.” And so, what I have here is actually just two paraphrases back to back. I have my independent elements, or the whole bunch of pieces, all the stuff we just talked about, but I haven't done anything with them. I haven't made anything new. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Synthesis: With the MEAL Plan Research on social media’s effect on high school students is far from reaching consensus. While Peterson (2008) noted that 83% of teenagers claimed that social media had no impact on their academic performance, Carol (2010) found teenagers who used social media reported a higher dissatisfaction with their academics than did teenagers who use little or no social media. However, both authors neglect the possibility that high school students are simply not aware of the negative influences of social media. Future research, therefore, should closely examine this level of awareness and whether it can predetermine particular adolescent behavior. Audio: So, here's how I could do that using the MEAL plan. And first here is my M, my topic sentence, that is going to present the main of idea of the paragraph. And then now I'm going to have my evidence, and so that evidence is those two paraphrases we just looked at. I'm going to use these as my independent elements based on my synthesis. And now here's my analysis. Yes, analysis, analyzing is necessary for a synthesis. We can't create something new, whole without analyzing or responding to the research. And analysis and synthesis are closely related because of this. Here's my comparison. And then I'm going to end with a lead-out phrase that's going to wrap it all up and when I wrap it up here what I’m doing is I'm creating this new idea. It's a recommendation of what we should do. The proposal is a new whole thing. This taken together this paragraph is me synthesizing. So, synthesis can happen in the paragraph level like this. Here we see independent elements and what I've done with them but it can also be an end result of an entire essay. It's just that on this slide I can't walk us through an essay easily so we're looking at it on the paragraph level. I noted there's a public health or something like that assignment out there where students are asked to create a policy to address a health issue. That assignment requires heavy duty synthesizing. The policy that students are proposing is a new original plan that is a result of looking at a lot research and other existing plans. Critical thinking : An original and informed assessment of an idea, theory, or phenomenon Synthesis: Combining independent elements to form a cohesive whole Audio: So, as you can expect synthesis helps us demonstrate critical thinking. Remember critical thinking is an original and informed assessment. We see the idea of original in the definition of synthesis because you're creating a totally new thing, brand-new, and we see the idea of informed up here in the definition of synthesis because synthesis is based on research or those independent elements. It's helpful to see how the definition of thesis, paraphrasing, analysis and synthesis all overlap and so having strong -- a strong thesis, a strong paraphrase and analysis and synthesis will all demonstrate the strength of your own critical thinking. Audio: And I don't know if we want to stop questions before we recap and share resources. Did anything come through? Beth: It didn't, no. So maybe just talk about those resources, and yeah, wrap us up here. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Recap
Audio: Melissa: Okay. Sounds great. So, just to recap critical thinking is something we're asked to do as academic writers, and if you're wondering how do I show I've thought critically? I mean, I'm sure when a student is preparing an assignment, or even a discussion post, a lot of thought goes into it. How do we make that thought visible? We can make it visible in your thesis, in your paraphrasing, in the inclusion of analysis and in the syntheses as you pull together multiple sources to create something new. In these four ways, your critical thinking becomes visible and it becomes something that you can say okay, my critical thinking, people will know that I've used resources. I have an informed assessment because I've created this new idea based on research. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Critical Thinking Toolbox Thesis statements:
Paraphrasing:
Audio: And now, here is a page that has links to more details about the four things we looked at. And I have to apologize because it looks like these links are not clickable here in this presentation today so if you go to the files pod you'll be able to download the slides and when you download the slides, these will be completely accessible so that you can take a look at some of these that will help you if you wanted more information about how to write a thesis, how to paraphrase. Visual: Slide changes to the following: Questions: Anytime: [email protected] Continue the conversation on Twitter with #WaldenU Develop your Critical Thinking Skills: Check out the recorded webinars “Adding Analysis and Synthesis to your Writing” and “Writing Effective Academic Paragraphs” Audio: And that brings me to the end of my presentation and I will hand it back to Beth to wrap things up for us. Beth: Thanks so much, Melissa. We didn't get any other questions that came in and I know we're here the top of the hour so I wondered if you just have any sort of final tips or strategies, for students. I know this is a lot that you went over. So, I wondered if you had any tips for students who might be feeling a little overwhelmed for trying to incorporate all of this into their writing. Melissa: Oh definitely. And in this webinar because we talked about four really important things rather quickly, the big take away here is just to know that when we include these things in our writing we are demonstrating our critical thinking skills. If you're feeling like you need more support in one of those areas, first download the slides and access those links but also feel free to make an appointment with us in the Writing Center and just mention where you want the instructor to focus. You know, can you focus on my analysis. I'm not sure if I have enough synthesis. I'm worrying about the amount of critical thinking and you can get that one-on-one help that way with whatever you think you will need the most help with. Beth: I love that. Fantastic. Thanks so much, Melissa. This is a great sort of really in-depth I feel like but broad overview of all these different elements so thank you. And thank you everyone for coming. I know we're at the top of the hour so we're going to go ahead and close out but do let us know if you have any lingering questions at that e-mail writing support and check out those other webinars and resources Melissa mentioned and we hope to see you at another webinar coming up. Thanks everyone. Have a great night.
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Dara has been teaching for 25 years (career preparation, English, photography, yearbook, newspaper, and graphic design) and has presented nationally on project-based learning and technology integration: There is so much going on right now and there is an overload of information for us to process. Did you ever stop to think how our students are processing current events? They see news feeds, hear news reports, and scan photos and posts, but are they truly thinking about what they are hearing and seeing? I tell my students that my job is not to give them answers but to teach them how to think about what they read and hear. So what is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom? There are just as many definitions of critical thinking as there are people trying to define it. However, the Critical Think Consortium focuses on the tools to create a thinking-based classroom rather than a definition: “Shape the climate to support thinking, create opportunities for thinking, build capacity to think, provide guidance to inform thinking.” Using these four criteria and pairing them with current events, teachers easily create learning spaces that thrive on thinking and keep students engaged. One successful technique I use is the FIRE Write. Students are given a quote, a paragraph, an excerpt, or a photo from the headlines. Students are asked to F ocus and respond to the selection for three minutes. Next, students are asked to I dentify a phrase or section of the photo and write for two minutes. Third, students are asked to R eframe their response around a specific word, phrase, or section within their previous selection. Finally, students E xchange their thoughts with a classmate. Within the exchange, students also talk about how the selection connects to what we are covering in class. There was a controversial Pepsi ad in 2017 involving Kylie Jenner and a protest with a police presence. The imagery in the photo was strikingly similar to a photo that went viral with a young lady standing opposite a police line. Using that image from a current event engaged my students and gave them the opportunity to critically think about events of the time. Here are the two photos and a student response: F - Focus on both photos and respond for three minutes In the first picture, you see a strong and courageous black female, bravely standing in front of two officers in protest. She is risking her life to do so. Iesha Evans is simply proving to the world she does NOT mean less because she is black … and yet officers are there to stop her. She did not step down. In the picture below, you see Kendall Jenner handing a police officer a Pepsi. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal, except this was Pepsi’s weak, pathetic, and outrageous excuse of a commercial that belittles the whole movement of people fighting for their lives. I - Identify a word or phrase, underline it, then write about it for two minutes A white, privileged female in place of a fighting black woman was asking for trouble. A struggle we are continuously fighting every day, and they make a mockery of it. “I know what will work! Here Mr. Police Officer! Drink some Pepsi!” As if. Pepsi made a fool of themselves, and now their already dwindling fan base continues to ever shrink smaller. R - Reframe your thoughts by choosing a different word, then write about that for one minute You don’t know privilege until it’s gone. You don’t know privilege while it’s there—but you can and will be made accountable and aware. Don’t use it for evil. You are not stupid. Use it to do something. Kendall could’ve NOT done the commercial. Kendall could’ve released another commercial standing behind a black woman. Anything! Exchange - Remember to discuss how this connects to our school song project and our previous discussions? This connects two ways - 1) We want to convey a strong message. Be powerful. Show who we are. And Pepsi definitely tried. … Which leads to the second connection. 2) Not mess up and offend anyone, as had the one alma mater had been linked to black minstrels. We want to be amazing, but we have to be smart and careful and make sure we include everyone who goes to our school and everyone who may go to our school. As a final step, students read and annotate the full article and compare it to their initial response. Using current events and critical-thinking strategies like FIRE writing helps create a learning space where thinking is the goal rather than a score on a multiple-choice assessment. Critical-thinking skills can cross over to any of students’ other courses and into life outside the classroom. After all, we as teachers want to help the whole student be successful, and critical thinking is an important part of navigating life after they leave our classrooms.  ‘Before-Explore-Explain’Patrick Brown is the executive director of STEM and CTE for the Fort Zumwalt school district in Missouri and an experienced educator and author : Planning for critical thinking focuses on teaching the most crucial science concepts, practices, and logical-thinking skills as well as the best use of instructional time. One way to ensure that lessons maintain a focus on critical thinking is to focus on the instructional sequence used to teach. Explore-before-explain teaching is all about promoting critical thinking for learners to better prepare students for the reality of their world. What having an explore-before-explain mindset means is that in our planning, we prioritize giving students firsthand experiences with data, allow students to construct evidence-based claims that focus on conceptual understanding, and challenge students to discuss and think about the why behind phenomena. Just think of the critical thinking that has to occur for students to construct a scientific claim. 1) They need the opportunity to collect data, analyze it, and determine how to make sense of what the data may mean. 2) With data in hand, students can begin thinking about the validity and reliability of their experience and information collected. 3) They can consider what differences, if any, they might have if they completed the investigation again. 4) They can scrutinize outlying data points for they may be an artifact of a true difference that merits further exploration of a misstep in the procedure, measuring device, or measurement. All of these intellectual activities help them form more robust understanding and are evidence of their critical thinking. In explore-before-explain teaching, all of these hard critical-thinking tasks come before teacher explanations of content. Whether we use discovery experiences, problem-based learning, and or inquiry-based activities, strategies that are geared toward helping students construct understanding promote critical thinking because students learn content by doing the practices valued in the field to generate knowledge.  An Issue of EquityMeg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at The Possible Project, an out-of-school program that collaborates with youth to build entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and provides pathways to careers and long-term economic prosperity. She has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a middle and high school teacher, school coach, college professor, regional director of N.Y.C. Outward Bound Schools, and director of external research with EL Education: Although critical thinking often defies straightforward definition, most in the education field agree it consists of several components: reasoning, problem-solving, and decisionmaking, plus analysis and evaluation of information, such that multiple sides of an issue can be explored. It also includes dispositions and “the willingness to apply critical-thinking principles, rather than fall back on existing unexamined beliefs, or simply believe what you’re told by authority figures.” Despite variation in definitions, critical thinking is nonetheless promoted as an essential outcome of students’ learning—we want to see students and adults demonstrate it across all fields, professions, and in their personal lives. Yet there is simultaneously a rationing of opportunities in schools for students of color, students from under-resourced communities, and other historically marginalized groups to deeply learn and practice critical thinking. For example, many of our most underserved students often spend class time filling out worksheets, promoting high compliance but low engagement, inquiry, critical thinking, or creation of new ideas. At a time in our world when college and careers are critical for participation in society and the global, knowledge-based economy, far too many students struggle within classrooms and schools that reinforce low-expectations and inequity. If educators aim to prepare all students for an ever-evolving marketplace and develop skills that will be valued no matter what tomorrow’s jobs are, then we must move critical thinking to the forefront of classroom experiences. And educators must design learning to cultivate it. So, what does that really look like? Unpack and define critical thinking To understand critical thinking, educators need to first unpack and define its components. What exactly are we looking for when we speak about reasoning or exploring multiple perspectives on an issue? How does problem-solving show up in English, math, science, art, or other disciplines—and how is it assessed? At Two Rivers, an EL Education school, the faculty identified five constructs of critical thinking, defined each, and created rubrics to generate a shared picture of quality for teachers and students. The rubrics were then adapted across grade levels to indicate students’ learning progressions. At Avenues World School, critical thinking is one of the Avenues World Elements and is an enduring outcome embedded in students’ early experiences through 12th grade. For instance, a kindergarten student may be expected to “identify cause and effect in familiar contexts,” while an 8th grader should demonstrate the ability to “seek out sufficient evidence before accepting a claim as true,” “identify bias in claims and evidence,” and “reconsider strongly held points of view in light of new evidence.” When faculty and students embrace a common vision of what critical thinking looks and sounds like and how it is assessed, educators can then explicitly design learning experiences that call for students to employ critical-thinking skills. This kind of work must occur across all schools and programs, especially those serving large numbers of students of color. As Linda Darling-Hammond asserts , “Schools that serve large numbers of students of color are least likely to offer the kind of curriculum needed to ... help students attain the [critical-thinking] skills needed in a knowledge work economy. ” So, what can it look like to create those kinds of learning experiences? Designing experiences for critical thinking After defining a shared understanding of “what” critical thinking is and “how” it shows up across multiple disciplines and grade levels, it is essential to create learning experiences that impel students to cultivate, practice, and apply these skills. There are several levers that offer pathways for teachers to promote critical thinking in lessons: 1.Choose Compelling Topics: Keep it relevant A key Common Core State Standard asks for students to “write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” That might not sound exciting or culturally relevant. But a learning experience designed for a 12th grade humanities class engaged learners in a compelling topic— policing in America —to analyze and evaluate multiple texts (including primary sources) and share the reasoning for their perspectives through discussion and writing. Students grappled with ideas and their beliefs and employed deep critical-thinking skills to develop arguments for their claims. Embedding critical-thinking skills in curriculum that students care about and connect with can ignite powerful learning experiences. 2. Make Local Connections: Keep it real At The Possible Project , an out-of-school-time program designed to promote entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, students in a recent summer online program (modified from in-person due to COVID-19) explored the impact of COVID-19 on their communities and local BIPOC-owned businesses. They learned interviewing skills through a partnership with Everyday Boston , conducted virtual interviews with entrepreneurs, evaluated information from their interviews and local data, and examined their previously held beliefs. They created blog posts and videos to reflect on their learning and consider how their mindsets had changed as a result of the experience. In this way, we can design powerful community-based learning and invite students into productive struggle with multiple perspectives. 3. Create Authentic Projects: Keep it rigorous At Big Picture Learning schools, students engage in internship-based learning experiences as a central part of their schooling. Their school-based adviser and internship-based mentor support them in developing real-world projects that promote deeper learning and critical-thinking skills. Such authentic experiences teach “young people to be thinkers, to be curious, to get from curiosity to creation … and it helps students design a learning experience that answers their questions, [providing an] opportunity to communicate it to a larger audience—a major indicator of postsecondary success.” Even in a remote environment, we can design projects that ask more of students than rote memorization and that spark critical thinking. Our call to action is this: As educators, we need to make opportunities for critical thinking available not only to the affluent or those fortunate enough to be placed in advanced courses. The tools are available, let’s use them. Let’s interrogate our current curriculum and design learning experiences that engage all students in real, relevant, and rigorous experiences that require critical thinking and prepare them for promising postsecondary pathways.  Critical Thinking & Student EngagementDr. PJ Caposey is an award-winning educator, keynote speaker, consultant, and author of seven books who currently serves as the superintendent of schools for the award-winning Meridian CUSD 223 in northwest Illinois. You can find PJ on most social-media platforms as MCUSDSupe: When I start my keynote on student engagement, I invite two people up on stage and give them each five paper balls to shoot at a garbage can also conveniently placed on stage. Contestant One shoots their shot, and the audience gives approval. Four out of 5 is a heckuva score. Then just before Contestant Two shoots, I blindfold them and start moving the garbage can back and forth. I usually try to ensure that they can at least make one of their shots. Nobody is successful in this unfair environment. I thank them and send them back to their seats and then explain that this little activity was akin to student engagement. While we all know we want student engagement, we are shooting at different targets. More importantly, for teachers, it is near impossible for them to hit a target that is moving and that they cannot see. Within the world of education and particularly as educational leaders, we have failed to simplify what student engagement looks like, and it is impossible to define or articulate what student engagement looks like if we cannot clearly articulate what critical thinking is and looks like in a classroom. Because, simply, without critical thought, there is no engagement. The good news here is that critical thought has been defined and placed into taxonomies for decades already. This is not something new and not something that needs to be redefined. I am a Bloom’s person, but there is nothing wrong with DOK or some of the other taxonomies, either. To be precise, I am a huge fan of Daggett’s Rigor and Relevance Framework. I have used that as a core element of my practice for years, and it has shaped who I am as an instructional leader. So, in order to explain critical thought, a teacher or a leader must familiarize themselves with these tried and true taxonomies. Easy, right? Yes, sort of. The issue is not understanding what critical thought is; it is the ability to integrate it into the classrooms. In order to do so, there are a four key steps every educator must take.
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 Thanks to Dara, Patrick, Meg, and PJ for their contributions! Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post. Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind. You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo . Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching . Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign—new ones won’t be available until February). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first nine years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.
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selected template will load here This action is not available.  4.4: What’s Critical About Critical Thinking?
\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \) \( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) ( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\) \( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}} % arrow\) \( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}} % arrow\) \( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \) \( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \) \( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \) \( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \) Critical thinking is one of those terms that has been used so often and in so many different ways that if often seems meaningless. It also makes one wonder, is there such a thing as uncritical thinking? If you aren’t thinking critically, then are you even thinking? Despite the prevalent ambiguities, critical thinking actually does mean something. The Association of American Colleges and Universities usefully defines it as “a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.” 6 That definition aligns with the best description of critical thinking I ever heard; it came from my junior high art teacher, Joe Bolger. 7 He once asked us, “What color is the ceiling?” In that withering tween tone, we reluctantly replied, “Whiiiite.” He then asked, “What color is it really?” We deigned to aim our pre-adolescent eyes upwards, and eventually began to offer more accurate answers: “Ivory?” “Yellow-ish tan.” “It’s grey in that corner.” After finally getting a few thoughtful responses, Mr. Bolger said something like, “Making good art is about drawing what you see, not what you think you’re supposed to see.” The AAC&U definition, above, essentially amounts to the same thing: taking a good look and deciding what you really think rather than relying on the first idea or assumption that comes to mind. The critical thinking rubric produced by the AAC&U describes the relevant activities of critical thinking in more detail. To think critically, one must … (a) “clearly state and comprehensively describe the issue or problem”, (b) “independently interpret and evaluate sources”, (c) “thoroughly analyze assumptions behind and context of your own or others’ ideas”, (d) “argue a complex position and one that takes counter-arguments into account,” and (e) “arrive at logical and well informed conclusions”. 8 While you are probably used to providing some evidence for your claims, you can see that college-level expectations go quite a bit further. When professors assign an analytical paper, they don’t just want you to formulate a plausible-sounding argument. They want you to dig into the evidence, think hard about unspoken assumptions and the influence of context, and then explain what you really think and why. Interestingly, the AAC&U defines critical thinking as a “habit of mind” rather than a discrete achievement. And there are at least two reasons to see critical thinking as a craft or art to pursue rather than a task to check off. First, the more you think critically, the better you get at it . As you get more and more practice in closely examining claims, their underlying logic, and alternative perspectives on the issue, it’ll begin to feel automatic. You’ll no longer make or accept claims that begin with “Everyone knows that …” or end with “That’s just human nature.” Second, just as artists and craftspersons hone their skills over a lifetime, learners continually expand their critical thinking capacities, both through the feedback they get from others and their own reflections . Artists of all kinds find satisfaction in continually seeking greater challenges. Continual reflection and improvement is part of the craft. As soon as I see the phrase “critical thinking,” the first thing I think is more work. It always sounds as if you’re going to have to think harder and longer. But I think the AAC&U’s definition is on point, critical thinking is a habit. Seeing that phrase shouldn’t be a scary thing because by this point in many people’s college career this is an automatic response. I never expect an answer to a question to be in the text; by now I realize that my professors want to know what I have to say about something or what I have learned. In a paper or essay, the three-step thesis process explained in Chapter 3 is a tool that will help you get this information across. While you’re doing the hard work (the thinking part), this formula offers you a way to clearly state your position on a subject. It’s as simple as: make a general statement, make an arguable statement, and finally, say why it is important. This is my rule of thumb, and I would not want to start a thesis-driven paper any other way! Aly Button Critical thinking is hard work. Even those who actively choose to do it experience it as tedious, difficult, and sometimes surprisingly emotional. Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains that our brains aren’t designed to think; rather, they’re designed to save us from having to think. 9 Our brains are great at developing routines and repertoires that enable us to accomplish fairly complex tasks like driving cars, choosing groceries, and having a conversation without thinking consciously and thoroughly about every move we make. Kahneman calls this “fast thinking.” “Slow thinking,” which is deliberate and painstaking, is something our brains seek to avoid. That built-in tendency can lead us astray. Kahneman and his colleagues often used problems like this one in experiments to gauge how people used fast and slow thinking in different contexts: 10 Example \(\PageIndex{1}\): A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Most people automatically say the ball costs $0.10. However, if the bat costs $1 more, than the bat would cost $1.10 leading to the incorrect total of $1.20. The ball costs $0.05. Kahneman notes, “Many thousands of university students have answered the bat-and-ball puzzle, and the results are shocking. More than 50% of students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton gave the intuitive—incorrect—answer.” These and other results confirm that “many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions.” 11 Thinking critically—thoroughly questioning your immediate intuitive responses—is difficult work, but every organization and business in the world needs people who can do that effectively. Some students assume that an unpleasant critical thinking experience means that they’re either doing something wrong or that it’s an inherently uninteresting (and oppressive) activity. While we all relish those times when we’re pleasantly absorbed in a complex activity (what psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi calls “flow” 12 ), the more tedious experiences can also bring satisfaction, sort of like a good work-out. Critical thinking can also be emotionally challenging, researchers have found. Facing a new realm of uncertainty and contradiction without relying on familiar assumptions is inherently anxiety-provoking because when you’re doing it, you are, by definition, incompetent. Recent research has highlighted that both children and adults need to be able to regulate their own emotions in order to cope with the challenges of building competence in a new area. 13 The kind of critical thinking your professors are looking for—that is, pursuing a comprehensive, multi-faceted exploration in order to arrive at an arguable, nuanced argument—is inevitably a struggle and it may be an emotional one. Your best bet is to find ways to make those processes as efficient, pleasant, and effective as you can . The thing no one tells you when you get to college is that critical thinking papers are professors’ favorites. College is all about learning how to think individual thoughts so you’ll have to do quite a few of them. Have no fear though; they do get easier with time. The first step? Think about what you want to focus on in the paper (aka your thesis) and go with it. Kaethe Leonard As Chapter 1 explains, the demands students face are not at all unique to their academic pursuits. Professional working roles demand critical thinking, as 81% of major employers reported in an AAC&U-commissioned survey 14 , and it’s pretty easy to imagine how critical thinking helps one make much better decisions in all aspects of life. Embrace it. And just as athletes, artists, and writers sustain their energy and inspiration for hard work by interacting with others who share these passions, look to others in the scholarly community—your professors and fellow students—to keep yourself engaged in these ongoing intellectual challenges. While writing time is often solitary, it’s meant to plug you into a vibrant academic community. What your professors want, overall, is for you to join them in asking and pursuing important questions about the natural, social, and creative worlds. 41+ Critical Thinking Examples (Definition + Practices) Critical thinking is an essential skill in our information-overloaded world, where figuring out what is fact and fiction has become increasingly challenging. But why is critical thinking essential? Put, critical thinking empowers us to make better decisions, challenge and validate our beliefs and assumptions, and understand and interact with the world more effectively and meaningfully. Critical thinking is like using your brain's "superpowers" to make smart choices. Whether it's picking the right insurance, deciding what to do in a job, or discussing topics in school, thinking deeply helps a lot. In the next parts, we'll share real-life examples of when this superpower comes in handy and give you some fun exercises to practice it. Critical Thinking Process Outline Critical thinking means thinking clearly and fairly without letting personal feelings get in the way. It's like being a detective, trying to solve a mystery by using clues and thinking hard about them. It isn't always easy to think critically, as it can take a pretty smart person to see some of the questions that aren't being answered in a certain situation. But, we can train our brains to think more like puzzle solvers, which can help develop our critical thinking skills. Here's what it looks like step by step: Spotting the Problem: It's like discovering a puzzle to solve. You see that there's something you need to figure out or decide. Collecting Clues: Now, you need to gather information. Maybe you read about it, watch a video, talk to people, or do some research. It's like getting all the pieces to solve your puzzle. Breaking It Down: This is where you look at all your clues and try to see how they fit together. You're asking questions like: Why did this happen? What could happen next? Checking Your Clues: You want to make sure your information is good. This means seeing if what you found out is true and if you can trust where it came from. Making a Guess: After looking at all your clues, you think about what they mean and come up with an answer. This answer is like your best guess based on what you know. Explaining Your Thoughts: Now, you tell others how you solved the puzzle. You explain how you thought about it and how you answered. Checking Your Work: This is like looking back and seeing if you missed anything. Did you make any mistakes? Did you let any personal feelings get in the way? This step helps make sure your thinking is clear and fair. And remember, you might sometimes need to go back and redo some steps if you discover something new. If you realize you missed an important clue, you might have to go back and collect more information. Critical Thinking MethodsJust like doing push-ups or running helps our bodies get stronger, there are special exercises that help our brains think better. These brain workouts push us to think harder, look at things closely, and ask many questions. It's not always about finding the "right" answer. Instead, it's about the journey of thinking and asking "why" or "how." Doing these exercises often helps us become better thinkers and makes us curious to know more about the world. Now, let's look at some brain workouts to help us think better: 1. "What If" ScenariosImagine crazy things happening, like, "What if there was no internet for a month? What would we do?" These games help us think of new and different ideas. Pick a hot topic. Argue one side of it and then try arguing the opposite. This makes us see different viewpoints and think deeply about a topic. 3. Analyze Visual DataCheck out charts or pictures with lots of numbers and info but no explanations. What story are they telling? This helps us get better at understanding information just by looking at it. 4. Mind MappingWrite an idea in the center and then draw lines to related ideas. It's like making a map of your thoughts. This helps us see how everything is connected. There's lots of mind-mapping software , but it's also nice to do this by hand. 5. Weekly DiaryEvery week, write about what happened, the choices you made, and what you learned. Writing helps us think about our actions and how we can do better. 6. Evaluating Information SourcesCollect stories or articles about one topic from newspapers or blogs. Which ones are trustworthy? Which ones might be a little biased? This teaches us to be smart about where we get our info. There are many resources to help you determine if information sources are factual or not. 7. Socratic QuestioningThis way of thinking is called the Socrates Method, named after an old-time thinker from Greece. It's about asking lots of questions to understand a topic. You can do this by yourself or chat with a friend. Start with a Big Question: "What does 'success' mean?" Dive Deeper with More Questions: "Why do you think of success that way?" "Do TV shows, friends, or family make you think that?" "Does everyone think about success the same way?" "Can someone be a winner even if they aren't rich or famous?" "Can someone feel like they didn't succeed, even if everyone else thinks they did?" Look for Real-life Examples: "Who is someone you think is successful? Why?" "Was there a time you felt like a winner? What happened?" Think About Other People's Views: "How might a person from another country think about success?" "Does the idea of success change as we grow up or as our life changes?" Think About What It Means: "How does your idea of success shape what you want in life?" "Are there problems with only wanting to be rich or famous?" Look Back and Think: "After talking about this, did your idea of success change? How?" "Did you learn something new about what success means?"  8. Six Thinking HatsEdward de Bono came up with a cool way to solve problems by thinking in six different ways, like wearing different colored hats. You can do this independently, but it might be more effective in a group so everyone can have a different hat color. Each color has its way of thinking: White Hat (Facts): Just the facts! Ask, "What do we know? What do we need to find out?" Red Hat (Feelings): Talk about feelings. Ask, "How do I feel about this?" Black Hat (Careful Thinking): Be cautious. Ask, "What could go wrong?" Yellow Hat (Positive Thinking): Look on the bright side. Ask, "What's good about this?" Green Hat (Creative Thinking): Think of new ideas. Ask, "What's another way to look at this?" Blue Hat (Planning): Organize the talk. Ask, "What should we do next?" When using this method with a group:
9. SWOT AnalysisSWOT Analysis is like a game plan for businesses to know where they stand and where they should go. "SWOT" stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. There are a lot of SWOT templates out there for how to do this visually, but you can also think it through. It doesn't just apply to businesses but can be a good way to decide if a project you're working on is working. Strengths: What's working well? Ask, "What are we good at?" Weaknesses: Where can we do better? Ask, "Where can we improve?" Opportunities: What good things might come our way? Ask, "What chances can we grab?" Threats: What challenges might we face? Ask, "What might make things tough for us?" Steps to do a SWOT Analysis:
Now that you have a few tools for thinking critically, let’s get into some specific examples. Everyday ExamplesLife is a series of decisions. From the moment we wake up, we're faced with choices – some trivial, like choosing a breakfast cereal, and some more significant, like buying a home or confronting an ethical dilemma at work. While it might seem that these decisions are disparate, they all benefit from the application of critical thinking. 10. Deciding to buy somethingImagine you want a new phone. Don't just buy it because the ad looks cool. Think about what you need in a phone. Look up different phones and see what people say about them. Choose the one that's the best deal for what you want. 11. Deciding what is trueThere's a lot of news everywhere. Don't believe everything right away. Think about why someone might be telling you this. Check if what you're reading or watching is true. Make up your mind after you've looked into it. 12. Deciding when you’re wrongSometimes, friends can have disagreements. Don't just get mad right away. Try to see where they're coming from. Talk about what's going on. Find a way to fix the problem that's fair for everyone. 13. Deciding what to eatThere's always a new diet or exercise that's popular. Don't just follow it because it's trendy. Find out if it's good for you. Ask someone who knows, like a doctor. Make choices that make you feel good and stay healthy. 14. Deciding what to do todayEveryone is busy with school, chores, and hobbies. Make a list of things you need to do. Decide which ones are most important. Plan your day so you can get things done and still have fun. 15. Making Tough ChoicesSometimes, it's hard to know what's right. Think about how each choice will affect you and others. Talk to people you trust about it. Choose what feels right in your heart and is fair to others. 16. Planning for the FutureBig decisions, like where to go to school, can be tricky. Think about what you want in the future. Look at the good and bad of each choice. Talk to people who know about it. Pick what feels best for your dreams and goals.  Job Examples17. solving problems. Workers brainstorm ways to fix a machine quickly without making things worse when a machine breaks at a factory. 18. Decision MakingA store manager decides which products to order more of based on what's selling best. 19. Setting GoalsA team leader helps their team decide what tasks are most important to finish this month and which can wait. 20. Evaluating IdeasAt a team meeting, everyone shares ideas for a new project. The group discusses each idea's pros and cons before picking one. 21. Handling ConflictTwo workers disagree on how to do a job. Instead of arguing, they talk calmly, listen to each other, and find a solution they both like. 22. Improving ProcessesA cashier thinks of a faster way to ring up items so customers don't have to wait as long. 23. Asking QuestionsBefore starting a big task, an employee asks for clear instructions and checks if they have the necessary tools. 24. Checking FactsBefore presenting a report, someone double-checks all their information to make sure there are no mistakes. 25. Planning for the FutureA business owner thinks about what might happen in the next few years, like new competitors or changes in what customers want, and makes plans based on those thoughts. 26. Understanding PerspectivesA team is designing a new toy. They think about what kids and parents would both like instead of just what they think is fun. School Examples27. researching a topic. For a history project, a student looks up different sources to understand an event from multiple viewpoints. 28. Debating an IssueIn a class discussion, students pick sides on a topic, like school uniforms, and share reasons to support their views. 29. Evaluating SourcesWhile writing an essay, a student checks if the information from a website is trustworthy or might be biased. 30. Problem Solving in MathWhen stuck on a tricky math problem, a student tries different methods to find the answer instead of giving up. 31. Analyzing LiteratureIn English class, students discuss why a character in a book made certain choices and what those decisions reveal about them. 32. Testing a HypothesisFor a science experiment, students guess what will happen and then conduct tests to see if they're right or wrong. 33. Giving Peer FeedbackAfter reading a classmate's essay, a student offers suggestions for improving it. 34. Questioning AssumptionsIn a geography lesson, students consider why certain countries are called "developed" and what that label means. 35. Designing a StudyFor a psychology project, students plan an experiment to understand how people's memories work and think of ways to ensure accurate results. 36. Interpreting DataIn a science class, students look at charts and graphs from a study, then discuss what the information tells them and if there are any patterns. Critical Thinking Puzzles Not all scenarios will have a single correct answer that can be figured out by thinking critically. Sometimes we have to think critically about ethical choices or moral behaviors. Here are some mind games and scenarios you can solve using critical thinking. You can see the solution(s) at the end of the post. 37. The Farmer, Fox, Chicken, and Grain ProblemA farmer is at a riverbank with a fox, a chicken, and a grain bag. He needs to get all three items across the river. However, his boat can only carry himself and one of the three items at a time. Here's the challenge:
How can the farmer get all three items across the river without any item being eaten? 38. The Rope, Jar, and Pebbles ProblemYou are in a room with two long ropes hanging from the ceiling. Each rope is just out of arm's reach from the other, so you can't hold onto one rope and reach the other simultaneously. Your task is to tie the two rope ends together, but you can't move the position where they hang from the ceiling. You are given a jar full of pebbles. How do you complete the task? 39. The Two Guards ProblemImagine there are two doors. One door leads to certain doom, and the other leads to freedom. You don't know which is which. In front of each door stands a guard. One guard always tells the truth. The other guard always lies. You don't know which guard is which. You can ask only one question to one of the guards. What question should you ask to find the door that leads to freedom? 40. The Hourglass ProblemYou have two hourglasses. One measures 7 minutes when turned over, and the other measures 4 minutes. Using just these hourglasses, how can you time exactly 9 minutes? 41. The Lifeboat DilemmaImagine you're on a ship that's sinking. You get on a lifeboat, but it's already too full and might flip over. Nearby in the water, five people are struggling: a scientist close to finding a cure for a sickness, an old couple who've been together for a long time, a mom with three kids waiting at home, and a tired teenager who helped save others but is now in danger. You can only save one person without making the boat flip. Who would you choose? 42. The Tech DilemmaYou work at a tech company and help make a computer program to help small businesses. You're almost ready to share it with everyone, but you find out there might be a small chance it has a problem that could show users' private info. If you decide to fix it, you must wait two more months before sharing it. But your bosses want you to share it now. What would you do? 43. The History MysteryDr. Amelia is a history expert. She's studying where a group of people traveled long ago. She reads old letters and documents to learn about it. But she finds some letters that tell a different story than what most people believe. If she says this new story is true, it could change what people learn in school and what they think about history. What should she do? The Role of Bias in Critical ThinkingHave you ever decided you don’t like someone before you even know them? Or maybe someone shared an idea with you that you immediately loved without even knowing all the details. This experience is called bias, which occurs when you like or dislike something or someone without a good reason or knowing why. It can also take shape in certain reactions to situations, like a habit or instinct. Bias comes from our own experiences, what friends or family tell us, or even things we are born believing. Sometimes, bias can help us stay safe, but other times it stops us from seeing the truth. Not all bias is bad. Bias can be a mechanism for assessing our potential safety in a new situation. If we are biased to think that anything long, thin, and curled up is a snake, we might assume the rope is something to be afraid of before we know it is just a rope. While bias might serve us in some situations (like jumping out of the way of an actual snake before we have time to process that we need to be jumping out of the way), it often harms our ability to think critically. How Bias Gets in the Way of Good ThinkingSelective Perception: We only notice things that match our ideas and ignore the rest. It's like only picking red candies from a mixed bowl because you think they taste the best, but they taste the same as every other candy in the bowl. It could also be when we see all the signs that our partner is cheating on us but choose to ignore them because we are happy the way we are (or at least, we think we are). Agreeing with Yourself: This is called “ confirmation bias ” when we only listen to ideas that match our own and seek, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms what we already think we know or believe. An example is when someone wants to know if it is safe to vaccinate their children but already believes that vaccines are not safe, so they only look for information supporting the idea that vaccines are bad. Thinking We Know It All: Similar to confirmation bias, this is called “overconfidence bias.” Sometimes we think our ideas are the best and don't listen to others. This can stop us from learning. Have you ever met someone who you consider a “know it”? Probably, they have a lot of overconfidence bias because while they may know many things accurately, they can’t know everything. Still, if they act like they do, they show overconfidence bias. There's a weird kind of bias similar to this called the Dunning Kruger Effect, and that is when someone is bad at what they do, but they believe and act like they are the best . Following the Crowd: This is formally called “groupthink”. It's hard to speak up with a different idea if everyone agrees. But this can lead to mistakes. An example of this we’ve all likely seen is the cool clique in primary school. There is usually one person that is the head of the group, the “coolest kid in school”, and everyone listens to them and does what they want, even if they don’t think it’s a good idea. How to Overcome BiasesHere are a few ways to learn to think better, free from our biases (or at least aware of them!). Know Your Biases: Realize that everyone has biases. If we know about them, we can think better. Listen to Different People: Talking to different kinds of people can give us new ideas. Ask Why: Always ask yourself why you believe something. Is it true, or is it just a bias? Understand Others: Try to think about how others feel. It helps you see things in new ways. Keep Learning: Always be curious and open to new information.  In today's world, everything changes fast, and there's so much information everywhere. This makes critical thinking super important. It helps us distinguish between what's real and what's made up. It also helps us make good choices. But thinking this way can be tough sometimes because of biases. These are like sneaky thoughts that can trick us. The good news is we can learn to see them and think better. There are cool tools and ways we've talked about, like the "Socratic Questioning" method and the "Six Thinking Hats." These tools help us get better at thinking. These thinking skills can also help us in school, work, and everyday life. We’ve also looked at specific scenarios where critical thinking would be helpful, such as deciding what diet to follow and checking facts. Thinking isn't just a skill—it's a special talent we improve over time. Working on it lets us see things more clearly and understand the world better. So, keep practicing and asking questions! It'll make you a smarter thinker and help you see the world differently. Critical Thinking Puzzles (Solutions)The farmer, fox, chicken, and grain problem.
The Rope, Jar, and Pebbles Problem
The Two Guards ProblemThe question is, "What would the other guard say is the door to doom?" Then choose the opposite door. The Hourglass Problem
The Boat and Weights ProblemTake the cat over first and leave it on the other side. Then, return and take the fish across next. When you get there, take the cat back with you. Leave the cat on the starting side and take the cat food across. Lastly, return to get the cat and bring it to the other side. The Lifeboat DilemmaThere isn’t one correct answer to this problem. Here are some elements to consider:
The Tech DilemmaAgain, there isn’t one correct answer to this problem. Here are some elements to consider:
The History MysteryDr. Amelia should take the following steps:
Ultimately, Dr. Amelia's job is to find out the truth about history and share it. It's okay if this new truth differs from what people used to believe. History is about learning from the past, no matter the story. Related posts:
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Part 1 - Your FieldCheck these databases for ideas: (You will need to login to GALILEO with your LTC email and pw for access)
In this section explain what your chosen career is. What your work environment looks like, equipment you will need, shift you will work, everything. Don't forget about what your future plans are! Another good idea is to select concepts based on the job description you found and use it in Part 2. Part 2 - Psychology ConceptsPart 3 - thinking critically. Write a critical analysis of the concepts you chose in Part 2. Give SPECIFIC examples of activities that you might do on the job and discuss how the concepts from part 2 relate to the activities. For each concept form part 2 there should be at least 1 slide discussing how it relates to your career. Your final slides should discuss what you have learned about the field of psychology as a whole and how you will use that knowledge to enhance your job performance. Parameters / Requirements
How to create a Hanging Indent on a PowerPointScroll down to watch a how-to video. In PowerPoint: Insert a blank slide--> insert a text box--> type in your citations--> highlight ALL of your citations--> right click--> go to Paragraph--> Special--> Hanging. While you are there, make sure your line spacing is set to double Spacing --> Line spacing: --> Double --> OK. Then go to the top at "Tell me what you what to do" and type in Hanging indent and press enter. (Be sure to keep ALL of your citations highlighted) In Office 365 Online: Insert a blank slide--> insert a text box--> type in your citations--> highlight ALL of your citations--> right click--> go to Paragraph--> Indention --> Before text --> increase to 0.5" Special--> Hanging. In Google Slides: Insert a blank slide--> insert a text box--> type in your citations--> highlight ALL of your citations--> right click--> go to Text Fitting: Indention --> Special--> Hanging Increase to 0.5" You cannot change the line spacing in Slides. How to Create a Hanging Indent on a PowerPoint Video
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Structuring Assignments To Promote Critical ThinkingThinking Assignments November 27, 2006, by The Critical Thinking Co. Staff Writing assignments are an excellent vehicle for promoting critical thinking. In a paper, you can require students to provide valid evidence and arguments in favor of claims that they support and those they do not, thus encouraging them to consider more than their own perspectives. Writing requires students to plan and organize their thoughts in logical order, and if well done, it necessitates thorough and fluent knowledge of their topic. Creating activities by which students can practice applying knowledge learned in class to new problems or everyday experience, encourages them to examine their assumptions and make judgments about the fit between theory and application, principle and practice. Problem-solving assignments are obviously an integral part of courses in mathematics, statistics, and the sciences, as they allow students to develop and refine the reasoning and hypothesis-testing abilities necessary for success in these disciplines. However, instructors in other subject areas can also consider how to help students develop discipline-relevant problem-solving skills, particularly concerning ill-structured and novel problems. Possibilities for this kind of activity are endless and are best developed by instructors to meet the unique needs of their students, disciplines, and subject matter.  Bachelor in Entrepreneurship (Honours) F AFB Home > Programmes > Bachelor's Degree > Bachelor in Entrepreneurship (Honours) Programme Overview: This programme aims to produce graduates with the traits and qualities of entrepreneurs for employment in varied types of businesses as well as for self employment as business entrepreneurs. Intake: June and November Duration: 3 years  Find out more information about dual award with Coventry University Programme Outline: IT Fundamentals and Applications Business Communication Quantitative Methods Economics Principles of Accounting Principles of Management Principles of Marketing Organisational Behaviour Human Resource Management Operation Management Principles of Entrepreneurship Commercial Law Principles of Finance Franchise Management Electives Management Information Systems Social Entrepreneurship Business Planning Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Skills Strategic Planning & Management Entrepreneurial Creativity & Innovation Business Research Entrepreneurial Project Managing Business Growth Case Study Global Entrepreneurs Family & Small Business Entrepreneurship Technopreneurship Entrepreneurial Finance Industrial Training Compulsory Courses: English for Tertiary Studies, Academic English, English for Career Preparation, Falsafah dan Isu Semasa, Penghayatan Etika dan Peradaban, Integrity & Anti-Corruption, Critical Thinking, Contemporary Malaysian Issues, Service Learning/Bahasa Kebangsaan A and Co-curricular. Note : We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated, please contact us for the latest information. Progression: Graduates of Bachelor in Entrepreneurship (Honours) are able to advance to postgraduate studies in the relevant field. Click here for more progression pathways. Minimum Entry Requirements:  Career Prospects: Graduates of Bachelor in Entrepreneurship (Honour s) may seek employment in/ start and manage new business ventures in varied industries. Fees & Financial Aid: Estimated Total Fees: RM 37 , 2 00 (Malaysian Student), RM65, 1 00 (International Student) The estimated total fees may vary by 10%. For more information on Fees, click here . Merit scholarship To find out more, click here . Other scholarship Financial Aid For PTPTN, click here . For Study Loan, click here . For more information on Financial aid, click here . Critical thinking definition Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics. Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought. However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential. People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:
Is critical thinking useful in writing?Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:
Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic? Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it. Are there any services that can help me use more critical thinking?We understand that it's difficult to learn how to use critical thinking more effectively in just one article, but our service is here to help. We are a team specializing in writing essays and other assignments for college students and all other types of customers who need a helping hand in its making. We cover a great range of topics, offer perfect quality work, always deliver on time and aim to leave our customers completely satisfied with what they ordered. The ordering process is fully online, and it goes as follows:
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Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Centre for Nation Building and Languages (2017) MPU-3222 Critical Thinking (Academic Year 2017/2018, September Examination). Past Year Question Paper (Unpublished)
On Studocu you will find over 4600 lecture notes, summaries and assignments from Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, to help you pass your exams. ... cost and management account BBMC 2413Creative Multimedia FCCI 202205Critical Reasoning BJES2074Critical Reasoning BJES 2074Critical Thinking MPU 3222Cross cultural studies BBDM2063Customer ...
Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Faculty of Accountancy, Finance and Business (2022) BBDM3043 Critical Thinking in Organisation (Academic Year 2021/2022, April/May Examination). Past Year Question Paper (Unpublished)
Your paper will have 3 distinct parts: Introduction: The key is to summarize what is known about your topic. This is an overview of the topic. The introduction starts by providing some background information about your topic, so the reader understands the key thesis being addresses and why it is an issue worth writing about.
iRubric FX63WB9: Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion. This rubric is designed to be transdisciplinary, reflecting the recognition that success in all disciplines requires habits of inquiry and analysis that share common attributes.
Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment. To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources. Critical thinking skills help you to: Identify credible sources. Evaluate and respond to arguments.
critical thinking was integrated through a workbook of weekly case studies for group analysis, discussions and ... essay assignments and higher evaluations on the university administered survey of students. Keywords: critical thinking; organisation theory; ... Microsoft Word - No 175FA.doc Author: tarc
Directions. This assignment is designed to assess your critical thinking problem solving, and communication skills. Your answer will be judged for its clarity, relevance, coherence, logic, depth, consistency, and fairness. More specifically, the reader will be asking the following questions: Is the question at issue well stated?
In recent decades, approaches to critical thinking have generally taken a practical turn, pivoting away from more abstract accounts - such as emphasizing the logical relations that hold between statements (Ennis, 1964) - and moving toward an emphasis on belief and action.According to the definition that Robert Ennis (2018) has been advocating for the last few decades, critical thinking is ...
Critical thinking: An original and informed assessment of an idea, theory, or phenomenon. Synthesis: Combining independent elements to form a cohesive whole . Audio: So, as you can expect synthesis helps us demonstrate critical thinking. Remember critical thinking is an original and informed assessment.
Summary. Most employers lack an effective way to objectively assess critical thinking skills and most managers don't know how to provide specific instruction to team members in need of becoming ...
Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyse, interpret , evaluate and make a judgement about what you read, hear, say, or write. The term critical comes from the Greek word kritikos meaning "able to judge or discern". Good critical thinking is about making reliable judgements based on reliable information.
Students grappled with ideas and their beliefs and employed deep critical-thinking skills to develop arguments for their claims. Embedding critical-thinking skills in curriculum that students care ...
It makes you a well-rounded individual, one who has looked at all of their options and possible solutions before making a choice. According to the University of the People in California, having critical thinking skills is important because they are [ 1 ]: Universal. Crucial for the economy. Essential for improving language and presentation skills.
Interestingly, the AAC&U defines critical thinking as a "habit of mind" rather than a discrete achievement. And there are at least two reasons to see critical thinking as a craft or art to pursue rather than a task to check off. First, the more you think critically, the better you get at it. As you get more and more practice in closely ...
Critical Thinking Assignment 1: The Assessment Rubric for Critical Thinking (ARC) Assessment Profile is a written demonstration of your competence to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate a legal problem and create a bridge between theory and application. A successful ARC project will demonstrate your ability to examine, question, critique, modify, and reflect on a healthcare issue associated with ...
Take one rope and tie the jar of pebbles to its end. Swing the rope with the jar in a pendulum motion. While the rope is swinging, grab the other rope and wait. As the swinging rope comes back within reach due to its pendulum motion, grab it. With both ropes within reach, untie the jar and tie the rope ends together.
Critical Thinking Assignment- 1101; Critical Thinking Assignment- 1010; Extra Credit Assignment; Start Here. Part 1 - Your Field: Part 2 - Psychological Concepts: Part 3 - Thinking Critically: Parameters / Requirements: Step By Step Tips Infographic Graph by Marci Manglitz
Writing assignments are an excellent vehicle for promoting critical thinking. In a paper, you can require students to provide valid evidence and arguments in favor of claims that they support and those they do not, thus encouraging them to consider more than their own perspectives. Writing requires students to plan and organize their thoughts in
The curriculum covers key areas such as financial accounting & reporting, sustainability reporting, management accounting & control, management information systems, taxation, corporate governance, risk management and financial management. Intake: February, June and November (November intake for year 1 applicable to all branch campuses while ...
FAFB Home > Programmes> Bachelor's Degree> Bachelor in Entrepreneurship (Honours) Programme Overview: This programme aims to produce graduates with the traits and qualities of entrepreneurs for employment in varied types of businesses as well as for self employment as business entrepreneurs. Intake: June and November. Duration: 3 years.
Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process ...
TED-Ed lessons on the subject Critical Thinking. TED-Ed celebrates the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and share your big ideas. ... Thinking & Learning Can you steal the most powerful wand in the wizarding world? Lesson duration 05:20 795,421 Views. 06:13 ...