Critical Thinking: Why, How Examples

hello and welcome to teachings in education I am your narrator Frank Avella in this presentation we will be covering several different topics related to critical thinking let's begin with a basic introduction the ability to critically think and able learn is to analyze information and make reasonable judgments one of the main purposes of education is to foster critical thinking in their students there are many uses for critical thinking functions of critical thinking include career and job skills self-reflection economic understanding independent learning and more also epistemic beliefs play an important role when students believe in their abilities

they perform far better than goals that do not believe in themselves critical thinking is ultimately about deduction reasoning and logic deductive reasoning challenges the mind and keeps it fit next up exactly how do you define critical thinking well critical thinking has been defined in a number of different ways however there are some commonalities from the various definitions and the ability to evaluate information is a common defining factor rational people are described as critical thinker these thinkers are also open minded and informed by evidence some researchers define critical thinking as a skill and that skill is

seen as an umbrella term that includes analyzing applying and conceptualizing information and lastly critical thinkers are the type of learners that are self regulators these are learners that are able to control their own thought process and their emotions in times of stress next up why is critical thinking so important in life critical thinking breeds self-awareness individuals that are self-aware are able to recognize their own biases and assumptions and become better for that critical thinking is actually a technique used to make better decisions critical thinking is used in a methodical way to solve problems being able

to effectively solve problems is needed in any and all walks of life whether it is raising children or running a business learners that have mastered the ability to critically think are much more likely to have career success as well before we get deep into this I want to take a quick break and ask that you please subscribe to this channel don't forget to hit the thumbs up button and check the description below for resources on critical thinking now let's get back to it and look at the different forms of critical thinking critical thinking may take

on three different forms the first form is verbal reasoning which is the ability to detect persuasive or manipulative techniques found in oral and written language next is probabilistic reasoning for example a person should know that there is a 1 in 6 chance of rolling 4 when using a single die and that hitting the Mega Millions lottery is near impossible the third form is scientific reasoning which is being able to judge how valuable and reliable data is in relation to the area of study next we'll take a look at instruction and critical thinking educators must eat

to foster critical thinking in their students teachers should instill a degree of intellectual scepticism in their learners these learners must constantly question the legitimacy of information when building lesson objectives or creating classroom activities use Bloom's taxonomy to ensure higher-order thinking skills are integrated learners should also be assessed and evaluated on their ability to master content through questions based on high degree of cognitive rigor argument analysis tasks for example aligned to critical thinking activities this goes back to the intellectual scepticism previously mentioned next let's take a look at some actual examples of critical thinking in the

classroom having classroom debates is one way to increase critical thinking in your students but it also builds teamwork and presentation skills another lesson is to have students come up with their own ideas for an invention then create that invention and lastly market that invention to the classroom think-pair-share is simultaneously an assessment and an activity students compare and contrast make judgments on what's correct and what's not acceptable teachers may have learned as analyze or create their own full cartoons students have to either draw meaning or inject meaning into these cartoons creative educators find ways to incorporate

riddles into the course curriculum one great example that I've seen is integrating riddles into teaching poetry gap-filling maybe the best-known lesson focused on critical thinking students simply fill in the steps taken to arrive at a solution they must also provide evidence and now on to the last section of the presentation development of critical thinking skills first let me point out that learners can develop critical thinking in several ways one way is to teach students to follow the evidence and for this to occur students must be determined in their epistemic beliefs they must believe that they

can be successful next learners should be encouraged to ask as many questions that come to their minds the more inquisitive in nature they are the better critical thinkers they will become and lastly the development of metacognitive learning strategies will help students understand how they learn and will help them develop confidence in their ability to successfully think through difficult problems now right now I want to say again thank you for your time don't forget to subscribe to this channel hit that thumbs up on check the description for resources to critical thinking thank you [Music]