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the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

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What is critical thinking and why it is needed

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What is critical thinking and why it is needed

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What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas. Critical thinking has been the subject of much debate and thought since the time of early Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates and has continued to be a subject of discussion into the modern age, for example the ability to recognise fake news.

Critical thinking might be described as the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.

In essence, critical thinking requires you to use your ability to reason. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.

Critical thinkers rigorously question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments and findings represent the entire picture and are open to finding that they do not.

Critical thinkers will identify, analyse and solve problems systematically rather than by intuition or instinct.

Someone with critical thinking skills can:

Understand the links between ideas.

Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.

Recognise, build and appraise arguments.

Identify inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.

Approach problems in a consistent and systematic way.

Reflect on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs and values.

Critical thinking is thinking about things in certain ways so as to arrive at the best possible solution in the circumstances that the thinker is aware of. In more everyday language, it is a way of thinking about whatever is presently occupying your mind so that you come to the best possible conclusion.

Critical Thinking is:

A way of thinking about particular things at a particular time; it is not the accumulation of facts and knowledge or something that you can learn once and then use in that form forever, such as the nine times table you learn and use in school.

The Skills We Need for Critical Thinking

The skills that we need in order to be able to think critically are varied and include observation, analysis, interpretation, reflection, evaluation, inference, explanation, problem solving, and decision making.

Specifically we need to be able to:

Think about a topic or issue in an objective and critical way.

Identify the different arguments there are in relation to a particular issue.

Evaluate a point of view to determine how strong or valid it is.

Recognise any weaknesses or negative points that there are in the evidence or argument.

Notice what implications there might be behind a statement or argument.

Provide structured reasoning and support for an argument that we wish to make.

The Critical Thinking Process

You should be aware that none of us think critically all the time.

Sometimes we think in almost any way but critically, for example when our self-control is affected by anger, grief or joy or when we are feeling just plain 'bloody minded'.

On the other hand, the good news is that, since our critical thinking ability varies according to our current mindset, most of the time we can learn to improve our critical thinking ability by developing certain routine activities and applying them to all problems that present themselves.

Once you understand the theory of critical thinking, improving your critical thinking skills takes persistence and practice.

Try this simple exercise to help you to start thinking critically.

Think of something that someone has recently told you. Then ask yourself the following questions:

Who said it? Someone you know? Someone in a position of authority or power? Does it matter who told you this? What did they say? Did they give facts or opinions? Did they provide all the facts? Did they leave anything out? Where did they say it? Was it in public or in private? Did other people have a chance to respond an provide an alternative account? When did they say it? Was it before, during or after an important event? Is timing important? Why did they say it? Did they explain the reasoning behind their opinion? Were they trying to make someone look good or bad? How did they say it? Were they happy or sad, angry or indifferent? Did they write it or say it? Could you understand what was said?
What are you Aiming to Achieve?

One of the most important aspects of critical thinking is to decide what you are aiming to achieve and then make a decision based on a range of possibilities.

Once you have clarified that aim for yourself you should use it as the starting point in all future situations requiring thought and, possibly, further decision making. Where needed, make your workmates, family or those around you aware of your intention to pursue this goal. You must then discipline yourself to keep on track until changing circumstances mean you have to revisit the start of the decision making process.

However, there are things that get in the way of simple decision making. We all carry with us a range of likes and dislikes, learnt behaviours and personal preferences developed throughout our lives; they are the hallmarks of being human. A major contribution to ensuring we think critically is to be aware of these personal characteristics, preferences and biases and make allowance for them when considering possible next steps, whether they are at the pre-action consideration stage or as part of a rethink caused by unexpected or unforeseen impediments to continued progress.

The more clearly we are aware of ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, the more likely our critical thinking will be productive.

The Benefit of Foresight

Perhaps the most important element of thinking critically is foresight.

Almost all decisions we make and implement don't prove disastrous if we find reasons to abandon them. However, our decision making will be infinitely better and more likely to lead to success if, when we reach a tentative conclusion, we pause and consider the impact on the people and activities around us.

The elements needing consideration are generally numerous and varied. In many cases, consideration of one element from a different perspective will reveal potential dangers in pursuing our decision.

For instance, moving a business activity to a new location may improve potential output considerably but it may also lead to the loss of skilled workers if the distance moved is too great. Which of these is the more important consideration? Is there some way of lessening the conflict?

These are the sort of problems that may arise from incomplete critical thinking, a demonstration perhaps of the critical importance of good critical thinking.

Further Reading from Skills You Need

The Skills You Need Guide for Students
Develop the skills you need to make the most of your time as a student.

Our eBooks are ideal for students at all stages of education, school, college and university. They are full of easy-to-follow practical information that will help you to learn more effectively and get better grades.

In Summary:

Critical thinking is aimed at achieving the best possible outcomes in any situation. In order to achieve this it must involve gathering and evaluating information from as many different sources possible.

Critical thinking requires a clear, often uncomfortable, assessment of your personal strengths, weaknesses and preferences and their possible impact on decisions you may make.

Critical thinking requires the development and use of foresight as far as this is possible. As Doris Day sang, "the future's not ours to see".

Implementing the decisions made arising from critical thinking must take into account an assessment of possible outcomes and ways of avoiding potentially negative outcomes, or at least lessening their impact.

Critical thinking involves reviewing the results of the application of decisions made and implementing change where possible.

It might be thought that we are overextending our demands on critical thinking in expecting that it can help to construct focused meaning rather than examining the information given and the knowledge we have acquired to see if we can, if necessary, construct a meaning that will be acceptable and useful.

After all, almost no information we have available to us, either externally or internally, carries any guarantee of its life or appropriateness. Neat step-by-step instructions may provide some sort of trellis on which our basic understanding of critical thinking can blossom but it doesn't and cannot provide any assurance of certainty, utility or longevity.

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Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas. Critical thinking has been the subject of much debate and thought since the time of early Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates and has continued to be a subject of discussion into the modern age, for example the ability to recognise fake news.

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The Importance Of Critical Thinking, and how to improve it

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Why is critical thinking important? Here’s why you should constantly improve your critical thinking skills to ensure success in your endeavors.

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At university, students are often introduced to unfamiliar subjects and concepts. And they need to use a variety of information sources. And often, they need to think really critically towards these sources and subjects. So students often tell us that the feedback that they receive from tutors is that their assessed work can be too descriptive and lack critical engagement. And knowing how to tackle this can be quite confusing and quite challenging for students. So what this course is trying to do is to give students a real sense of what it means to think critically at university. Why it's so important to think critically. How might critical thinking be applied in different disciplines.

This course is aimed at undergraduate students, and new taught post-graduate students who might be unfamiliar with studying at a UK university. But also, critical thinking skills are really valued by employers. So if you're looking to evidence your critical thinking skills, then this will be a course that you will want to take. This course is a really practical guide to help learners develop their approach to critical thinking at university. And what makes it really unique is that it gives learners a really multi-disciplinary perspective on what critical thinking means. So learners will hear from academics and students from lots of different subject areas. Because whatever subject you study, critical thinking will be absolutely crucial to that discipline.

Join Critical Thinking at University: An Introduction.

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Critical Thinking at University - Online Course

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Ensure your prepared for university by improving your critical thinking skills with this online course from the University of Leeds.

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We are constantly being given reasons to do and believe things: to believe that we should buy a product, support a cause, accept a job, judge someone innocent or guilty, that fairness requires us to do some household chore, and so on. Assessing the reasons we are given to do or believe these things calls upon us to think critically and logically.

Improve your logical and critical thinking skills

Even though we're called upon to use our critical and logical thinking skills all the time, most of us are not that good at it. This free online course aims to help you develop and improve these skills.

You'll learn how to:

identify and avoid common thinking mistakes that lead to the formation of bad beliefs;

recognise, reconstruct and evaluate arguments;

use basic logical tools to analyse arguments;

and apply those tools in areas including science, moral theories and law.

Associate Professor Tim Dare and Dr Patrick Girard from the University of Auckland take us on an informative and engaging eight week journey through the worlds of logical and critical thinking helping us to avoid these common obstacles and fallacies and improve our logical and critical thinking skills.

Throughout the course, Tim and Patrick provide videos, articles, and assignments to lead us through the thickets of logical and critical thinking.

We will spend the first half of the course exploring key concepts in logical and critical thinking. In the second half of the course, we will apply those concepts in familiar areas, to help you develop practical and useful logical and critical thinking skills.

We begin, in the first week, with an introduction to logical and critical thinking and common obstacles and fallacies.

In week two Patrick introduces arguments. We learn to identify premises and conclusions - components of a good argument - and by the end of this week we'll be able to construct an argument in standard form.

In week three we will learn how to distinguish between deductive and non-deductive arguments and about validity, invalidity, strength and weakness.

In week four we examine good and bad arguments in more detail, learning how to tell when an argument is sound or cogent, and how to evaluate an argument.

Weeks five to seven examine three familiar areas - science, law, and morality - that call upon our logical and critical thinking skills in ways appropriate to the particular demands of those areas.

Finally in week eight we will apply the lessons of the course to an argument "in the wild", seeing how the skills we have developed over our eight-week journey can be used in our own lives.

By the end of the course, you will have acquired the basic skills to assess arguments logically and critically, and so to be in a better situation to own the reasons for your beliefs.

You can find out more in Patrick's post for the FutureLearn blog: " What can the New Zealand flag teach us about logical and critical thinking? "

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Logical and Critical Thinking - Online Course

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Improve your logical and critical thinking skills in this free online course. Identify common obstacles to effective thinking.

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Critical thinking skill for academic success

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Critical thinking skill for academic success

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In this course, you will learn how to develop your Critical Thinking Skills to help you achieve success in your university studies. After completing this course, you will be able to:

1. Use critical thinking and argumentation in university contexts to improve academic results 2. Understand the importance and function of critical thinking in academic culture 3. Use a variety of thinking tools to improve critical thinking 4. Identify types of argument, and bias within arguments, in order to better evaluate the strength of arguments 5. Use evidence to support claims in arguments 6. Apply critical thinking and argumentation to real world problems and issues

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Critical Thinking Skills for University Success

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Offered by The University of Sydney. In this course, you will learn how to develop your Critical Thinking Skills to help you achieve success in your university studies. After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Use critical thinking and argumentation in university contexts to improve academic results 2.

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Welcome to the
Center for Critical Thinking
Community Online

Our community invites all to join who want to advance fairminded critical thinking across your work and life. This community is sponsored by The Foundation for Critical Thinking and its donors.

Our community members advance and foster basic concepts and principles in critical thinking.

Membership Benefits

Welcome and Tutorial from the President - Play Video

Access to the entire online library published by the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Digital access to all the educational materials published by the Foundation for Critical Thinking, - including posters, and laminated cards that you may freely print and use.

Digital access to partial copies of the Thinker's Guide Library.

Digital access to decades' worth of videos and audio files produced by the Foundation for Critical Thinking. This includes classic and rare video footage of Dr. Richard Paul, as well as video footage of other Foundation for Critical Thinking Fellows and Scholars, including Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Gerald Nosich.

Get current critical thinking news every day in our newsroom. Comment on these articles, share them with your colleagues, and rate them according to their levels of clarity, significance, relevance, and depth.

Read the active blog of the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

Through our ConneCT section,

Communicate and network with any member of the Critical Thinking Café through our internal messaging system.

Post your work products to share with your critical thinking colleagues and friends.

Post your critical thinking research.

Highlight critical thinking articles from our newsroom that you believe to be significant.

Set up your own exclusive forum of critical thinking colleagues, with whom you prefer to communicate.

Choose departments to connect with, including professional departments.

For educators, Post and Share your instructional design strategies and activities with your critical thinking education colleagues, and discuss your classroom trials, tribulations, victories, and challenges.

Access and create job postings in which employers are seeking employees who strive to be increasingly skilled critical thinkers.

Join with up to five other critical thinking colleagues to form Study Groups, held online, in real time, and which you can customize according to your schedules. (Sign up in Study Groups with Members section.)

Learn the foundational tools of critical thinking, as well as how to apply these tools in everyday life and in the professions, through our Critical Thinking Academy. These involve reading and working through written activities. For many of our activities, we offer our specimen answers for you to read after working through them yourself. You may print and share your work with colleagues, friends, family members, and partners. Our academy includes:

The Wheel of Reason (which teaches the Elements or Parts of Thinking).

Criteria Corner (which teaches the Universal Standards or Criteria for Thinking).

The Wall of Barriers (which warns us to pay attention to the intrinsic problems of egocentric and sociocentric aspects of your thinking).

The Triangle of Thinking, Feelings, and Desires (which teaches the conceptual relationships between thoughts, emotions, and desires while targeting thinking as the fundamental key to emotional intelligence and a healthy emotional life).

Reading and Writing Alcove (which teaches close reading and deep comprehension of any text worth reading, while also fostering and developing your writing abilities).

If you are in higher education administration, register as an institutional member so all your faculty and students can learn the tools of critical thinking here. We can work with your institution to offer college level credit for your students at undergraduate and graduate levels.

What We Do with Your Membership Fees

Your membership fees support the work of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, which has been advancing and cultivating fairminded critical thinking in education and society for almost 40 years.

Your membership fees contribute to the following projects and events, among others, under the auspices of the Foundation for Critical Thinking:

Development and coordination of our annual Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking, which is the longest-running annual conference on critical thinking in the world.

Scholarships for deserving teachers and administrators to attend our Aannual International Conference.

Worldwide open Access to our research and assessment tools, as well as many other resources for outreach at CriticalThinking.org, (the official website of the Foundation for Critical Thinking).

The maintenance of the Foundation for Critical Thinking Archives, which begin before the establishment of the Center for Critical Thinking in 1980.

The development of our audio and video library, including classic audio and video footage from the Foundation for Critical Thinking Archives. Much of this material has never been accessible to the public and will increasingly be made available exclusively through the Critical Thinking Community website.

The development of our extensive and unique library of critical thinking print materials housed at the Foundation for Critical Thinking.

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Welcome to the Center for Critical Thinking Community Online Our community invites all to join who want to advance fairminded critical thinking across your work and life. This community is sponsored by The Foundation for Critical Thinking and its donors. Our community members advance and foster basic concepts and principles in critical thinking.