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Critical Thinking

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How Information Graphics Reveal Your Brain’s Blind Spots. This story was co-published with Source.

How Information Graphics Reveal Your Brain’s Blind Spots

Visual Evidence Data and design in everyday life Lena Groeger Welcome to Visual Evidence, a new regular series about visualization in the real world! We’ll take a look at unexpected datasets, cool design solutions or insightful graphics. Chances are, you probably think your mind works pretty well. But you’d be wrong.

Let’s look at some of the wacky things our minds make us think and do. Our Mind’s Everyday Quirks We’ll start with a study of Israeli judges done by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and Columbia University. Yup. As you can see in the chart, the rate of favorable rulings starts at around 65% early in the day, then drops to almost zero, and then spikes back up again after the judges come back from a meal break. The paper ominously concludes: “Indeed, the caricature that justice is what the judge ate for breakfast might be an appropriate caricature for human decision-making in general.”

This Graphic Explains 20 Cognitive Biases That Affect Your Decision-Making. How is Critical Thinking Different from Analytical or Lateral Thinking? Critical thinking as a term is often mentioned as a key skill for employees to have at all levels of the organization but many people do not fully understand it or confuse it with the related but different terms of analytical and lateral thinking.

How is Critical Thinking Different from Analytical or Lateral Thinking?

In this brief article let’s therefore look at what these latter two terms mean and then end on why critical thinking takes us further. So what is analytical thinking? Analytical thinking is a thinking process or skill in which an individual has the ability to scrutinize and break down facts and thoughts into their strengths and weaknesses. 10 Signs You're A Critical Thinker. Critical thinkers are able to analyze issues from a wide variety of angles, resulting in more success in business and life.

10 Signs You're A Critical Thinker

Discover your ability to think critically today with these ten signs you’re a critical thinker. 1. You get your news from a wide variety of sources. Critical thinkers know that partisan politics come into play at any mainstream media outlet, so they strive to learn about the world from a variety of sources that offer different journalistic voices. They check out places like the Wall Street Journal for a conservative perspective, Salon for a liberal slant, First Look Media for a more aggressive approach to investigative journalism, and they might even follow the politics thread on Reddit for a smorgasbord that offers every taste imaginable. 2.

Standards of Critical Thinking. What is critical thinking?

Standards of Critical Thinking

According to my favorite critical thinking text , it is This involves identifying and analyzing arguments and truth claims, discovering and overcoming prejudices and biases , developing your own reasons and arguments in favor of what you believe, considering objections to your beliefs, and making rational choices about what to do based on your beliefs. is an important standard of critical thought. Clarity of communication is one aspect of this.We must be clear in how we communicate our thoughts, beliefs, and reasons for those beliefs. Careful attention to language is essential here. EVALUATING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS. Self-Assessment of Thinking Skills. Critical Thinking Rubric. Strategy List: 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought. S-1 Thinking Independently Principle: Critical thinking is independent thinking, thinking for oneself.

Strategy List: 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought

Many of our beliefs are acquired at an early age, when we have a strong tendency to form beliefs for irrational reasons (because we want to believe, because we are praised or rewarded for believing). Critical thinkers use critical skills and insights to reveal and reject beliefs that are irrational. In forming new beliefs, critical thinkers do not passively accept the beliefs of others; rather, they try to figure things out for themselves, reject unjustified authorities, and recognize the contributions of genuine authorities.

They thoughtfully form principles of thought and action; they do not mindlessly accept those presented to them. If they find that a set of categories or distinctions is more appropriate than that used by another, they will use it. Independent thinkers strive to incorporate all known relevant knowledge and insight into their thought and behavior. 25 Critical Thinking Strategies For The Modern Learner. Critical thinking is the engine of learning.

25 Critical Thinking Strategies For The Modern Learner

Within this complex process or so many other relevant themes that contribute to learning: creativity, analysis, evaluation, innovation, application, and scores of other verbs from various learning taxonomies. So the following infographic from Mentoring Minds is immediately relevant to all educators, and students as well. It’s a bit of a mash of Habits of Mind, various 21st century learning frameworks, and the aforementioned learning taxonomies, promoting collaboration, problem-solving, and real-world connections (standard “critical thinking fare” with Habits of Mind-sounding phrases such as “Open-Mindedness”). At the bottom, it pushes a bit further, however, offering 25 critical thinking strategies to help support progressive learning. While a few are a bit vague (#12 says to “Think critically daily,” and #17 is simply “Well-informed”), overall the graphic does pool together several important themes into a single image.

Thinking Map. A Taxonomy of Reflection: A Model for Critical Thinking. My approach to staff development (and teaching) borrows from the thinking of Donald Finkel who believed that teaching should be thought of as “providing experience, provoking reflection.”

A Taxonomy of Reflection: A Model for Critical Thinking

He goes on to write, … to reflectively experience is to make connections within the details of the work of the problem, to see it through the lens of abstraction or theory, to generate one’s own questions about it, to take more active and conscious control over understanding. ~ From Teaching With Your Mouth Shut Over the last few years I’ve led many teachers and administrators on classroom walkthroughs designed to foster a collegial conversation about teaching and learning. The walkthroughs served as roving Socratic seminars and a catalyst for reflection. But reflection can be a challenging endeavor. In an effort to help schools become more reflective learning environments, I’ve developed this “Taxonomy of Reflection.” – modeled on Bloom’s approach. Scientific Observation - Collecting Empirical Evidence. Scientific observation is the central element of scientific method or process.

Scientific Observation - Collecting Empirical Evidence

The core skill of scientist is to make observation. Observation consists of receiving knowledge of the outside world through our senses, or recording information using scientific tools and instruments. Any data recorded during an experiment can be called an observation. The Scientific Process A scientific process or scientific method requires observations of nature and formulating and testing the hypothesis. Observe something and ask questions about a natural phenomenon (scientific observation) Make your hypothesis Make predictions about logical consequences of the hypothesis Test your predictions by controlled experiment, a natural experiment, an observational study or a field experiment Create your conclusion on the basis of data or information gathered in your experiment.

Clearer Thinking. Outline of thought. Nature of thought[edit] Thought (or thinking) can be described as all of the following: An activity taking place in a: brain – organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, adult sea squirts and starfish do not have a brain).

Outline of thought

It is the physical structure associated with the mind. mind – abstract entity with the cognitive faculties of consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory. Having a mind is a characteristic of humans, but which also may apply to other life forms.[1][2] Activities taking place in a mind are called mental processes or cognitive functions.computer (see automated reasoning, below) – general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically.

Types of thoughts[edit] Twelve Virtues of Rationality. The first virtue is curiosity.

Twelve Virtues of Rationality

A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. The second virtue is relinquishment. The third virtue is lightness. The fourth virtue is evenness. The fifth virtue is argument. The sixth virtue is empiricism.

The seventh virtue is simplicity. Critical Thinking. Critical thinking. Critical thinking is a type of clear, reasoned thinking. According to Beyer (1995) Critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgements. While in the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned and well thought out/judged.[1] The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.'[2] An Abbreviated Glossary of Critical Thinking Concepts and Terms.

Critical thinking: Everybody thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or down-right prejudiced. Critical Thinking, Thoughtful Writing- Glossary. List of thought processes. Nature of thought[edit] Thought (or thinking) can be described as all of the following: An activity taking place in a: brain – organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, adult sea squirts and starfish do not have a brain). It is the physical structure associated with the mind. mind – abstract entity with the cognitive faculties of consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory.

Having a mind is a characteristic of humans, but which also may apply to other life forms.[1][2] Activities taking place in a mind are called mental processes or cognitive functions.computer (see automated reasoning, below) – general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Critical Thinking Skills. Critical thinking. Critical Thinking Abilities. Weak versus Strong Critical Thinking Critical thinking involves basic intellectual skills, but these skills can be used to serve two incompatible ends: self-centeredness or fair-mindedness. Elements of Reasoning - Critical Thinking Wheel. Vendiagram creative/critical thinking. Thinking skills. There is no logic in connecting an office copier with 'nose'. That is to say, there is no 'logic' in our normal undertanding of logic.

This understanding is based on passive surface information systems. There is, however, the logic of active surface information systems, and that is the logic of a patterning system. In such a system, the putting together of 'copier' with the random input 'nose' is perfectly logical. At the same time, the juxtaposition is a logic of action.

JUXTAPOSITIONAs many readers will know, the random juxtaposition is one of the many tools of lateral thinking. . • What has smell to do with a copier? Smell is a sensation. . • What could smell be used for? Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking that IQ Tests Miss. No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who repeatedly make poor decisions. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term “dysrationalia” (analogous to “dyslexia”), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess. Although most people recognize that IQ tests do not measure every important mental faculty, we behave as if they do.

Critical thinking web. Critical Thinking On The Web. Top Ten Argument Mapping Tutorials. Six online tutorials in argument mapping, a core requirement for advanced critical thinking.The Skeptic's Dictionary - over 400 definitions and essays. The Fallacy Files by Gary Curtis. Best website on fallacies. Butterflies and Wheels. Critical Thinker Resources for Independent Thinking. Critical Thinking Index Page. Critical Thinking. Developing as Rational Persons: Viewing Our Develo. Humans are capable of developing into rational beings. This is our ultimate assumption. At some level all of us want to effectively analyze and solve our problems.

We want to live significant, meaningful lives. Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies. Most of us are not what we could be. We are less. We have great capacity. How to Think & Learn. When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. The Three Questions You Should Ask to Think More Critically. 4 Secrets of Great Critical Thinkers. In 2009, J D Wetherspoon, a chain of more than 800 pubs in the UK, was facing declining sales. Demand for beer had been down for five years. In addition, pricing pressure from super market chains was intense, and higher alcohol taxes further squeezed its already tight margins. How Thinking Works: 10 Brilliant Cognitive Psychology Studies Everyone Should Know.

Open-minded inquiry. Abstract. Critical Reflection. Critical reflection has been elevated to the major objective of adult education in the work of Mezirow (1990). “Perhaps even more central to adult learning than elaborating established meaning schemes is the process of reflecting back on prior learning to determine whether what we have learned is justified under present circumstances. Ten Takeaway Tips for Teaching Critical Thinking. How We Think: John Dewey on the Art of Reflection and Fruitful Curiosity in an Age of Instant Opinions and Information Overload. Free Critical Thinking Worksheets. Thinking Tools, Graphic Organisers & Templates. Deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning. Abductive reasoning.