Goals for a Critical Thinking Curriculum An Outline of Goals for a Critical Thinking Curriculum and Its Assessment 1Robert H. Ennis, University of Illinois, UC (Revised 6/20/02) E-mail: rhennis@uiuc.edu Web site: Critical thinking, as the term is generally used these days, roughly means reasonable and reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. 2 In doing such thinking, one is helped by the employment of a set of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that I shall outline, and that can serve as a set of comprehensive goals for a critical thinking curriculum and its assessment. Pedagogical and psychometric usefulness, not elegance or mutual exclusiveness, is the purpose of this outline. It could be used for an overall critical thinking curriculum outline, or as a comprehensive table of specifications for critical thinking assessment. In practice, one will ordinarily select portions to emphasize. It is only a critical thinking content outline. Dispositions 1. 2. 3. 1. 2.
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. What is critical thinking? Nobody said it better than Francis Bacon, back in 1605: For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture. A shorter version is the art of being right. More definitions... Program for Critical Thinking Program for better decision making Our umbrella site. 6 Dec 21 May
Zététique Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre. Pour la définition de la zététique comme partie des mathématiques, voir Algèbre nouvelle. La zététique est définie comme « l'art du doute » par Henri Broch[1]. La zététique est présentée comme « l'étude rationnelle des phénomènes présentés comme paranormaux, des pseudosciences et des thérapies étranges ». La zététique est destinée aux théories scientifiquement réfutables, c'est-à-dire respectant le critère de discrimination de Popper (1902-1994). La zététique se réclame aussi du scepticisme scientifique, et plus généralement de la démarche de doute cartésien qu'elle décrit comme nécessaire en science comme en philosophie. Origine du mot[modifier | modifier le code] « Zététique » vient de l’adjectif grec ζητητικός, zētētikós « qui aime chercher », « qui recherche », lequel est issu du verbe ζητῶ, « chercher ». Elle a pour objectif de contribuer à la formation, chez chaque individu, d'une capacité d'appropriation critique du savoir humain.
Lateral Thinking Problems - Semantics Lateral thinking problems that require you to pay close attention to the exact wording of the problem. 1. A woman gave natural birth to two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same month of the same year. But they were not twins and she had no access to a time machine. How could this be? Solution: They were two of a set of triplets (or quadruplets, etc.) 2. Solution: The water in the river only came up to the man's chest. 3. Hint: The truck driver was not in reverse, nor was he in any particular emergency. Solution: The truck driver was walking. 4. Hint: This really could happen, and probably does in some form or other. Solution: The man is a philanthropist who bought great quantities of rice to sell to poor people at prices they could afford. 5. Solution: Because he would earn three times as much money!
Logic Puzzles Bulbs This is one of my favorite free printable logic puzzles with a real life solution. There are three switches downstairs. Keep the first bulb switched on for a few minutes. A Ping-Pong Ball in a Hole Your last good ping-pong ball fell down into a narrow metal pipe imbedded in concrete one foot deep. All the tools are random things that are not going to help you. A Man in an Elevator A man who lives on the tenth floor takes the elevator down to the first floor every morning and goes to work. The man is of short stature. The Ball How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you, even if it doesn't bounce off anything? Throw the ball straight up in the air. The Magnet This logic puzzle was published in Martin Gardner's column in the Scientific American. You can hang the iron rods on a string and watch which one turns to the north (or hang just one rod). Virile Microbes A Petri dish hosts a healthy colony of bacteria. The dish will be full at 12:44. Philosopher's Clock
Famous Paradoxes - Examples and Definition What is a Paradox A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself or a situation which seems to defy logic. That's a simple definition of paradox. Often premises can be proven false which rectifies the contradiction. On this page you can find several good paradox examples to tease your mind. Paradox Examples 1. This is a well known paradox written by the great stoical logician Chrysippos. A Cretan sails to Greece and says to some Greek men who are standing upon the shore: "All Cretans are liars." If someone says "I always lie", are they telling the truth? 2. This version of a famous paradox was presented by English mathematician P. Back side: THE SENTENCE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS CARD IS TRUE. Face side: THE SENTENCE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS CARD IS FALSE. 3. Analogue paradox to the 'liar paradox' formulated by English logician, philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell. 4. My Favorite Sophisms 1. A slim crocodile living in the Nile took a child. 2. 3. Think about these
RationalWiki thinking tools resources 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. As we develop the basic intellectual skills that critical thinking entails, we can begin to use those skills in a selfish or in a fair-minded way. In other words, we can develop in such a way that we learn to see mistakes in our own thinking, as well as the thinking of others. Or we can merely develop some proficiency in making our opponent's thinking look bad. Typically, people see mistakes in other's thinking without being able to credit the strengths in those opposing views. We call these thinkers weak-sense critical thinkers. Another traditional name for the weak-sense thinker is found in the word sophist. Sophistic thinkers succeed only if they do not come up against what we call strong-sense critical thinkers. Perhaps even more important, strong-sense critical thinkers strive to be fair-minded.
critical thinking model and mods How PowerPoint is killing critical thought | Andrew Smith I still remember the best lecture I ever attended. It was part of a joint series offered by the English and philosophy departments in my first term at university and, given that the subject was Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, should have been the dullest event in Christendom that night. But it wasn’t. Baldwin paced the room – but slowly. Baldwin’s talk came to mind recently when I listened to a debate, on Radio 4’s Today show, about lecturing standards at British universities. “Did the lecturer use PowerPoint?” “Hm. PowerPoint is so ubiquitous that Lotte hadn’t made the connection. Let’s stay with teaching a moment. So, a few bored students: how serious is this? The presentational precursor to PowerPoint was the overhead projector, which is why PP screens are still called “slides”. Do we notice that, as the Harvard Business Review has observed, “bullets leave critical relationships unspecified”? And bored is the least of it.
Study: There Are Instructions for Teaching Critical Thinking Whether or not you can teach something as subjective as critical thinking has been up for debate, but a fascinating new study shows that it’s actually quite possible. Experiments performed by Stanford's Department of Physics and Graduate School of Education demonstrate that students can be instructed to think more critically. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of critical-thinking skills in modern society. The ability to decipher information and interpret it, offering creative solutions, is in direct relation to our intellect.2 The study took two groups of students in an introductory physics laboratory course, with one group (known as the experimental group) given the instruction to use quantitative comparisons between datasets and the other group given no instruction (the control group). We live in an age with unprecedented access to information. Certainly, we can train ourselves to become better critical thinkers, but it’s also important that we teach these skills to kids.
How to Be an Individual in Age of the Echo Chamber by Steven Mazie By BRUCE PEABODY, guest blogger Last week, we considered how M.T. Anderson’s novel Feed lays out a set of fears about today’s electronic culture and its impact on how we think, interact and develop our moral selves. Today’s post proposes that we train our gazes to the 19th century, and the political and social philosophy of John Stuart Mill, in order to search for ways out of Anderson’s dystopian landscape. Even ostensibly free citizens, Mill charges, rely too much on convention, shared ideas, and generic experiences fostered by a “unity of opinion.” Mill especially feared non-discriminating mass publics. Mill’s antidote to all of this is a partly familiar model of robust individualism. A person “whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture” can be said to have “character.” In Feed, the outsider Violet embodies this convention-upsetting figure. You're not like the others. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Selectivity vs. Critical Thinking Selectivity vs. Critical Thinking Jul 20, 2010 Clay Johnson Earlier I suggested that we weren’t dealing with an information overload problem but rather an information overconsumption one. Increasingly, people are searching for new ways to focus. Startup operatives are turning to drugs like provigil with the promise that if will help them focus on what’s important. The abundance problem is new. As much as critical thinking helps, our minds can’t possibly process and critically think about all the information we’re consuming. So what’s the answer? As we continue to improve our critical thinking skills, we also need to be more selective about the information we put in our bodies. So where to get started? Advertising The great lie of the television industry is that advertising gives us “free tv.” “News” you agree with The overconsumption of “news” that affirms your beliefs only furthers you from being able to see the truth, and entrenches you in a set of beliefs you can’t break out of.
Advanced Analytic Techniques