The Importance of Critical Thinking Skills

People with critical thinking have the consistency of living rationally. He will be able to understand logical connections between ideas. Reasons will be relying on instead of emotion. Thinking critically means seeing things from many perspectives with an open minded way. A critical thinker is able to understand what happened, use information given to solve problems, besides seeking relevant information which will be able to help him. Also, he can identify, construct and evaluate problems faced. Critical thinking can always be used in order to enhance the process of work and social institutions.

Some believe that critical thinking will affect one’s creativity as it depends on rules of logic and rationality, as creativity might require breaking rules. Well, this is a not true. Actually, critical thinking is something to do with thinking “out-of-the-box”. Critical thinking is an utmost important part of creativity and we often need critical thinking to help us in evaluating and improving our creativity skills.

Besides, critical thinking teaches us how to differentiate emotion and reason. No matter how logical we are, when come to facing problems, we do have emotions and argues on accepting ideas and solutions. Critical thinking helps us to separate the two, and as a result, we will not be easily interfered.

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What is the importance of critical thinking skills?

With critical thinking skills, one will be able to view and take up as many possibilities as he can. Critical thinking skills help people to develop a positive attitude toward learning. If an autistic person feels uncomfortable in the presence of others, the first thing they will be doing is to look for a smaller place in which he will isolate himself from other people. He then will develop a negative attitude about learning in general. With the existence of critical thinking skills, an autistic person will learn how to manage his own timetable besides providing materials and activities based on his own needs and interests, ignoring what the others doing.

Secondly, critical thinking helps develop problem solving skills and think critically. If a person is constantly in a state of stress, he will be more incline of defending himself against perceived threats. When one’s brain is under stress, he cannot be creative anymore in a sense that no new things will be absorbed into the mind. This is because the mind will shut down the learning capacity and goes into ‘classical survival mode’, which is a type of protection to what is still in the mind and ward off the possible new invasion of knowledge. As a result, a better alternative, such as relaxing critical thinking activities, will eventually come to a success.

Also, critical thinking skills help one to develop independence. Learning is not just about a measure of teaching; it’s a measure of capacity. A person can only learn something if his mind had the capacity to do so. Students have the chance to think of themselves, to question hypothesis and to test the alternative hypothesis against known facts. Critical thinking skills not only give students the ability to understand what they have been taught, but also to build the knowledge without step- by- step guidance. Students will build up their knowledge upon themselves. It is not just about the ability of one’s memorization or lessons’ absorb in a particular time given.

What are the components of critical thinking?

Once mastering use of critical thinking, it is as if like have well mastered many other skills as well. According to my research, there are three important components which we can find from critical thinking: theory, practice and attitude.

Theory is the first main component in critical thinking. In order to think precisely, definitely we have to follow the rules of concluding. Knowledge of theory, which is also known as the basic principles of critical thinking, is one of these rules. If we could deduce the rights and wrongs, it will be a lot better to obtain an answer correctly and this usually means that knowledge has to be learned.

Secondly, practice. Well, definitely it will not be enough to only know how to distinguish good and bad. We might know how to swim, but this still needs a constant practice to avoid flurried when we encounter flood. That’s why, in order to be good enough in critical thinking skills means that we have to work hard and apply the principles in our daily life.

Attitudes are important in the component of critical thinking too. Knowledge as well as practice is needed in producing good critical thinking. Constant practice will results in improvement only if when one uses the right kind of encouragement and attitude. As to enhance one’s reasoning, he must be good at differentiating the importance of demonstrate on reasons for appropriate actions to be made. He must also be willing to involve in debate, making mistakes, and breaking old habits.

How will you improve critical thinking?

Recently, critical thinking has become very popular in educational circles. The teaching skill in Malaysia is vogue especially among the content used for the higher education. However, it does not really inspire students in active learning or critical thinking. Students are placed in a more passive type of studying compared as teacher will usually do all the lectures, explaining and most of the thinking.

Critical thinking helps us analyzing each selection and chooses out of many. We often ask ourselves: what will we do if nothing has divisibility, comparability and satisfiability? We should understand our own purpose and also the intension of which we are going to work. So, we should know the alternatives. Work on the research that we should be viewing, criticism can only be done by standard. Next, learn the logic. Give an example, do study how a case is made, what the things we can do about and how the conclusion is work out. We can try learning the critical jargon too. These will in turns help us make our judgment to be more concrete and lead us to which judgment should be focused.

Well, don’t be too absolute on anything and yet not to be too fearful on criticism. Try avoiding from using absolutes such as never and remember to use them only when you have complete trust on something. Always ask for other’s opinion because most properly they will offer a total new angle of understanding which could change our view.

Creative thinking is also a way of improving critical thinking. This exercise can translate into creative process such as writing. Through practice, we will be able to find our ability to find new ways of challenging ourselves. There are many popular games which encourage critical thought. Well, games like Sudoku require good focus and critical thinking.

How will you practice critical thinking in classroom? Demonstrate critical thinking example in your own words.

Well, learning in a pin-drop silence is not a way to support practicing critical thinking that occurs in classroom. We should do it in a way where thinking and sharing is developed along the class. This kind of practice will in turn approach students without any monotonous moment. This is a type of critical thinking, reasonable and reflective thinking that will lead to sound decision to be sought. Using the mode of teaching with critical thinking, the class should start with a given topic. Discussions and dialogue can be started up among students, and lecturer may begin to raise some questions in between, derive the students with different solutions and justify them accordingly. I believe that critical thinking as a strategy and a deep thinking. It is important not only to know how to use critical thinking in class but also reflect this area of knowledge as a useful subject. Nowadays, critical thinking helps students to think and develop confidence ultimately. When a lecturer starts to give explanations, critical thinking acts as a process of error detection with reasons. I think critical thinking practices in class are really useful especially when lecturer seem to be novice in using questioning, reasoning and providing thinking times.

Also, we can enhance the environment. Critical thinking in class, if facilitated with physical and intellectual environment, will encourage a spirit of discovery. For example, seats can be arranged in a way that students share the ‘stage’ with professors and all can interact with each other. This in turns will help to minimize the passive teaching where many of the students nowadays faced. Visual aids in class can be encouraged too! Posting signs such as ‘why do I think so?’, ‘is this a fact or opinion?’ or ‘what would happen if….?’ this will reminds students how they should be answering questions. Most importantly, students’ attention will be directed into a certain level that it’s periodically to the signs. The signs have the meaning to emphasize the idea of transferring and showing many thinking strategies and skills which apply to different topic and problems.

Conclusion

Over the years, various meanings for critical thinking have been passed down. As for me, main thing for the development of critical thinking skills is to give students something to think about. It is necessary for organizations to commit to teaching in ways that support the critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills should be a main requirement in academy studies.

Instructors as well as others should go through some professional development and certain consultation on learning experiences and expanding teaching repertoires. Professor should take up the job and use strategies by helping students with assuming greater ownership of their learning. They ought to move away from teacher- centered and discipline- focused instruction. Students should be encouraged to have more curiosity and discover their studies.

I believe that teaching students to use critical thinking may require a much more careful planning and selection prior to instruction which have to be matched to desire learning outcomes. Some faculty may fear their own imperfections, and some describe making changes to teaching may create discomfort. However, it must be stressed out that teaching students with critical thinking skills has implications for the quality of not only education, but also patient care. This is because critical thinking is a provision of opportunity for students to think aloud as well as to show what they know. It is very important for both the students and faculty to recognise and make decisions based upon their current frames of reference.

Last but not least, perform critical thinking either in life or class no doubt is a start for systemic health in our society. It is crucial for us to interact with people and solve problems in our lives. We can always improve our critical thinking by regularly engaging our mind in solving puzzles or in activities that employ strategies. Cultivate it now!!