Critical Thinking:
What is It?
Why is it Important?
Instructor
Aoun Ali
Why Concern
Ourselves With
Thinking?
Because whenever we are dealing
with human life, we are almost
always dealing with thinking.
Thinking is the way that the
mind makes sense of the
world.
There is no way to
understand anything except
through thinking.
Thinking tells
us:
what there is
what is happening
what our problems are
what our options are
what threatens us
what is important
what is unimportant
who our friends are
who our enemies are
what our “history” is
who we are
who loves us
Thinking determines:
what we learn
how we learn
what we think is important to learn
what effort we should expend
what we think is true
what we think is false
how things should be viewed
whether our learning is of high or low quality
whether our learning is deep or superficial
Everything we know, believe,
want, fear and hope for, our
thinking tells us.
Critical Thinking
Is a Self-Directed Process
By Which We Take Deliberate
Steps
To Think at the Highest Level
of Quality.
Red Thinking:
Higher order executive
functioning.
Thinking that analyzes,
assesses and improves green
Thinking.
Green Thinking:
Instinctive, automatic,
spontaneous thinking.
Unconsciously guided
Critical Thinking Is Not New
In 1605, Francis Bacon, wrote the first book on
critical thinking, The Advancement of Learning,
in which he documented various forms of
human irrationality and the need to establish
new habits of thought through education.
Socrates 2,400 years ago discovered by a
method of probing questioning that people
often could not rationally justify their
confident claims to knowledge.
Green Thinking
Unconscious Mixture Of High Quality
And Low Quality Thinking
Spontaneous Subconscious Uncontrolled
Impulsive Self protecting
Unanalyzed
Reflexive Self validating
Includes ideas that are valid, as well as nonsense, confusion, stereotypes,
prejudices. The key is that we cannot distinguish the difference between
high and low quality thought in green thinking mode.
Green thinking goes without assessing itself.
Red Thinking
Red Thinking stops and assesses itself before going forward.
Disciplined Seeks the truth Self assessing
Critical Thinking Self correcting Probing
In red thinking mode, we actively work to eliminate
prejudices, biases, dysfunctional thinking from our
thinking. We actively work on our thinking.
We rigorously apply intellectual standards to our thinking.
The Critical Thinking Mind
=
The Educated Mind
Read
It Write
It
Substantive
Learning
Hear Apply
It Say It
It
Think for Yourself: 1-1
Beginning to
Think About Your Thinking
To begin to think about your thinking, make a list of any
problems you believe currently exist with your thinking.
Try to be as explicit as possible. The more problems you
identify the better. For each problem you identify,
complete the following statements:
1. One problem with my thinking is…
2. This is a problem because…
3. If I adequately addressed this problem, the quality of
my life would improve in the following ways…
Think for Yourself: 1-2
Critique Your Thinking
Consider your thinking in these domains of your life: at work, in personal
relationships, in teaching, in intimate relationships, as a reader, as a writer, in
planning your life, in dealing with your emotions, in figuring out complex
situations. Complete these statements:
Right now, I believe my thinking across all domains of my life is of
______________ quality. I based this judgment on _________________.
1. In the following areas, I think very well…
2. In the following areas, my thinking is OK, not great, but not terrible either…
3. In the following areas, my thinking is probably of low quality…
List at least three areas for each of the above.
“The important thing is not
to stop questioning. Curiosity
has its own reason for existing”
- Albert Einstein
Critical Thinking in Your Life
• Personal Life
• What constitutes a healthy diet?
• Which investment is better for my family? Why?
• Professional Life
• In what ways can we improve our product?
• How do the actions of our company affect others? The environment?
• Academic Life
• What are the main points of this text?
• Which major should I choose…why?
• Spiritual Life
• How do these teachings apply to my life?
• Are there contradictions in what is being said?
Skills You Should Cultivate
• Become an active learner
• “Chase” answers.
• Actively seek out solutions.
• Go to the answer, don’t wait for it to come to you.
• Become open-minded
• Is it possible that there are multiple correct answers?
• You might be wrong. Why?
• Try and approach problems from a different perspective.
• Separate Emotions from Facts
• “Thinking” and “feeling” are not the same.
• Avoid Logical Fallacies
• 2 + 2 = 5. Incorrect.
Critical Thinking is NOT
driven by answers;
It IS driven by the
questions that you ask.
Constantly Ask Questions
For example: Suppose you have just read an article that says that the
cougar population of the Upper Peninsula is increasing.
• Why?
• Why is the population increasing? Is there an abundance of deer to hunt?
• What?
• What effect is this increase having on the deer population?
• Where?
• Where is the population increasing? Is it all over the Upper Peninsula, or just in
isolated locations?
• Who?
• Who is affected by the increase in the population of cougars? Are the hunters
affected? The wolves?
• When?
• When did this increase begin occurring? How long will the increase continue?
• How?
• How can we stabilize the cougar population?
Problem Solving System, Part I
• Reorganize
• List the topic, issues, and main points.
• Paraphrase.
• Summarize.
• Understand
• Put concepts into your own words.
• Relate the information to what you already
know.
• Restate the information.
• Hypothesize
• Make an interpretation of the information
based on your understanding of it.
• This interpretation will then be analyzed
logically.
Problem Solving System, Part II
• Analyze the information
• Split the information into parts.
• Figure out how the ideas are related or connected.
• Ask questions: Why? What? Where? Who? When? How?
• Compare and contrast the information.
• Recombine information
• Using your new understanding of the material, put the parts that you analyzed back together.
• Think of a puzzle…can you put the pieces back together? How do the pieces fit?
• Check Hypothesis
• See if your new understanding agrees with your hypothesis.
Cubing
• Cubing allows you to look at a subject or problem from six
different points of view.
• It is an excellent exercise to illustrate how critical thinking
techniques can be put into practice.
• Look to the next slides.
• Do each of the six steps in order, and do them quickly.
Cubing Method
Step 1: Describe (3-5 min)
• Write in detail about the subject. What the subject
looks like, feels like, etc.
Step 2: Compare/Contrast (3-5 min)
• What is similar to your subject? How are they similar?
• How does your subject differ?
Step 3: Associate (3-5 min)
• Relate the subject to some of your memories.
• What comes to mind when you think of the subject?
• This side of the cube should be very personal.
Cubing Method, cont’d.
Step 4: Analyze (3-5 min)
• Break the subject down into parts, and explain the significance of
each.
• Interpret the meaning of the topic.
Step 5: Apply (3-5 min)
• How can you use the subject?
• Is there any way to apply this subject?
Step 6: Argue (5 min)
• Take both sides of the subject.
• Argue for the subject.
• Argue against the subject.
• Remember to keep an open mind.
• Why is this subject important?
Critical Thinking Key Words
Ideally you should always be thinking critically, however,
the following words will identify when critical thinking is required. These types of words
require COMPREHENSION AND UNDERSTANDING, not simple MEMORIZATION.
• Discuss
• Explain • Interpret
• Compare and • Identify
Contrast
• Outline
• Critique
• Prove
• Evaluate
• Justify
• Describe
• Relate
• Define
• Summarize
• Enumerate
• Trace
• Illustrate
Some Final Tips…
Use the techniques found in this presentation to
develop your own strategies for critical thinking.
Tailor the concepts to fit your needs. There is no
“one size fits all” approach, and every technique
may not work for each of your courses.
Create the “this size fits you” approach to
developing your critical thinking.
How you apply the concepts to your coursework is
your decision.
