Showing posts with label Critical Thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Critical Thinking. Show all posts

00531--A Checklist for Reasoning/Thinking Critically




A Checklist for Reasoning/Thinking Critically

1) All reasoning has a PURPOSE.
• State your purpose clearly.
• Distinguish your purpose from related purposes.
• Check periodically to be sure you are still on target.
• Choose significant and realistic purposes.
2) All reasoning is an attempt to FIGURE something out, to settle some QUESTION, solve some PROBLEM.
• State the question at issue clearly and precisely.
• Express the question in several ways to clarify its meaning and scope.
• Break the question into sub-questions.
• Distinguish questions that have definitive answers from those that are a matter of opinion and from those that require consideration of multiple viewpoints.
3) All reasoning is based on ASSUMPTIONS.
• Clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable.
• Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view.
4) All reasoning is done from some POINT OF VIEW.
• Identify your point of view.
• Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses.
• Strive to be fair-minded in evaluating all points of view.
5) All reasoning is based on DATA, INFORMATION and EVIDENCE.
• Restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have.
• Search for information that opposes your position as well as information that supports it.
• Make sure that all information used is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at issue.
• Make sure you have gathered sufficient information.
6) All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, CONCEPTS and IDEAS.
• Identify key concepts and explain them clearly.
• Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions of concepts.
• Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision.
7) All reasoning contains INFERENCES or INTERPRETATIONS by which we draw CONCLUSIONS and give meaning to data.
• Infer only what the evidence implies.
• Check inferences for their consistency with each other.
• Identify assumptions that lead to inferences.
8) All reasoning leads somewhere or has IMPLICATIONS and CONSEQUENCES.
• Trace the implications and consequences that follow from your reasoning.
• Search for negative as well as positive implications.
• Consider all possible consequences.


00530-- What are the Universal Intellectual Standards? And what are the questions that can be used to apply them?





What are the Universal Intellectual Standards?

And what are the questions that can be used to apply them?

Universal intellectual standards are standards which should be applied to thinking to ensure its quality. To be learned they must be taught explicitly. The ultimate goal, then, is for these standards to become infused in the thinking of students, forming part of their inner voice, guiding them to reason better.

They are:
1.      Clarity,
2.    Accuracy,
3.    Precision,
4.   Relevance,
5.    Depth,
6.   Breadth,
7.    Logic,
8.    Significance, and,
9.  Fairness.

1.     Clarity,

Clarity is a gateway standard. If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or relevant. In fact, we cannot tell anything about it because we don’t yet know what it is saying. For example, the question “What can be done about the education system in America?” is unclear. In order to adequately address the question, we would need to have a clearer understanding of what the person asking the question is considering the “problem” to be. A clearer question might be “What can educators do to ensure that students learn the skills and abilities which help them function successfully on the job and in their daily decision-making?”



2.   Accuracy
A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in “Most dogs are over 300 pounds in
weight.”


3.   Precision
A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise, as in “Jack is overweight.”
(We don’t know how overweight Jack is, one pound or 500 pounds.)
4.  Relevance

A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at
issue. For example, students often think that the amount of effort they put into a course
should be used in raising their grade in a course. Often, however, “effort” does not
measure the quality of student learning, and when that is so, effort is irrelevant to their
appropriate grade.
5.   Depth
A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is, lack
depth). For example, the statement “Just Say No”, which is often used to discourage children
and teens from using drugs, is clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. Nevertheless, it
lacks depth because it treats an extremely complex issue, the pervasive problem of drug
use among young people, superficially. It fails to deal with the complexities of the issue.
6.  Breadth
A line of reasoning may be clear, accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack
breadth (as in an argument from either the conservative or liberal standpoints which
gets deeply into an issue, but only recognizes the insights of one side of the question).
7.   Logic
Before you implied this and now you are saying that, I don’t see how both can be true.
When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the
combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination, the
thinking is “logical.” When the combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory
in some sense, or does not “make sense,” the combination is “not logical.”
8.   Fairness
We naturally think from our own perspective, from a point of view which tends
to privilege our position. Fairness implies the treating of all relevant viewpoints alike
without reference to one’s own feelings or interests. Because we tend to be biased in
favor of our own viewpoint, it is important to keep the standard of fairness at the forefront
of our thinking. This is especially important when the situation may call on us to
see things we don’t want to see, or give something up that we want to hold onto.

what are the questions that can be used to apply Universal Intellectual Standards?
Clarity
Could you elaborate further?
Could you give me an example?
Could you illustrate what you mean?
Accuracy
How could we check on that?
How could we find out if that is true?
How could we verify or test that?
Precision
Could you be more specific?
Could you give me more details?
Could you be more exact?
Relevance
How does that relate to the problem?
How does that bear on the question?
How does that help us with the issue?
Depth
What factors make this a difficult problem?
What are some of the complexities of this question?
What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with?
Breadth
Do we need to look at this from another perspective?
Do we need to consider another point of view?
Do we need to look at this in other ways?
Logic
Does all this make sense together?
Does your first paragraph fit in with your last?
Does what you say follow from the evidence?
Significance
Is this the most important problem to consider?
Is this the central idea to focus on?
Which of these facts are most important?
Fairness
Do I have any vested interest in this issue?
Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints

of others?

00529-- Why Critical Thinking?




                        Why Critical Thinking?


                                        The Problem:
Everyone 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. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.

                                        A Definition:

Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.

                                       The Result:

A well cultivated critical thinker:

1.  raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;

2.  gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it
effectively;
3.  comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
4.  thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
5.  communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcoming our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.

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