Structures of Critical Thinking

When posting my initial thoughts on critical thinking I did not intend for it to be part of a larger three-part series. However, as I mentioned in my first post, it is a huge and important topic and I believe the manifestation of this blog reflects that. There is another really interesting piece developed by the Foundations for Critical Thinking which I felt did not fit within the other posts. It is a critical thinking tool, of sorts. You start with a concept and apply the different aspects of the tool.

The logic tool is available at: http://www.criticalthinking.org/ctmodel/logic-model1.htm#

I found this tool very useful for assessing our last assignment, but it could be applied to any situation which requires critical thinking. You move your mouse around the wheel and it presents you with different considerations for each aspect of the problem or topic you are assessing. Personally, I like to start with Point of View and move clockwise around the circle. Each pie gives you a series of questions. Eventually, these questions become second nature whenever tackling a new problem - which is a great outcome for any tool!

"Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and 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. If you want to think well, you must understand at least the rudiments of thought, the most basic structures out of which all thinking is made. You must learn how to take thinking apart."
Critical Thinking Community
form Critical Thinking: Where to begin

Education and Innovation talk

Everyone today seems to be talking about George Siemen's latest blog post White House: Innovation in Higher Education and I felt I would be remiss not to mention it myself. In the post George presents his personal reactions to a meeting on Innovation and Quality in Higher Education which he was invited to at the White House.

The two big points that seem to be getting the most discussion are #3:

"No one knows what HE (higher education) is becoming. Forget the think tanks and the consultants and the keynote speakers. No one knows how these trends will track or what the university will look like in the future. This unknowability stems from HE being a complex systems with many interacting elements. We can’t yet see how these will connect and inter-relate going forward. The best strategy in a time of uncertainty is not to seek or force the way forward, but to enter a cycle of experimentation. The Cynefin Framework provides the best guidance that I’ve seen on how to function in our current context."

and #12:

"I’m getting exceptionally irritated with the narrative of higher education is broken and universities haven’t changed. This is one of the most inaccurate pieces of @#%$ floating around in the “disrupt and transform” learning crowd. Universities are exceptional at innovating and changing. Explore any campus today. It’s a new world on most campuses, never mind the online, competency, and related systems. And if your slide deck includes an image of desks and argues that nothing has changed, you’re being dishonest and disingenuous. Repent. Healing is possible for you, but first you must see the falseness of your words."

Both seem to be getting a resounding amount of "here, here" but I can't help but think that perhaps the bigger story is the amount of conversation this post has generated.

Critical Thinking Traits

I wanted to spend some more time considering critical thinking. As instructional designers the pressure to incorporate critical thinking is a trend that will not be going away anytime soon. Although the term 'critical thinking' is quite a recent invention, the underlying value it represents is at least 2500 years old. Throughout Western Philosophy, this type of thinking has been regarded as a merging of specific skills and attitudes – critical abilities and critical dispositions

Critical abilities (skills) are skills in analyzing arguments, relationships between ideas and reasoning from the perspective of a theoretical framework – now you can start to see how this ties back to our research.

Critical dispositions (attitudes) are inherent qualities of mind and character. They are a combination of rational and emotional habits of thought that lead to critical thinking.

Additionally, the Foundation for Critical Thinking identifies seven habits which are conductive to good reasoning – yes, there is such a thing a Foundation dedicated to Critical Thinking! The full descriptions can be found at https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/valuable-intellectual-traits/528

•     Intellectual Humility: Intellectual humility is the practice of not claiming to know more than you do. It is a lack of pretentiousness, combined with an understanding logical foundations.
•     Intellectual Courage: Intellectual Courage is the process of exploring difficult ideas or viewpoints as well as those which we take for granted.
•     Intellectual Empathy: Intellectual Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes in order to understand their ideas and viewpoints. It is also the willingness remember times when we have been wrong.
•     Intellectual Integrity: Intellectual Integrity is the standards by which we hold ourselves and the process of being “true to one’s own thinking”.
•     Intellectual Perseverance: Intellectual Perseverance is the continued use of rational thinking in the face of challenges and irrational thinking.
•     Faith In Reason: Faith in Reason refers to the deep beliefs that reason and the promotion of reason can positively influence people and society.
•      Fair/Open-mindedness: Open-mindedness is the willingness to consider all ideas and viewpoints equally regardless of personal biases or previous conceptions.

You will find these seven traits/habits in different versions across the Internet. While the terms might look a little different the overarching concept is the same.Which of these habits do you have?

Thinking for Success

I spent some time today reviewing the upcoming Assignment 4, which is an annotated bibliography and critical review. The support materials for this assignments weigh heavily on critical thinking. Critical thinking is always an important topic in undergraduate programs, not only because it is an important, transferable job-related skill but also because it is directly related to problem solving – which is a critical skill for success in all facets of life. Critical thinking has become one of the standard requirements on program and course outcomes and it is rare to see any sort of curriculum development at the undergraduate level not make reference to it.

Last year I had the opportunity to manage a large project which developed a series of student modules – on of them being critical thinking. Each of the modules was chosen based on it being a skill that first year professors reported as lacking in new students and one that they had to take time from their discipline to teach. The module was originally called critical thinking but one a business professor insisted that we rename it to “Thinking for Success” to better inform students on the topic of the module.

The module varies from some of the resources provided in this course in that it addressed attitudes, arguments and fallacies. One of the most interesting sections referenced https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com, which is a fun look at a common logical fallacies.They also produce some nifty posters - which would probably been equally useful in the previous course.