What is Critical Thinking

DEFINITIONS
 Activity 1
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Write a statement defining Critical thinking:

 Definition
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 It is intellectually disciplined process of actively and

skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing,
synthesizing, and or evaluating information gathered
from or generated by observation, experience,
reflection, reasoning or communication, as a guide to
belief and action, and it is based on universal
intellectual values: clarity, accuracy, precision,
consistence, relevance and sound evidence, good
reason, depth. Breadth, and fairness.
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 How this definition match yours?

 How does it differ from yours?

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 Discuss with your partner, what are the main

characteristics of critical thinking process
 Characteristics of critical thinking
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 Metacognition : It is thinking about one’s own

thinking. It emphasizes one’s thinking as one
 perform specific tasks and then using this awareness
 to control what one is doing.
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 Argument: Critical thinking involves identifying,

evaluating, and constructing arguments.
 Reasoning: The ability to infer a conclusion from one or
multiple premises. This requires examining logical
relationships among statements or data.
 Point of view: how a person views things, which shapes
his/her construction of meaning. Critical thinkers view
phenomena from different points of view.
 Procedures for applying criteria: critical thinkers use
many procedures which include asking questions,
making judgment, and identifying assumptions
 Angelo, 1995, p.6
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 “Most formal definitions characterize critical

thinking as the intentional application of rational,
higher order thinking skills, such as analysis,
synthesis, problem recognition and problem solving,
inference and evaluation.
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 “Critical thinking is thinking that asses itself”.

(Center for Critical thinking, 1996b).
 “Critical thinking is the ability to think about one’s
thinking in such a way as 1. To recognize its
strengths and weaknesses, and, as a result, 2. To
recast the thinking in improved form ( Center for
critical thinking, 1996c).
 Beyer (1995 defined critical thinking as “making
reasoned judgments” (p.8).
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 What does critical thinking involve?

 Components of Critical thinking
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 According to Wade 1995, Critical thinking has 8

characteristics : it involves asking questions, defining
a problem, examining evidence, analyzing
assumptions and biases, avoiding oversimplification,
considering other interpretations, and tolerating
ambiguity.
 Strohm & Boukus (1995) see that dealing with
ambiguity is also essential part of critical thinking.
Ambiguity and doubt are the function of critical
thinking and are necessary and even productive part
of the process.
 Beyer’s essential aspects of
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 Disposition: critical thinkers is skeptical, open

minded, value fair-mindedness, respect evidence and
reasoning, respect clarity and precision, look at
different point of view, and will change positions
when reasons leads them to do so.
 Criteria: to think critically, must apply criteria. Need
to have conditions that must be met for something to
be judged as believable. Standards apply to all
subjects. It must be relevant, accurate facts, based
on credible sources, precise, unbiased , logically
consistant and strongly reasoned.
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 Argument: Critical thinking involves identifying,

evaluating, and constructing argument.
 Reasoning: The ability to infer a conclusion from one
or multiple premises. This requires examining
logical relationships among statements or data.
 Point of View: How a person vies things shapes
his/her construction of meaning. Critical thinkers
view phenomena from many different views.
 Procedures for applying criteria: Critical thinkers use
many procedures, questions, judgments, identifying
assuptions.
The importance of teaching critical thinking
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 Students need to develop and effectively apply critical

thinking skills to their academic studies, to the complex
problem they will face and to the critical choices they will
be forced to make as a result of the information explosion
and other rapid technological changes.
 Critical thinking involves questioning , therefore it is
important to teach students how to ask good questions,
to think critically, in order to continue the advancement
of the very fields we are teaching. Every fields stay alive
only if good questions are generated.
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 Why Critical thinking should be implemented in

teaching?
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 Beyer not only see critical thinking is good for

students , but for every member in any nation. To
live successfully in democracy, people must be able
to think critically in order to make good decisions
about personal and civic affairs.
 Teaching strategies to help promote critical
thinking
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 Classroom Assessment Techniques:

To monitor and facilitate student’s
critical thinking, there is a need for using ongoing
classroom assessment.
Teacher might ask questions like “What was the most
important thing you have learned in today’s class?
What question related to this session remains
uppermost in your mind?
The teacher selects of the papers and prepares
responses for the next class meeting.
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 Cooperative Learning Strategies:

Cooper (1995 ) argues that putting students in group
learning situations is the best way to foster critical
thinking. Students perform more of the active,
critical thinking with continuous support and
feedback from other students and the teacher.
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 Case studies/Discussion method:

 McDobe (1995) describes this method as teacher
presenting a case (or a story) to the class without a
conclusion.
 By using prepared questions, the teacher leads
students through a discussion, allowing students to
construct a conclusion for the case.
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 Using questions:
 King (1995) identifies ways of using questions in the
classroom:
 Reciprocal/peer Questioning: Following a lecture,
the teacher displays a list of question stems( such as
what are the strengths and weaknesses of.. Students
must write questions about the lecture material. In
small groups , the students ask each other the
question and then, the whole class discusses some of
the questions from each small group
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 Reader’s Questions: students are required to write

questions on assigned reading and turn them in at
the beginning of class. Select a few questions the
impetus for class discussion.
 Written Dialogues: students are given written
dialogues to analyze. In small groups, students must
identify different viewpoints. Students must look for
biases, presence or exclusion of important evidence,
alternative interpretations, misstatement of facts,
and errors in reasoning.
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 Each group must decide which view is the most

reasonable. Then coming to a conclusion, each group acts
out their dialogue and explains their analysis of it.
 Spontaneous Group Dialogue:
 One group of students are assigned roles to play in a
discussion(such as leader, information giver, opinion
seeker, and disagreer). Four observer groups are formed
and their function is to determine what roles are being
played by whom, identifying biases and errors in
thinking, evaluating reasoning skills, and examining
ethical implications of the content.
 Conference Style Learning:
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 The teacher does not teach the class in the sense of

lecturing.
 The teacher is a facilitator of conference.
 Students must thoroughly read all required material
before class.
 Assigned readings should be in the zone of proximal
development( readings should be able to be
understood by students, but also challenging.
 The class consists of studentds asking questions of
each other and discussing these questions.
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 Teacher does not remain passive, but rather helps

“direct and mold discussions by posting strategic
questions and helping students build on each
others’.(Underwood & Wald,1995,p.18).
 Use Writing Assignments: The use of written
assignments according to Wade, is fundamental to
developing critical thinking skills.
 With written assignments, the teacher can encourage
the development of dialectic reasoning by requiring
students to argue both(or more) sides of the issue.
 Reference:
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Karen I. Adsit, Ed. Teaching Critical Thinking Skills,

Grayson H. Walker Teaching Resource Center.
 Applications for Critical Thinking:
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 Teaching points:
 Introduce and use the technical terms.
 Clearly state the goals of critical thinking instructions
 Do not go overboard
 Spend time describing and defining your definition of
critical thinking.
 Explain that critical thinkers aren’t necessarily jerks.
 Be mindful of opportunities to mention critical thinking.
 Study the skills list and emphasize them when and where
appropriate.
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 Thank you