critical thinking power point

 Clarity is a gateway standard, If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or relevant..  - A statement can be clear, but not accurate as in, “Most cats are

Introduction to Critical Thinking

Do You Agree With This Statement?

“Some people study all their life and at their

death they have learned everything except learned everything except

to THINK ”

– Francois Domergue

Why?

Why does IU have this course?

 To help you improve your

Thinking Skills 

HOW TO

THINK!

Introduction to Critical Thinking

1 What is Thinking?

6 Barriers to Critical Thinking

2 Types of Thinking

4 Critical Thinking

Standards

5 Benefits of Critical Thinking

7 Characteristics of

a Critical Thinker

3 What is Critical Thinking?

What is Thinking?

Why doesn’t SHE like me?

Why doesn’t HE like me?

As you start asking questions and seek answers, you are in fact thinking.

Types of Thinking

Problem Solving Decision Making Decision Making Problem Solving

Creative Thinking

Right

Left

What is Critical Thinking?

WARNING: THIS MAN IS NOT

THINKING CRITICALLY!!

What is Critical Thinking?

 Critical thinking is the general term given to a wide range of

cognitive skills and intellectual dispositions needed:

to effectively identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments and truth claims,

to discover and overcome personal prejudices and biases,

to formulate and present convincing reasons in support

What is Critical Thinking?

Problem Solving Decision Making Decision Making Problem Solving

skills

emphasized in this course.

Critical Thinking Standards (CTS)

The most significant critical (intellectual)

 Could you give me an illustration?

 Could you give me an example?

Clarity is the gateway standard

Clarity is the gateway standard Clarity is the gateway standard

Clarity is the gateway standard

 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 do not yet know what it is saying

 Exploratory questions related to the Clarity Standard:

 Is my thinking clear?

 Do I need to elaborate my thinking more?

 Do I need to provide an illustration of what I mean?

 Do I need to give an example from everyday life?

CTS – Accuracy

 Is that really true?

 How could we check that?

 How could we find out if that is true?

This chicken weighs over

300 pounds.

A statement can be clear but not accurate

 - A statement can be clear, but not accurate as in,

“Most cats are over 100lbs in weight.”

 Questions related to evaluating the accuracy of thinking include:

 Is my thinking accurate?

 How could I check to see if this is true?

 How could I find out if this is correct?

 How can I verify for accuracy?

CTS – Precision

 Could you give more details?

 Could you be more specific?

A statement can be both clear and accurate,

but not precise

A statement can be both clear and accurate,

but not precise

Yao Ming is

TALL!

 Precision - A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise as in, “John is

overweight.” Is he 1lb or 500lbs over weight?

 Questions useful in assessing precision:

 Is my thinking as precise as it needs to be?

 Do I need to be more specific?

 Do I need to give more detail?

 Do I need to be more exact?

CTS – Relevance

 How is that connected to the question?

 How does that bear on the issue?

I studied hard all semester, therefore I should get A+.

A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise,

but not relevant to the question at issue.

A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise,

but not relevant to the question at issue.

Relevance

 A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not be relevant to the issue

 Questioning the relevance:

 Is my thinking relevant to the issue?

 How does that relate to the question at hand?

 How does this information bear upon the problem I

CTS – Depth

 How does your answer address the

complexities in the question?

 How are you taking into account the problems in the question?

 Is that dealing with the most significant factors?

A statement can be clear, accurate,

precise, and relevant, but superficial.

A statement can be clear, accurate,

precise, and relevant, but superficial.

 What factors make up this difficult problem?

 What are the complexities of this issue?

 What are the difficulties I need to deal with?

 Is my thinking taking into account the different perspectives I need to consider?

CTS – Breadth

 Do we need to consider another point of view?

 Is there another way to look at this question?

 What would this look like from a conservative standpoint?

 What would this look like from the point of view of ?

A line of reasoning may be clear, accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth.

A line of reasoning may be clear, accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth.

Headache!

!!

You got 0 marks for

“Participation”, because you didn’t participate in the class discussion at all.

 The ability to recognize all sides of an issue

 Questions useful for examining breadth:

 Am I looking at this issue in a narrow minded way?

 Do I need to look at this from another perspective?

 Do I need to consider another point of view?

 Do I need to look at this situation in other ways?

 When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together

in some order When the combination of thoughts is

mutually supporting and makes sense in combination, the thinking is “logical.”

 The logic of our critical thinking can be measured by the following questions:

 Does my thinking make sense as a whole?

 Does my conclusion follow from evidence, or is there a more logical conclusion?

 Is my thinking focused on what is most significant?

CTS – Logic

 Does this really make sense?

 Does that follow from what you said?

 How does that follow?

 But before you implied this and now you are saying that; how can both be true?

Superman sees through anything

Superman sees through walls

Superman sees through You

When the combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination,

the thinking is "logical.“

When the combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination,

the thinking is "logical.“

CTS – Fairness

Critical thinking demands that our thinking be fair.

 Open-minded

 Impartial = fair công bằng

 Free of distorting biases and preconceptions

- Practical inconsistency: saying one thing and doing another

Good Thinking is…

CLEAR……… rather than UNCLEAR

ACCURATE… rather than…….INACCURATE

PRECISE…… rather than…….VAGUE

RELEVANT…….rather than…….IRELEVANT

CONSISTENT….rather than……INCONSISTENT

LOGICAL……….rather than……ILLOGICAL

COMPLETE……rather than……INCOMPLETE

FAIR……….rather than… BIASED

Benefits of Critical Thinking

Examples:

 Academic Performance

 understand the arguments and beliefs of others

 Critically evaluating those arguments and beliefs

 Develop and defend one's own well-supported

arguments and beliefs

 Workplace

 Helps us to reflect and get a deeper understanding

of our own and others’ decisions

 Encourage open-mindedness to change

 Aid us in being more analytical in solving problems

Benefits of Critical Thinking

 Aids in the development of autonomous thinkers capable of examining their assumptions, dogmas: giáo điều, and prejudices.

Barriers to Critical Thinking

If Critical Thinking is so important, why is it

that uncritical thinking is so common?

Why is that so many people including many highly educated and intelligent people find

critical thinking so difficult?

Barriers to critical thinking

 Lack of relevant background information

 Poor reading skills

Barriers to Critical Thinking

Five Powerful Barriers to Critical Thinking:

Barriers to Critical Thinking

EGOCENTRISM – the tendency to view one’s own interests, ideas and values as superior to everyone’s else

SELF-INTERESTED THINKING –

tendency to accept and defend beliefs

that harmonize one’s own self-interest

Sociocentrism: group-centred thinking

 Group bias – the tendency to see one’s own group as being inherently better than others

 Herd instinct (conformism) – the tendency to follow the crowd

Barriers to Critical Thinking

Unwarranted Assumptions & Stereotyping

 Assumption – something taken for granted, something we believe to be true without any proof or conclusive evidence

 Unwarranted assumption – something taken for granted without good reason

 Stereotyping – making a hasty

generalization

Barriers to Critical Thinking

Wishful thinking

 Believing something not because you had good evidence for it but simply because you wished it were true

 Believing something because it makes one feel good, not because there is good rational grounds for thinking it is true

Barriers to Critical Thinking

Barriers to Critical Thinking

Relativistic thinking

 Relativism is the view that truth is a matter of opinion.

 There are two popular forms of relativism:

matter of social or cultural opinion

 The most common form of relativism is moral relativism.

Barriers to Critical Thinking

morally right and good for an individual, A, is whatever A believes is morally right and good.

is morally right and good for an individual, A,

is whatever A’s society or culture believes is morally right and good

Barriers to Critical Thinking

Several serious problems with cultural moral

relativism

1 Relativism makes it impossible for us to criticize other cultures’ customs and values, even those that intuitively seem to us to be terribly wrong

2 Relativism makes it impossible for us to criticize our own societies’ customs and values

3 Relativism rules out the idea of moral progress

Barriers to Critical Thinking

relativism

4 Relativism can lead to conflicting moral duties:

- When a relativist is a member of society that holds belief that conflict with moral relativism (case 2 and 3)

- When a relativist belongs to two or more

cultures and those cultures hold mutually

inconsistent moral belief (case 3)

In a 1989 international study of 13-year-olds, Koreans finished first in mathematics and Americans finished last Yet when asked whether they thought they were "good

at mathematics," only 23 percent of Koreans said "yes," compared to 68 percent of Americans

Which critical thinking barrier do the American students

Mini Quiz – Question 2

Which critical thinking barrier does Lan exhibit? does Lan exhibit?

A) Self-interested thinking

B) Stereotyping

C) Group bias

D) Conformism

An: My friend Diep is a 1 st year student at IU He is

cool, loves hanging out, and has a very laid-back personality

Lan: I bet he’s from the south of Vietnam.

laid-back: thoải mái

Mini Quiz – Question 3

Which critical thinking barrier does Suzie exhibit? does Suzie exhibit?

A) Stereotyping

B) Self-interested thinking

C) Wishful thinking

D) Relativistic thinking

Suzie: I can't believe I got a B- on this marketing paper My friend Sarah

turned in this same paper in a different marketing class last semester, and she got an A.

Ali : Don't you realize it's wrong to plagiarize someone else's work?

Suzie: That's your opinion What's wrong for one person isn't necessarily wrong for another, and I say there's nothing wrong with plagiarism-

as long as you don't get caught.

 Why standards of critical thinking are important to overcome the

barriers of critical thinking?

Characteristics of a Critical Thinker

Are you OPEN MINDED about other people’s view?

wrong?

Do you have the COURAGE and PASSION to take initiative

and confront problems and meet challenges?

Are you AWARE of your own biases and preconceptions?

Do you WELCOME CRITICISM from other people?

Do you have INDEPENDENT opinions and are not afraid to

disagree?

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