Abstract
Critical thinking, by definition, has many components, and it is, perhaps, as complicated as the individual who defines it. However, because critical thinking is as important in academia as it is in one’s personal life, I feel challenged to simplify it. I suggest that critical thinking be thought of as a tool that we use to enhance every aspect of our lives, and that it should be both taught and practiced from childhood onward.
Discussion
We use various tools to help us fix things that are not right. We use medication as a tool to treat mental and physical ailments. We use utensils as a tool to eat food, hammers and nails to make brick and mortar buildings and various other tools that enhance our daily lives. Often, we teach people how to use such tools, by example, discussion or instruction. I believe that critical thinking can be looked at in the same way, as a tool or a skill that can be taught, to enhance each individual’s life.
I have the good fortune to use Karen Huffman’s text book, Psychology in Action, which devotes the prologue to various aspects of critical thinking. This may well be the first step promoting critical thinking as a tool that will benefit one’s own life. If classroom instructors utilized and taught critical thinking skills to students, one might then hope that the skill would be used or produced. Production then lends itself to sharing and exposure of the product or tool. This would hopefully allow for a demand for the product and increased need and consumption of it as well.
I have, at times, incorporated critical thinking and the prologue into classroom lecture. There has been discussion amongst my colleagues on how to incorporate it further into classroom lectures. This I have done and will continue to do through example--pointing out both when I am using critical thinking skills and when I have failed to do so. Hopefully this will lead to students using critical thinking, demonstrating it by example and eventually teaching others this skill as well.
I will need to make a more conscious effort to incorporate this skill in both daily life and academia. Critical thinking has affective, behavioral and cognitive components and each must be developed. In regards to my own research and development in this program, I will have to strengthen the behavioral components. Employing precise terms and gathering data that reflect all sides of an argument were both stressed in the program, and I will need to be conscious of this in my academic endeavors. In theory, collecting data that supports both sides of theory sounds favorable. In practice I can see where the behavioral component of critical thinking would become problematic here, particularly if the opposing data strongly interferes with your own data. That example lends itself to another critical thinking component: being able to change one’s mind and adapt to new evidence that may interfere with your own data.
Clay Shirky, Mike Shermer, Alan November and Will Richardson all made interesting, concrete points regarding media, critical thinking and in Richardson’s case education. They discussed how to critically evaluate the information retrieved , and how it will change our future, particularly in education. This may have changed the way I experience media in this regard: time. In particular, Mike Shermer and Alan November describe how to research validity, value and sources when obtaining information from the internet. This takes time. The more that we do research and the more that we interact with the media in all of its forms will take more time. While it seems that this format should save us time, I wonder if it truly will. In addition, the more we are connected to information and others as we do so, also seems to allow for an increased demand upon our time to be there, to be online: accessed, available and in the present. Are we skyping, on our cell phone or Ipod while doing research and accessing the internet? And if so, critically thinking is this the best use of our time? Are using the all means that we have at hand today, at once in some cases, truly the best use of new technology? Or might critical thinking be utilized as a tool to teach us the best way to use our other, new tools? I’d like to take a page from the gentlemen listed above and continue to promote their messages in my own teaching process.
Conclusion
Critical thinking should be thought of as a tool that we use to enhance every aspect of our lives. I suggest that we teach it in the school system and educate instructors to do so. Which means that we need to educate our instructors in both the skill and how to teach it. In doing so we can use media as the hook to enhance our student’s interest in the skill: how are they using it, applying it and how is it defining their lives and their time? Where are we getting our data? How do we validate it? How much time are you spending on it? How else are you using your time when you do so? Are you connected to other means on the internet at the same time, such as doing research while your facebook page, email and whatever else is up and running at the same time? My critical thinking analysis on this matter leads me to believe, from my own example, that we have many internet windows open at the same time, and that this is both beneficial, distracting and both a possible time saver and time waster. My cognition process applauds the immediate availability of the internet while questioning how best to use it and make the most use of my time while doing so. We teach people to read, now it is time to teach ourselves and others how to use the means in which we read today. In doing so, we may just simplify the process. Just as learning to drive a car is a controlled thought process in the beginning, it becomes an automatic thought process later on. The same theory can be applied to both critical thinking and our use of the media; it remains up to us do so and to do so for the better.
References:
Huffman, K. (2010). Psychology in action (9th ed.) John Wiley & Sons.
November, Alan (2007). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVLS_rlwnwI
November, Alan (2010). Retrieved from, http://novemberlearning.com/resources/information-literacy-resources/v-find-the-publisher-of-a-website/
Richardson, W. February 2008. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFbDEBNS7AE
Shermer, M. (2009). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU
Shirky, C. 2008. Retrieved from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2708219489770693816#
No comments:
Post a Comment