Topic 2 Critical and Creative Thinking
2 basic thinking skills
critical
disciplined thinking regulated by clear intellectual standards. The most important intellectual standards identified are clarity, accuracy, relevance, consistency, logical correctness and fairness”
emphasises on analytical ability: how to logically follow an argument, how to compare, classify and sequence, and how to use deductive and inductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion.
8 characteristics
(a) Clarity
language, critical thinkers also look for maximum clearness of thought.
(b) Precision
(c) Accuracy
accurate and timely information.
(d) Relevance
(e) Consistency
(f) Logical Correctness
Logical inconsistency, which involves saying or believing inconsistent things,
practical inconsistency, which involves mentioning one thing but doing another.
(h) Fairness
(g) Completeness
not superficial thinking instead deep and complete thinking.
open-minded, impartial and free of bias and preconceptions
Classification Games in Teaching Critical Thinking
classification plays a vital role in the growth of logical thinking and abstract concepts right from early childhood to adulthood
classification skill is vital to vocabulary-concept development and thus, to reading and preservation of information
all classification tasks require the identification of features and separation into categories according to some rules.
According to the theory of Schema, information that needs to be stored must be grouped with something already present in memory
Barriers to Critical Thinking
Creative thinking
thinking is a purposeful thinking that improves the chances of new thoughts transpiring
Five Characteristics
(a) Dynamism
implies the notion of change — change in response to, and possibly ahead of, circumstances or information. It implies an active interaction, as opposed to passive acquiescence.
(b) Daringness
(c) Resourcefulness
(d) Diligence
(e) Independence
Lateral thinking
“exploring multiple possibilities and approaches instead of pursuing a single approach.”
has the ability of transforming problems into opportunity,
search for alternative solutions
significantly increase your number of original and practical ideas
6 techniques
- Treatment of ideas
- Harvesting
- Random entry
- Challenge
- Focus
- Alternatives/Concept Extraction
Employing concepts to come up with new ideas.
Changing or sharpening on your focus to improve your creative effort.
Thinking beyond the accepted ways of operating.
Employing unrelated input to widen the horizon of thinking.
Choosing of the most suitable early ideas and moulding them into usable approaches.
Expanding ideas in order to incorporate them into any particular situations or organisations
useful when applied in the following:
(a) Challenging of a present situation in a positive manner to allow room for new ideas.
(b) Search and build on the concept behind an idea in order to generate more ideas.
(c) Resolve problems in methods that were not thought of initially.
(d) Utilise alternatives to produce and harness the creative energy of an organisation.
(e) Transform problems into opportunities.
(f) Choose the optimum alternate ideas and put them into operation.
- Thinking
Sub conscious thinking
decisions made intuitively
by instinct
intuitive decisions depend on past experiences and external signals
Non conscious level
signals that bypass the brain
Reflex actions
This has become so because of the following three developments:
Knowledge explosion;
Communications technology
Rise in the global economy.
2 Phases in thinking power
Production Phase
Judgement phase
closely linked with creative thinking.
mind generates different conceptions of a problem, various methods of handling it and possible solutions to it.
this phase refers to thinking out-of-the-box.
Good Thinkers
Poor thinkers
more and better ideas
more innovative
view a problem from different angles before choosing an appropriate one and consider many different approaches to a problem.
prepared to take intellectual risks, are more adventurous and imaginative.
view a problem from a limited number of standpoints
hastily adopt the first approach their minds perceive as a solution, make hurried judgements and rarely think of more ideas.
they make decisions that would be expected.
closely linked with critical thinking,
evaluates what it has generated, makes its decision, and where necessary, modifies it.
Good thinkers
Poor Thinkers
ery careful and analytical.
aware of their limitations and predispositions, they re-check the logic of their thinking and the workability of their solutions.
refine their ideas by identifying any imperfection and complication, and predict any negative response that may arise from their decision.
have mastered ways to face their frustrations
are known to make judgements too fast without thinking critically and to make decisions based on emotions and feelings rather than on evidence.
are also unaware of their limitations and predispositions, thus creating a possibility that there may be several flaws in their thought processes.
-have the habit of mourning over their situation and allowing failure to make them feel incapable and incompetent.
- Development of Problem Solving
development of problem solving
3 Aspects
(a) Formation of strategies;
(b) Representation;
(c) Self-regulation.
Plays a vital role from infancy (birth to 12 months)
Shows more prominence during toddlerhood (one through three years)
more important during the pre-school years (three to five years) as children have more varied strategies and representations from which to select and greater cognitive resources to dedicate to planning, self-monitoring, and other regulatory processes.
Strategic Development
Problem-solving strategies can be defined as procedures that overcome obstacles and achieve goals
- Problem Solving Strategies
- problem solving tools
brainstorming
benchmarking
cause and effect diagrams
Flow charts
Swot analysis
Prioritisation Matrix
- Decision making
Definition
The act or process of deciding; determination, as of a question or doubt, by making a judgement; the act of or need for making up oneÊs mind.
Something that is decided; resolution; a judgement, as one formally pronounced by a court; the final score in any sport or contest.
these definitions share in common the finality of the decision event. Decisions are often made at the culmination of debates, events, contests and at the end of the problem-solving cycle.
two standard definitions of decision making
Decision making is the process of choosing what to do by considering the possible consequences of different choices.
Decision making is the process of sufficiently reducing uncertainty and doubt about alternatives to allow a reasonable choice to be made from among them
the focus is on making a choice based on risk-reduction associated with uncertainty. It implies incomplete knowledge of the issues surrounding the choices available, and judgement is based on how much of the doubt and uncertainty can be mitigated.
three basic types
Decisions “whether” are basic: yes/no, either/or and neither/nor; "should i"
Decisions “which”
“Contingent” decisions are decisions where the outcome depends on a certain condition being met or a certain criterion being fulfilled.
Factors influencing decision making
Biases
(a) Selective search for evidence: Tendency to gather facts that support certain conclusions.
(b) Premature termination of search for evidence: Tendency to accept the first alternative.
(c) Inertia: Unwillingness to change thought patterns.
(d) Choice-supportive bias: Tendency to distort our memories.
(f) Repetition bias: Bias to believe information that we hear most often.
(g) Group think: Tendency to conform to patterns held by others.
(h) Source credibility bias: Tendency to be biased towards people we know.
e) Recency: Tendency to trust more recent information.
theories where decision making is affected by our thinking processes
(i) Unconscious Thought Theory: Allowing our unconscious to do the thinking.
(h) Source Credibility: Who we are more likely to trust.
(g) Information Processing Theory: Persuasion requires attention and comparison with previous views; and focuses on external stimuli.
(f) Information Bias: Searching for facts even when they are irrelevant and redundant when making decision.
(e) Hyperbolic discounting: We want immediate rewards, choosing benefits for the now or short-term over the future.
(d) Heuristic-Systematic Persuasion Model: We either impulsively or logically interpret arguments.
(c) Elaboration Likelihood Model: We either think logically and consciously or we allow superficial characteristics that persuade our decisions.
(b) Bias Blind Spot: We do not compensate enough for our own bias whereby we consider ourselves as being rather unbiased compared to others.
(a) Ambiguity Effect: We prefer to choose an option of a favourable probability over an unknown one.
four quadrants of the brain and thinking styles
A: Analytical/Logical (Upper Left)
B: Organisational (Lower Left)
C: Emotional/Interpersonal (Lower Right)
D: Conceptual/Imaginative (Upper Right)
realistic
Common sense
Idealistic
intuitive
because I like the colour. I also want to buy this because the salesman was so nice
because I love this new design and the fact that the speakers simulate holophonic
because for $2,000, I can get a 3 GHz processor, 10/100 Ethernet, 4 GB
“I want this computer because it was voted best value by Consumer Reports; it has a three-year limited warranty and it has lifetime technical support."
Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument,