All of this first week's learning activities and videos have been very straightforward and
great. I have learned a lot. I knew we used reason to make decisions but I never thought
about it as "critical thinking". Like the example on one of the videos when Dr. Jackie said
that even when we are out buying milk, we are doing some critical thinking, because we
have to decide which milk will suit best for my family at home. Critical thinking is being
able to think with logic instead of opinions or feelings. It’s defined by “how” to think versus
“what” to think. Critical thinking means you take emotion out of the equation and to think
without considering how it will affect you personally but more so thinking with logic.
Some of the characteristics of being a critical thinking would include being analytical; being
analytical means you are able to take into consideration other peoples perspectives and
dissect fact and fiction. Other characteristics of a critical thinker are being open minded,
being well informed and doing research. Along with being flexible and having good
communication skills.
Common barriers to critical thinking are really our own thoughts and opinions. We allow
negative or cynical thoughts of our own interfere with logic. Considering most people hate
to be wrong or proven wrong there is a level of humility that comes with letting go of the
thoughts you have and truly hearing someone else out as well as analyzing the situation and
making sound thoughts and decisions on facts not ideas.
The most interesting learning I had this week was on the three stages of critical thinking and
how that becomes more relevant on age and experience. How we can be “trained” to think a
certain way or due to lack of life experiences we tend to be more vulnerable to scams or
making rash decisions because they seem enticing instead of logical. I am still interested in
digging deeper into developing a life plan and to sharpen up my self-awareness. Critical
thinking is a life skill that a person learns from either an example set by them or adversities
a person has been through and has given them the experience needed to be a great critical
thinker. I would describe someone that is a critical thinker based on the persons attitude,
character, and willingness to never give up. Common barriers in critical thinking could be
fear of the unknown, lack of desire to problem solve, and no life experience or depending on
someone else to fix the persons problems. The best way to improve your critical thinking
skill is facing your fears and deciding. If a person does not decide, then they will never
experience the satisfaction of knowing they made a difference in their own life. This week I
enjoyed the videos and questions that followed along as you watched. The questions were
challenging and made me think critically while answering the questions. Critical thinking is
defined as the evaluation and analysis of an issue or situation that will allow you to form a
judgement when making a decision. Some characteristics of a critical thinker are flexibility,
open-minded, communication, creative, good problem solver. The example used for
flexibility was if your boss asks you to attend a last minute meeting or complete a last
minute project, you'll need to know how to move your schedule around in order to make it
work. Not only for your boss but yourself, as you'll still need to meet your prior
engagements and complete what you already had on your schedule. Some of the common
barriers to critical thinking are distractions, avoidance, denial and anger. I personally run
into this situation at work. I like to plan my day and know what I need to do when I get to
work but my boss will have a different agenda. I learned to not get upset and just move my
schedule around by prioritizing. Things that I learned was that critical thinking is self-
directed, self- monitored and self-disciplined. I learned that it's a complex and lifelong skill
that we will continue to develop in. Critical thinking to me is using some or all of the skills
you have to accomplish any goal or solve any problem. I think it's very important to be a
good critical thinker or to work on becoming one. Some characteristics of being a good
critical thinker are, effective communication, flexibility and tolerance, problem solving etc.
but I think the most important one is being open minded. Being openminded is very
important for critical thinking because you're able to see others points of view and accept the
fact you can be wrong. Some barriers to critical thinking are, resistance, avoidance, anger
and a few more but to me the one that stand out the most is conformity. I feel as though in a
work place or even educational, like group projects conformity can be a huge problem. If a
majority of the group is set on one idea or solution it may be hard for them to see any other
options. If everyone were openminded this probably wouldn't happen.
My favorite activity from this week was the video about barriers to critical thinking and how
tot avoid them. I really valued this because it showed me so many things I need to work on.
Now that I know how to become a good critical thinker I can start taking the steps to get
there. In my own words critical thinking is when you come across a situation and come up
with multiple answers. Critical thinking is a way of being open minded and allows you to
tackle situations in many different ways without struggling with just one answer. The most
important characteristic for a critical thinker is being open minded. The reason being is that
when you are open minded your options are limitless which will help you make a decision
regardless of the situation. Being confident is another important one as well because the
confidence you have towards any situation will be less stressful and more than likely you
will come out successful in the end. Some barriers one might face is confidence and being
narrow minded. Majority of people do not have high confidence because they are scared to
fail and leave their comfort zone which leads into being narrow minded. To overcome low
confidence and being narrow minded you have to open your mind to new options which will
boost your confidence in situations and help explore your options and knowledge. Critical
thinking is an accumulation of skills and a process of thinking in a way that allows a person
to make rationale and unbiased decisions. Critical thinking to me is the removal of ego when
confronting a problem. This form of thinking is not reserved for complex issues only. People
use critical thinking in everyday life. Doing things such as clothes shopping, picking a
college, and relocating all require a certain degree of critical thinking.
Critical thinkers tend to be open-minded, flexible, and be effective communicators. These
traits are vital in order to be able to think outside of a persons own agendas, beliefs and
biases. Some barriers people can face when trying to use critical thinking are at the opposite
end of the characteristics I just named. So a person may be more narrow-minded, less
flexible, and lack good communication skills. A way to overcome these barriers could be to
self-evaluate and look outside of your social circles. Communicating with people who have
different opinions and beliefs is a useful and powerful thing. We should not narrow our
reality to people who reinforce our own ideas. Echo chambers can make us ignorant or
unaware of the complexity of certain issues. A good way to become a better critical thinker
is to expand your social circle.The TED talk by Margaret Heffernan was absolutely
beautiful. I love the relationship she described between Scientist and Statistician. How
someone who is trying to disprove another persons work can actual flourish a type of
admiration and respect as opposed to hate or animosity. I also love the message at the end.
Daring to speak up. Most times people have the same thoughts, concerns and worries. As far
as any concerns or confusion regarding the materials this week. I do not have any.
Everything was easy to comprehend and access. Critical thinking also means you know how
to analyze a situation from a different point of view rather than being completely biased to
facts. there are many characteristics to a critical thinker, two of my personal favorites is
observation and determining relevance of sources. observation is more than just listening in
on the conversation, it is also looking at the facts and where those facts came from. it also
requires a personal outlook on what is going on in a situation and is a trait that is utilized in
more than just critical thinking. which ties into determining the relevance, finding out if this
information that is given is trustworthy and can be used as an undoubtable fact. you would
trust a doctor more than the people around you to give you a medical diagnosis on
symptoms you may have for an illness. one barrier that i know any critical thinker has is
overthinking. while one can analyze facts and discern what is relative and what is biased, a
critical thinker may struggle with finding these facts and using them correctly. another
barrier is emotional thinking, while even though you may want to change your mind based
on facts that are given, if you hold onto a belief or an opinion so heartedly you may
encounter the denial of facts. one thing that has confused me so far is the stages of a students
cognitive development in the learning assignment, while there are obvious stages to each
student I did find that many of each stage has even applied to me leading me to question
which stage I am in for my cognitive development. Even though there was a "rate yourself"
questionnaire that helped guide me I am still a little lost on how relevant it is to me as an
individual. Critical thinking is the collective abilities to communicate and act on what is
ethically and morally the right decision to make in difficult situations. Critical thinkers must
be confident, open minded, outspoken, and unafraid to challenge authority or to be
challenged on their point of view. The barriers that are most common are narrow
mindedness and anger. People need to free their mind to see other people perspective, that
their own way of doing things or decisions is not the only correct action. People’s emotions
can make them make the wrong decision. People can consciously decide not to make
important decision when they are anger. People have the ability to wait to make a right
decision when they are calm and collective. The videos were more interesting activity than
reading the chapter on critical thinking. I learn better with visual aid than just reading
information out of a textbook. The videos quickly and simply explained the concepts we are
learning this week. I thought Milgram’s study of obedience was interesting, that most of the
test subjects were still willing to inflict pain on a person, just because an authoritative figure
was telling them to do it. People are conforming without even knowing that they are doing
it. I would define critical thinking as one's ability to analyze and sort through a series of
scenarios or suggestions before making a decision about something. To me critical thinking
is like having a machine mind. You out weigh the pros and the cons before making a
decision about a thought that came to mind. A critical thinker is a person who is not biased.
A person who thinks about other people's opinions and ideas is a critical thinker. Knowing
that you will not always be right and that it's okay to be wrong defines a critical thinker also.
For me I'm always believing that I'm right about any given situation well that was in the
past. That's a big barrier when it comes to critical thinking though. If you always believe that
you are right you automatically become closed-minded and narrow-minded and that's not a
good look. To avoid looking like a know-it-all it's best to just be quiet and think before
responding. Making sure that when you do respond you are taking into consideration the
thoughts and ideas of others. Critical thinking is the ability to think through the problems of
life and deal with them in a logical way. Critical thinking gives us the tools to resolve the
issues in our lives. Opinions are ours, to be sure, but it takes one to look at what we believe
is true, and not something that is somewhat true. Some of the characteristics of a good
critical thinker are: a good analyzer, a good effective communicator and a good researcher
are all helpful in being a good critical thinker. In being an effective communicator also
involves being a good listener. And listening is half the battle to understanding the problem.
The common barriers to critical thinking are many. You have Resistance, as well as, Narrow
Mind-ness to mention a couple. How do people work around these things, Well, that is the
$64,000 dollar question isn't it. People need to sit down and work through these problems in
a critical-thinking way. People need to research the problem and get the right facts before
they move forward. They can not rely on simple opinions without the value of the proper
research to help them to the right conclusion. Looking at what we had to learn this week. I
really enjoyed the videos that were presented to us. They were informative in a good way.
The reading was informative, but was long. I thinks overall the presentations were great.
Critical thinking is learning how to think rather than what to think. Critical thinking provides
us with the tools to identify and resolve issues. Some characteristics of a critical thinker is
analytical skills, effective communications, being open-minded, and creative thinking to
name a few. I believe some common barriers to critical thinking is being biased,
misunderstanding, also having a selective perception. People can overcome these barriers by
just doing the complete opposite meaning not being biased or having a selective perception
versus being those ways. Being biased is a really big barrier to critical thinking in my
opinion because it prevents people from even trying to see other sides of things or the
potential. I believe that all the concepts i have learned is interesting. The activity and
readings definitely helped me understand how important being a critical thinker is and why
it is so important. Being a critical thinker will help you in your academic life as well as your
personal life. It is a very important skill that we all should learn. I would define critical
thinking as common sense. You use critical thinking daily when in your home. When you
are at the grocery store, or at work.
Characteristics of a critical thinker are the way someone communicates either verbally or
non-verbally. The speaker is clear when communicating a thought or need making the
receiver understanding what the goal is.
Barriers to critical thinking are co-workers that are angry and avoid job duties that are
critical they complete. People that can not see past what they want causes barriers to see the
big picture. People that are open minded can overcome barriers once they see the good in it.
Using listening skills can also help you understand and remove barriers.
The learning activities from this week were eye opening. I never really gave it much thought
that critical thinking was used making a grocery decision or that we used verbal and non-
verbal communication during critical thinking. Knowing that someone that is a critical
thinker needs clarity, flexibility, open mindness, problem solving skills and tolerance was
something that I don't think you gave much thought about it is just something that we do.
The one that has me still asking questions is Logical Falicies although this seems like it
would involve a critical thinker, its also falls under resistance. I would define critical
thinking as an evaluation in decision-making utilizing one's intellectual abilities and
analyzation. A critical thinker is someone that can properly make decisions and learn to
overcome barriers in that process. Some barriers that critical thinkers, or anyone, make can
include bias. Everyone has an opinion whenever it comes to just about anything, but
whenever a decision needs to be made, sometimes it can be difficult to make a decision with
the presence of bias. A critical thinker is someone that opens their mind and may try and
explore other options to overcome that resistance.The most important thing that I will be
taking away from this week's learning activities are the barriers that may restrict someone
from thinking critically. I think that in any situation it is important to acknowledge barriers
of any sort and try to work through them. This can range from the smallest decisions, to big
life decisions like moving across the country. Practicing this skill can make it easier over
time to think more critically quicker and more effectively. I would define critical thinking
basically as the ability to think for yourself in order to come to a viable solution or judgment
in regards to whatever issue may be at hand. Critical thinkers are open minded people, they
are effective communicators, they are flexible and have problem solving abilities. Some
things that could be considered barriers to critical thinking, that is characteristics or ways of
thinking that hinder the critical thinking process, are things such as narrow mindedness,
conformity, and even pride. Barriers to critical thinking can be overcome by being willing to
do the research, ask the next question; for instance asking then what, why or what next? Of
course, you have to be able to get over the laziness hurdle in order to do the research or ask
the questions. You have to be willing to go all the way to the root of the problem in order to
most effectively work through it. The most interesting thing I relearned this week was the
characteristics that were common among critical thinkers, the different barriers to critical
thinking. I enjoyed the videos that were in the learning activities this week. Everyone, as
critical thinkers, one of the first things we must do is to recognize and remove the barriers in
our thinking. This is not pleasant to do! Suddenly, we are asked to look at ourselves under a
critical microscope. We may have always thought of ourselves as open-minded. Yet, most of
us really are not. While we may be very accepting of some lines of thought, we are closed to
other lines. Recognizing and removing barriers will not be easy; however, it is quite worth
the effort! Once we begin to recognize our barriers, we can take steps to remove them. I do
understand that it can be difficult to set aside emotion, biases, and personal opinions about
topics; however, if you are intentional with developing your critical thinking skills, setting
aside emotions, biases, and opinions will be easy to do. The first step is to recognize when
you are thinking about something and those elements are present. Gathering credible
information can also help with being objective and is, of course, necessary in critical
thinking.
