Critical thinking Is the process of conceptualizing, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information gathered by
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication, as
a guide to belief and action. When I apply critical thinking
more ideas are develop, fewer mistakes are made and better
decisions are reached. Instead of using critical thinking act
on beliefs or without giving it a second thought, the end
results are poor decisions and as a result have a disaster
at hand. Critical thinkers are fair and focused. They are
rational and not impulsive while making a decision. Critical
thinkers have high awareness that also plays an important
role. Thinking out of the box has resulted in many great
inventions as well ideas. Creative thinkers are modest and
humble. Being modest can make you become a better critical
thinker.Thinking critically in my past life has always became
a rise and fall for me, having doubts, being questionable
but at time thinking through and reasoning my doubts and
reflecting on my experiences. Observing and analyzing the
negative and eventually evaluating all my problems and turning
it into positive. Basically, all the “I can’t” and “I won’t”
gave me strength to look and think better of myself. I
would describe critical thinking evaluating and researching something.
In order to make a clear judgment. I would have never
thought grocery shopping would have been considered as critical
thinking until I watched the video. When I grocery shop
I have to consider what my family likes and things that
my family is allergic to.Good characteristics of a good critical
thinker are effective communication, open mindedness, flexibility,
tolerance for ambiguity, and problem solving. I work as a
phlebotomist a lab. In order to work in a hospital you
have to be flexible. Schedule can change at anytime. There
are many barriers to critical thinking such as resistance,
avoidance, anger, denial ignorance, conformity, and distractions. I
sometimes can get easily distracted when it comes to
completing my assignments. Motherly duties, social media, tv ,
and playing on my phone. sometimes gets the best of me.
So to keep from getting distracted by my phone. I put
it on airplane mode while I study. It's good to know
which barriers affect you most. So you can work on them.I
never realized how much critical thinking played a major part
in my everyday life. It is something I do everyday naturally
on my own. The videos made understand more about critical
thinking. I know now I need to work more on open
mindedness. Sometimes I can really be blunt. Don't be
meaning to cause harm. But at times I hurt people feelings.
That's why it's always to think before I speak. Critical
thinking is important in many ways because it helps us
to become better thinkers. One way people can overcome
barriers is by being open to new thoughts from other.
Another way is not by judging a person based on their
thoughts and opinions. Knowing that everyone is entitled to
an answer, with no right or wrong answers. Everyone opinion
should matter. I found that in the learning activities very
interesting that there are different stages of cognitive developments
that college students can relate to along with different
characteristics of a thinker that me myself can relate to.
Also on how it can effect a person mind and ability
to be a critical thinker. I think this critical thinking course
is really going to help to me. Fear of challenge is one
that really caught my eye. Because sometime a person can
feel a certain way about something and once they hear
others thoughts on it, it can easily make them change they
mind out of fear. Being a critical thinker you should
always stick to how you feel about something because it
pieces of your thoughts could he helpful to someone else.
I would define critical thinking as a combination of skills
that we use daily that we need for our full intellectual
and personal development. It's important to learn so not only
do we know what to think, but how to think as well.A
critical thinker is effective at communication, has analytical
skills, possesses research and inquiry skills, has flexibility and
tolerance for ambiguity, has open-minded scepticism, creative
problem solving, are attentive, mindful, and curious, and is a
collaborative learner.
Barriers many of us face are exactly what you'd expect
them to be. Resistance being one, comes in different types
such as anger, avoidance, cliches, denial, ignorance, conformity,
struggling and distractions. Also, narrow mindedness and the
inability to see anything besides your own opinion and
thoughts. Absolutism, egocentrism, anthropocentrism, stress, and
ethnocentrism. We can overcome these barriers by learning and
practicing the skills of a critical thinker. A critical thinker
to me is someone who is very observant and not biased
because when giving advice or help to a situation you'll
need a very strong minded person intake, Being misunderstood
and lacking knowledge can be a problem when having a
conversation with someone who has a hard time understanding
a topic of conversation you know very well about. Critical
thinking is putting your thought and ideas together and
analyzing what needs to be done to make a well thought
out conclusion to your thought. Being smart and thought out
about an idea is how you apply critical thinking.Main
characteristics of critical thinking are being thorough about ides,
being conscience about the idea and apply the
"who,what,where,why" of the topic .I believe the biggest barrier
that people have is themselves. They get an idea in their
heads and that is what they need, want, or must have.
This is not how you approach critical thinking at all, in
fact it is the exact opposite .I found that the "Self-
evaluation Questionnaire" was the best activity. Anytime we can
try and analyse how we think and how we approach our
thinking process is a step in the right direction. Being
able to answer questions about hope we look at something
and how we put thought into something is good for us
to see hoe we approach the ideas. We can find out a
lot about ourselves when we are forced to answer questions
of how we approach an idea or thought. I would define
critical thinking as being open-minded when presented with a
situation, issue or statement and is able to gather the
information, use logic, analysis and evaluate then being able
to come up with a conclusion or a plan of action.
Some characteristics of a critical thinker is being an effective
communicator; flexible and have a tolerance for ambiguity; open
– mindedness; ability to problem solve.
Some common barriers to critical thinking narrow mindedness
and resistance. You can encounter narrow mindedness when you
have your own personal experiences that can block our ability
to see another position. Another barrier is of resistance in
which there are several types such as avoidance of seeking
information from other sources or people. Anger comes into
play when you have people who are steadfast in there
way and want to persuade another. People can overcome or
avoid these barriers by being open – minded and willing
to seek other information and positions .I honestly never
realized how very important critical thinking is and not
learning these concept can make getting along with peers,
family and relationships very difficult, in fact in some
instances detrimental. ww According to Boss (2016), some skilled
critical thinker characteristics are:
• The ability to demonstrate good analytical skills
• Possess effective communication skills and technique
• Be well informed and have excellent research skills
• Present flexibility and the tolerance to handle ambiguity
and uncertainty
• Adopt a position of open-minded skepticism
• Be a creative problem solver
• Be attentive, mindful, and intellectually curious
• Engage in collaborative learning
After this week's reading assignment, I can identify numerous
common barriers to critical thinking. According to Boss (2016),
resistance is recognized as a common barrier. Most people
do not like to proven wrong or challenged. Resistance, defined
as "the use of immature defense mechanisms that are rigid,
impulsive, maladaptive, and nonanalytical," can act as a barrier
to critical thinking. Resistance becomes a problem when it is
used as a habitual way of responding to issues.
There are different types of resistance. Common barriers of
resistance are:
• Avoidance
• Anger
• Cliches
• Denial
• Ignorance
• Struggling
• Conformity
• Distractions
• Absolution
• Fear of challenge
All of these barriers all have negative consequences and block
or hinder one from developing critical thinking skills. Based
on this week's assigned reading, I'd define critical thinking
as the process of trying to analyze your own bias and
the bias of others in relation to information, in order to
obtain a clearer understanding of that information.
Critical thinkers tend to have a healthy level of self
esteem, and are usually pretty in touch with their own
thoughts and feelings. This is because of their ability to
view themselves and their actions critically, without the normal
cloud of personal bias.I think fear is the greatest barrier
to critical thinking, and it comes in many forms. Fear of
failure, fear of disappointing others, fear of disappointing oneself,
fear of not fitting in, and so on. In many situations,
fear can excite people and make them jump to conclusions,
or make them take an unusual thought process. For example,
a child afraid of not fitting in might assume that anyone
whispering is gossiping about them, even if all logic points
to it being an unrelated conversation. Critical thinking would
tell the child that the people whispering around the corner
aren't talking about them - but fear presents an obstacle
to that critical thinking and sends them down another thought
process.The multi-level analysis of how to properly define critical
thinking was a really enjoyable read for me. It was broken
down just enough to be digestible without being broken down
so much as to be unengaging or dry. I would define
critical thinking as the process needed to absorb life around
us; in fact the reading this week stated it is a set
of skills needed to live your best intellectually. Without the
development of critical thinking achieving goals can become
very difficult. Learning how to think rather than just what
to think will ensure your making the best decisions for
you personally. A critical thinker will be able to problem
solve and get past obstacles. The common characteristic of a
critical thinker that is noted in the reading is logic. A
critical thinker will base decisions on evidence and facts
rather than emotion. Due to a defense mechanism, stubbornness,
also known as resistance, can become a barrier. Avoidance
was a form of resistance I could relate with. I realized
I also lean on some of the mechanisms in my everyday
life. I found it very interesting that I am not as much
of a critical thinker as I thought. The quiz that was
included in the reading did bring to light how much I
let emotions affect my choices. I have learned I need to
practice on some of my critical thinking skills. I define
critical thinking as something you have a strong mind set
on, you have to think wisely about your decisions. Some
characteristics of a critical thinker are Logic, Opinions, Cognitive
Development, Analytical Skills, they all have they own opinion
on critical thinking. The barriers i think that's common to
critical thinking are Absolution and Fear of Challenge, because
most people act before they think, and the things they say
or do effect that person they acting on. fear of challenge
some people are scared of they own shadow, some will
hide in that shell for a long time, because they fear
what other people might think of them. I have learned a
lot, I mean critical thinking is really a good motivation, I
know I use to act before I think, but I'm way smarter,
aware, and wiser, I think before I do anything. Critical
thinking can help solve problems and arguments if you all
have the same concept of the situation, I learn so much
in this lesson and psychology listen that I know how to
move, set schedules, and etc. I love the fact i choose
to come back to school and finally can make it through
a course. I plan on learning more, I enjoy handling my
priorities. I would define critical thinking as our way of
making rational decisions in a timely manner under some sort
of pressure. At some point every day we all use critical
thinking as a skillset, whether it be parenting, school, work,
I mean the list goes on. Thinking critically requires our
minds to almost immediately have a solution to a problem,
without fully even understanding the problem at hand and in
doing so we make decisions that are sometimes good and
sometimes can be bad but in that moment not having the
time to process we may not consider the outcome.Some
characteristics of a critical thinker include open mindedness,
attentive, and even well informed and flexible. Which I
believe all ties together in a way, but can also not tie
together so well. There have been times when I've had an
open discussion about my sexuality with my family I had
to remain open minded but wasn't very attentive because in
all reality their opinions meant nothing to me. Those type
of conversations with my family always present themselves which
allows me to use critical thinking to get out of the
conversation as quickly as possible. I also have moments
when I want to be irresponsible and purchase some shoes
or a bag knowing I have a bill to pay. I'll use
critical thinking to help me make the best decision and it
typically helps because I end up being responsible and paying
my bills on time because I'm well informed on why it's
important to not be flexible at times. These are two very
different examples of my understanding of critical thinking.One
common barrier of a critical thinker that I know affects
us all is being narrow minded. When we are well informed
about something and someone or something presents us with
a counter argument about that something we tend to hear
nothing. I'll give an example, I know if my grandmother
sent me to the store for some collard greens not to
come back with a can of pre-cooked collard greens and
she doesn't have to elaborate as to why because I absolutely
know that she expects fresh collard greens. If I get to
the store they're sold out of fresh collard greens and only
have pre-cut bagged collard greens and pre-made collard greens
in the can. The fact that I know if I bring home
the pre-cooked canned collard greens I'd never hear the end
of it is what makes me narrow minded to that option.
So I know to go with the pre-cut bagged collard greens
because they are the closet to what I know my grandmother
is expecting. When she cooks she expects to make everything
from scratch and does not look for short cuts so her
narrow mindedness towards those pre-cooked collard greens rubbed
off on me over the years and now I don't care how
convenient the canned collard greens are my mind is going
to always eliminate them as an option, if the store is
sold out of fresh collard greens I will check every store
until I find them or go with the pre-cut bagged collard
greens (critical thinking). Not sure if in this situation I
can ever overcome this barrier but there is a work around
so I guess I have because the bagged greens are still
convenient. I enjoyed the videos the most this week on
critical thinking because there were examples used for the
questions that needed to be answered that helped me with
the answers for the discussion which I feel I executed
well. I'm always very critical on my responses because I
want to know that I'm answering the question properly. So
that really helped. Based on this week's readings and activities,
I would define critical thinking as a way of reasoning and
analysing daily decisions that affect your life on a daily
basis. Some characteristics of a critical thinker are analysing
and flexibility. Being a critical thinker means to analyse every
factor that will lead to a decision. For example, deciding
what to wear for work; is it dress code appropriate? Do
I look good? will it keep me warm or cool throughout
the day? Flexibility means to be flexible to the possibilities
if your decision. What I see as a common barrier to
critical thinking is Anger. Anger can become a huge barrier,
because when you are angry, you let your emotions take
over critical thinking. We tend to act on those decisions
when angry and not think of the consequences that come
after. People might be able to overcome this barrier by
just being angry, let the anger out before making a
decision. And after one is more calm, them we can analyze
and decide what we will do. There are certain situations
that you may be able to avoid that might make you
angry. 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.
