The Importance Of Critical Thinking From Affecting School Aged Children

To survive in such a multifaceted and diverse world we as people must possess the ability to think critically in highly complex situations. The world is an extremely challenging place, all of us are forced to adapt by constantly challenging existing principles and performing certain methods to ensure our growth both physically and mentally. Many claim that contemporary society needs a skill called critical thinking to adapt and survive. Critical thinking is a higher level of intellectual progression that makes use of diverse information, skills and attitudes in interpreting situations and confronting problems. Critical thinking is done

Over the course of the last six weeks, I have come to realize that critical thinking is an important asset as I continue my journey in life. I have found this course to be both challenging and rewarding. Most importantly, I find myself viewing problems and conversations in a completely different light. While I would not consider myself an expert at critical thinking, I would assess myself in as a Beginner Thinker. Paul and Elder point out in the beginning thinker stage an individual actively begins to take command of their thinking process across multiple facets of their life (Paul and Elder, 2012). Furthermore, we recognize that there are problems in the way we think and begin to consciously attempt to better understand we can improve our thinking.

Teaching higher order thinking skills is not a recent need. It is apparent that students, at all levels of education, are lagging in problem-solving and thinking skills. Fragmentation of thinking skills, however, may be the result of critical thinking courses and texts. Every course, especially in content subjects, students should be taught to think logically, analyze and compare, question and evaluate.

This article focused on the constant debate concerning the conditions in which students develop the skill of thinking critically. Being able to use critical thinking requires knowledge of facts and concepts about the subject matter. I found this article interesting because I think it is important that students develop critical thinking skills. Most scholarly articles tend to have an abstract that summarizes the papers entirety. Due to this this article is considered scholarly.

Albert Einstein said, “The important thing is to not stop questioning.” Einstein is often seen as an intelligent scholar, with the ability to critically assess life. However, developing this skill of critical thinking is more strenuous than one may first assume. A problem relevant to Sara Rimer’s article, Many College Students Lack Critical Thinking, Study Says, which argues that college students are unlikely to develop the ability to think critically during their academic career, especially college years.

In today’s current school systems, the question of whether or not schools are correctly teaching students the right curriculum is coming up for debate. In the Article,"Teaching Critical Thinking by Marcia Clemmitt, she goes into extensive research of the U.S. Department of Education’s crisis of standardized testing. Most learning activities include standardized testing which lacks many students to express creative and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the examination and evaluation of ideas, events and arguments in their contexts which introduces students to interrogate assumptions and identifying biases (Clemmitt)Pure critical thinking involves investigating a text more than just memorizing, but to apply theirself in other ways of techniques, meaning schools should stimulate more analytical methods of teaching. This would not only free students from a sheltered test culture,but will allow students to think in a deeper,more passionate way than before.

Critical thinking is a vital task that must be done in our everyday lives. In “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” found at criticalthinking.org, Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul explain critical thinking as “the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances”. Even tough there are many different types of methods to achieve a better quality of critical thinking, Dr. Elder and Dr. Paul discuss four specific ones in the article. All strategies, however, force you to put yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult position to develop a better quality of thinking.

I definitely agree with you, telling a child that nobody wants to sit with him/her is extremely damaging to that child and it will make them feel that they are not good enough for others to sit and be around with. That is hard to handle for anybody, and even more for a child, especially in school that they desire to be liked by their classmates. Children look up to teachers and when a teacher discourages or embarrasses a student they will drift away and perhaps the desire to learn, explore, or ask questions can be damaged by that one teacher that did not use critical thinking before speaking or

One of the hardest concepts to teach, critical thinking, is something that elementary, high school, and college students are still challenged by. This could change with an increase in the implementation of video games in the education system. Critical thinking is valued in everything from standardized testing to job interviews. Critical thinking is valued for its ability to draw conclusions from a set of evaluations. The concepts of critical thinking do not appeal to many children who just want the answer to their problem, not a challenge or the steps needed to solve a problem. Educational video games are created with a goal in mind which is to make kids think. When I was in sixth grade, my private school started the implementation of IPads

Critical thinking is defined by Victor-Chmil as “the cognitive processes used for analyzing knowledge” (2013, para.1). Critical thinking is knowledge based and

I think the reason that I decided to take this course this semester was the fact that I have always been a fan of mystery, thoughts, and analyzation. I must confess though that when I signed up for this course I had no idea that it would have a lot of writing involved. I have always been more of a fan of numbers and Science then I am of structuralizing sentences. So when I glanced over the course I started despairing a little. I was thinking that it was going to be more like those critical thinking handbooks you buy at dollar stores or at other random little places where you read a story of a situation and figure out who the killer was or what you are supposed to do to

There are proposed reasons for the emphasis that is currently on critical thinking. Many factors can be related to this emphasis. They include the societal factors of economic shifts

There are said to be six stages of critical thinking, the unreflective, challenged, beginning, practicing, advanced, and accomplished thinker. The unreflective thinker is unable to asses their thinking skills while in the second stage of challenged thinkers, they are becoming aware and figuring out problems. The beginning thinker is similar to concrete thinking, which contains no depth, it regards to the facts and thinking in the periphery. At the fourth stage, the practicing thinker is developing the knowledge for systematic practice, while the advanced thinker now has good habits and can actively analyze information. Lastly, the accomplished thinker can access their intuitiveness and take a position on things in everyday life(Edler, Paul).

“Critical thinking is that mode of thinking-about any subject, content, or problem-in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.” (Paul and Elder, 2014). Like going to the gym, deciding to go back to school to improve your way of life, or saving for a long-awaited vacation, critical thinking similarly requires a self-controlled, well organized, and strategic order of procedures in an effort to reach your intended goal successfully. Additionally, along this path of success, a thinker may find themselves in a “self-correcting” stage, as one may attempt to allow their biases, partiality, or ill-informed thoughts to take control. However, a well refined critical thinker can ascertain this success by actively and expertly enhancing their quality of thought. This attribute is achieved by implementing specific concepts; such as theory development, exploration, construction, and/or the investigation of material assembled. According to Paul and Elder, “Excellence in thought must be systematically cultivated”. Therefore, a critical thinker, must purposely put in the work to accomplish success. Richard Paul and Linda Elder created a critical thinking framework that consists of three major components: 1. The elements of thought; which is your basis for reasoning, 2. the intellectual standards; which are applied to the elements of reasoning, and 3. intellectual traits; which are produced from the application of discipline.

Education plays an imperative role in developing these skills. Young and Warren (2011), in their review of the education literature, stated that a number of cross-sectional research studies have shown that a student’s critical thinking ability can improve while at college. While Parcarella and Terenzini (2005) approximate that a student can improve their critical thinking skills by 63% by the end of their sophomore year. According to Hurt (2007) these skills must be developed consistently, purposefully and rationally over time to enable students to appropriately respond to the intricate issues that the working environment