The Importance Of Critical Thinking

Furthermore, through rigorous academic training and exposure to various subjects, education cultivates a sense of curiosity and open-mindedness, which are essential for tackling challenges and finding innovative solutions. In today's ever-changing world, a solid education is more important than ever in fostering problem-solving abilities and critical thinking skills, ultimately paving the way for personal and professional success. It shows ways in which education influences critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, shedding light on its profound impact on

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.

Today’s education system has become focused on standardized intelligence testing and what works best for the majority. This system, although created to help the masses, is impersonal and only benefits a specific group of students who learn the best through testing. Those students who think creatively and use imagination are left behind. This is why intelligence tests are not accurate measurement of a child’s knowledge as it does not account for creativity and the child’s individual strengths. Changes need to be made within the school system. Instead of focusing on what is “correct” schools should be encouraging problem-solving through the process of making mistakes and failing. This challenges a student to learn about themselves and the world around them. When everything is already laid out for them it is easy to follow. There is no single way of thinking. By making a student have to think on their own it stimulates creativity and allows them to better connect concepts to real world situations.

However, this creative spirit is quickly lost as students progress through their years in education, where independent thought is second to memorization and repetition. While vocabulary quizzes are common, this expansive vocabulary is rarely utilized in creative writing but rather regurgitated on the SAT examination. Instead of exploring the ways math could be used in various careers that students might pursue, math classes require memorization of trigonometric angles. In ethics class, instead of presenting one’s own views and providing support for these views, a student is expected to simply repeat what was said in class, whether the student agrees with these opinions or not. However, anyone can simply repeat back previously provided information and duplicate past processes. Education should be about finding creative new solutions to problems in the world today and encouraging individual thought that will change the world in the future. In order to improve the world, it is necessary to think of new solutions to problems. Creativity is necessary to come up with these solutions, and by stifling creative thought in education, educators are also stifling progress in the world. The goal of education is to prepare students for the rest of life, and educators are obligated to encourage creativity in order to achieve this

Voltaire once said, “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking” (“Voltaire Quotes”) What Voltaire intended to convey was that extensive and critical thinking can allow people to arrive at rational solutions to problems. This is one of the reasons why the significance of thinking critically has become a popular issue that is discussed about in educational systems nowadays. It is imperative that students develop critical thinking skills and not just blindly be taught what to think, but rather how to think. Pure memorization will not lead to authentic learning; instead, encouraging critical thinking is what will help students evaluate problems and make reasonable decisions. As humans are susceptible to emotions, critical

I think critical thinking is important because it means reasoning, evaluating, analyzing, decision-making, and problem-solving. We need critical thinking in our everyday life, for us to make any little decision we need to think about it wisely, and how it will affect us. Someone with critical thinking skills can understand the logical links between ideas. For example, during my night shift at the ER, we use triage, which is to decide who is the most urgently in need, and whose injuries are less severe and can

The similarities I found in the definitions of critical thinking from the websites were that critical thinking explores alternative ways of thinking about something with the purpose of uncovering untold meaning. It delves into the deep layers of meaning and tries to formulate a better and holistic understanding. People should not settle with obvious and the taken for granted. They should question assumptions and ideas rather than only accepting them. They should make correct decisions independently.

Conceiving their study on previous research done about the nature of knowledge and the nature of learning that influences thinking, Schommer-Aikins and Hutter (2002) introduced an additional element of contemporary controversial issues encountered in everyday life. Their research looked to populations outside of academia to support their hypotheses. Generally, they were able to prove a relationship exists between individual beliefs about knowledge and learning and the ability to demonstrate higher order thinking. Education and critical thinking influence these beliefs (p. 16). The nature of knowledge and learning beliefs influence thinking in everyday life.

“…If our goal is for children to become knowledgeable, critical thinkers who are good at solving problems, we need to pay attention to the ‘how’ of teaching. We need to stimulate curiosity” (Crawford, 2004, p. 5).

Critical and creative thinking are two categories that analyze information and solve problems in either concrete or abstract ways. Assessing the ability to teach these skills as an overarching concept including subcategories within, is an essential piece to instruction. Without a proper evaluation of the strengths, areas for growth, and improvement plans, it becomes easy to feel misplaced or uncertain about what skills are being taught and at what depth they are being learned.

In “All about Thinking: Case Study 1”, it discusses about how the thinking curriculum can create an avenue and more opportunities for the students to share ideas, express their opinions, post questions, etc as they are acquiring the knowledge they desire and need to be used as basis for decision making.

Many studies prove that teaching creative thinking skills helps students gain better achievements. The result of research at Dong Hu Junior High School, for instance, presents that "The overall performance of the students was significantly better on both the academic and technical subjects compared to that in the traditional teaching" (Jeng, YC, Hsu, SL, Xie, J, Lin, R & Huang, CC 2010, P.37). In addition, applying the CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education) at King's College London, a program of teaching thinking skills, 19% of participating students achieve A-C grades in GCSE (the General Certificate of Secondary Education) science more than those using traditional methods ('Thinking skills' 2003). In English and Maths, the result amazingly varies from 15 to 16% of better achievement. Scientific guidance and lectures from facilitators will effectively motivate pupils’ process of brainstorming, mind-mapping ideas and organizing them in a logical structure, which significantly contributes to the success of their assignments. Moreover, this may even be applied much further into their life because of improving not only knowledge, but also thought processes. Furthermore, being familiar with wise thoughts, students will be confident in learning and considering things thoroughly before going to analysis and then evaluating their tasks or duties. As a result, creative thinking will really help to improve performance of people from

General Education (GenEd) is the course requirements all students must meet to obtain their major. Over the years the courses have remained the same four subjects; Math, Science, Social Studies, and English. The four courses are meant to give basic knowledge for anyone who is obtaining a College degree. Logic and critical thinking should be a part of the GenEd curriculum because of the many benefits it has to offer the students. Everyone looking for degrees and wanting to accomplish them efficiently should take Critical thinking and Logic.

Problem solving and critical thinking are two related skills that greatly impact student success in the classroom. However, many studies have shown that these two skills are largely underdeveloped in students. This is particularly worrisome as the current job market is filled with jobs that require individuals to be exceptional in these two areas. As technology advances, more of the “routine” jobs are being taken over by technological platforms, leaving more opportunities for people to enter the workforce in positions that require them to think on deep and complex levels. Employers now describe a “qualified person” as “someone having good command of information rather than summarizing it, reaching true information the most effectively

I would say that my greatest skill is critical thinking. This fact was apparent to my mother when I was four years old and she cultivated it by buying me jigsaw puzzles and as I grew older, sudoku and riddles. As a child I was the one who would enjoy reading the one who could be relied on to rectify computer issues as I was able to quickly analyze situations and problem solve. However, as a child I didn’t view this as a skill. I would jealously watch my friend's display their skills and talents wondering what mine were. This was the case until I started learning Algebra One as well as analyzing and reading literature in eighth grade. Only then did I recognize that I excelled in these areas and enjoyed them. Then I began actively developing this skill by taking the most advanced classes my junior high school had to offer. In high school I took honors Math classes, honors English classes, AP calculus, AP Physics C mechanics, and both AP English tests and excelled in most of them while enjoying the process at the same time. I have continued to develop my critical thinking skills in college through enrolling in the Scholar’s program and taking the more arduous classes they offered. I hope to continue developing this skill in upper division classes and apply my analytical nature to providing insight in the psychology field.