Critical Thinking Skills for all Subjects

Overview of Workshop Definition of Critical Thinking Fill out and discuss KWL Chart throughout the presentation. Presentation of PowerPoint Open Discussion Copy of Power Point presentation: tahira.muhammad@gmail.com

Overview of this Presentation How to apply critical thinking skills in the classroom. What is critical thinking? How to encourage students to critically think and analyze when answering essay and short answer questions in any subject.

Critical Thinking for all Subjects Critical thinking can applied in any of the following subjects: English Science Math Islamic Studies and Arabic language Life Skills

Critical thinking helps us to deepen our thought process!

Basic Elements of Critical Thinking Active Purposeful An organized process Helps us to make sense of the world around us. Questions 1. Do we think? 2. Are we always thinking?

Lesson One: Think for YOURSELF Make your thoughts your own. Don’t let other’s make decisions for you. Examine what you are told. Ask for sources of information and the track record of those sources.

Lesson Two: Discuss Ideas in an Organized Way. To discuss ideas in an organized way we must: Listen to each other to understand what others are saying. (Active listening) Support our ideas with reasons and evidence. Respond to the points being made to stay on topic. Ask to answer important questions. Try to increase understanding than to simply win the argument.

Lesson Three: Using Language to clarify your thinking You must read and write to develop your language effectively. You must avoid vague language. Vague language-using words that are nonspecific and too general. These words to don’t give a precise description of the thought feeling or experience.

Clarifying Language Tips 1. Ask for clarity: Who, What, Where, When and Why. 2. Ask what do you mean by that? Don’t assume. 3. Meanings are in the individual. Seek the meaning from the person you are talking to. 4. Try to use language to influence and avoid euphemisms or words that avoid the meaning and emotive language or words that are emotional.

Analyzing Issues As critical thinkers we have an obligation to develop informed intelligent opinions about issues so that we can function as responsible citizens and make appropriate decisions. We must analyze an issue by using factual information to identify the issue.

Supporting Diverse Perspectives with reasons and evidence. It is not enough to simply take a position on an issue or make a claim, we have to support our views with other information that we feel supports our position.

Perceptions There can be different perceptions but there is only one set of facts. As critical thinkers we must be aware of the nature of our own lenses and become aware of the perceptions of others.

Beliefs Beliefs are interpretations, evaluations and predictions of the world that we endorse as true. Beliefs can be based upon direct and indirect experience. Basic elements of beliefs are: interpretation, evaluation or judgment, conclusion or decision, prediction or statement.

Knowing Most people make mistakes because they don’t know what they don’t know. To know something you have to be able to explain it. Knowledge and truth has to be developed together with the understanding that knowledge changes over time.

In Summary Critical thinking requires us to re-examine our beliefs, analyze issues, use language to clarify our thinking within discussions. It also requires us to actively listen to others and seek the meaning in the individual. The critical thinking process can be used for class discussions, resolve conflicts, arrive at resolutions, and even be used in our personal relationships with loved ones.

Group Activity In groups think of a question that you wished a student answered more critically. It can be a question from a past exam, classwork or homework assignment. Applying some of the critical thinking techniques list three-five ways you would restructure the question or probe the student to answer more critically. Be ready to share with the group.

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