Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking

Every human being thinks; it is innate to human nature. But much of ones thinking can be biased, partial to a view point, or uninformed. The quality of ones thoughts can affect the quality of decisions being made and thus effect the quality of ones own life or those around them (Scriven & Paul, 2004, 6). The art of cultivating high quality thoughts is called critical thinking. It involves the "art of thinking about thinking while thinking in order to make thinking better" (Paul & Elder, 2006, 3) The Critical Thinking Company (2002) further defines critical thinking as "the identification and evaluation of evidence to guide decision making' (1). Critical thinking has two basic parts: 1) skills to generate and process information and beliefs, and 2) the commitment to using those skills to guide behavior (Scriven & Paul, 3). Those parts are intertwined into three phases of the critical thinking process-analyzing thinking, evaluating thinking, and improving thinking (Paul & Elder, 3). Critical thinkers "analyze thinking in order to evaluate it...evaluate it in order to improve it" (Paul & Elder, 6).

To analyze thinking, the first phase in the critical thinking process, one must define the purpose, question information, define the different points of view, and look at all assumptions. In the second phase of the critical thinking process, one must assess thinking. This involves checking for logic fairness, clarity, and value (Paul & Elder, 2006, 28). One must also evaluate the accuracy, is it fact or opinion. In order for this process to be successful, a critical thinker must a) be open-minded, b) be well informed, c) judge well the credibility of sources, d) ask appropriate questions to gain clarity, and e) define terms appropriate for the context (The Critical Thinking Co, 2002, 4). The critical thinker uses this process to improve thinking. Its a continuous process-analyzing, evaluating, and improving.

My co teacher and I used this critical thinking process to change time schedule for our pre-school students. The current schedule did not seem to meet the needs of all of the students. Out of the class of sixteen, there were two students with special needs. One could not focus during story time. The other student would become over stimulated when there was a lot of loud activity going on and had a hard time self regulating. We examined the facts: a) children need a predictable routine, b) certain component in the schedule need to be there for all of the children to have a rich learning environment, and c) there were two special need children that needed accommodations.

We discussed our assumptions about what kind of routine our students needed and consulted a couple of special education teachers to clarify what would best serve these two students. We found out that a few of our assumptions were wrong. We also examined our own reasons for changing the schedule-was it to help the children or make it "easier" for our own teaching styles. Separately we wrote down what each thought would be a good time schedule and then compared notes. We discussed the negative and positive aspects of both our ideas. We then came up with a schedule that we both thought would meet the needs of all the children in the class. We decided