{"id":7,"date":"2015-05-11T18:17:35","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T18:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2015-06-13T13:31:07","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T13:31:07","slug":"critical-thinking-critical-thinking-and-its-importance-in-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/critical-thinking-critical-thinking-and-its-importance-in-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Thinking – Critical Thinking and Its Importance in Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technology, travel and business have brought countries together, so does\u00a0our thinking evolve. No more thinking within our boundaries, we need\u00a0critical thinking to evaluate our own decisions in everything we do. For\u00a0example, how do you teach students without discriminating their beliefs or\u00a0religion? How do we start a business in a country with different laws from\u00a0ours and still incorporate our business values? So, what is critical thinking?<\/p>\n

What is Critical Thinking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Critical thinking according to Hamilton-Reeves (2009) is the process of\u00a0filtering information by removing emotional and environmental\u00a0discrepancies and remaining neutral to make the most accurate decision.\u00a0On the other hand Elder and Paul (1994, pp.34-35) believes critical thinking\u00a0is the “ability of thinkers to take charge of their own thinking by developing\u00a0sound criteria and standards for analyzing and assessing” information to\u00a0make an informed decision. Lastly, critical thinking from a general\u00a0psychology point of view is analyzing ones standards, facts and assessing\u00a0conclusions (Petress, 2004). From the above analysis, it is apparent that\u00a0critical thinking is a process that guides ones logical decision making\u00a0process by analyzing all possible information before making a decision,\u00a0therefore reducing the chances of making quick and unethical decisions.\u00a0According to Hamilton-Reeves (2009), critical thinking improves your\u00a0chances of solving difficult problems because all possible solutions are
\nanalyzed before making a decision.<\/p>\n

Approaches to critical Thinking<\/strong><\/p>\n

Critical thinking has a number of approaches, but only three types of
\napproaches will be analyzed.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Firstly, from an education point of view, Barnett (1997) suggests\u00a0critical thinking should be tackled by developing techniques that\u00a0reflect critically on knowledge and development of critical self reflection.\u00a0For example, teachers should encourage their students to\u00a0research by asking questions that stimulate hunger for knowledge.<\/li>\n
  2. Secondly, from a psychology point of view, Petress (2004) states that\u00a0there is need for “examining assumptions, discern hidden values,\u00a0evaluate evidence and assess conclusion”.<\/li>\n
  3. Lastly, Rusbult (2004) suggests that one needs to be taught to\u00a0“develop skills, abilities and values crucial to success in everyday\u00a0life”. For example, a teacher should question a student using Socratic\u00a0questioning like \u201cwhy do you think that works like that\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Importance in Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Barnett (1997) suggests that critical thinking is important to apply in\u00a0education because students can change their thought process and become\u00a0more critical thinkers. In turn, empowering students with critical thinking\u00a0skills that enables them to “identify, classify information to make intelligent\u00a0and ethical decisions” (Braun, 2004, p. 232-236). As schools become\u00a0diverse and curriculum’s become global, students need to take into account\u00a0different cultures, ethics and religious backgrounds. Critical thinking is\u00a0about having an interest in finding new solutions by examining problems\u00a0closely and looking to support those ideas. Therefore\u00a0critical thinking skills can give students the ability to understand what they\u00a0are given in class, and develop the skills to build upon the knowledge they\u00a0have learnt.<\/p>\n

    Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It can be concluded that critical thinking in education is the stepping stone\u00a0for students to acquire critical thinking skills that will broaden their\u00a0knowledge base. This will empower students with a curious mind to\u00a0discover new solutions, in turn creating a learning society that takes into\u00a0account information, ethics, different cultures and religious backgrounds\u00a0when making decisions.<\/p>\n

    References<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Barnett, R. (1997). Higher Education: A critical business.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Braun, N. M. (2004). Critical thinking in business curriculum. Journal of\u00a0education for business.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Critical Thinking Co (2005). What is Critical Thinking? : Critical Thinking<\/a>
    \n     Definition.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Elder, L. and Paul, R. (1994). Critical Thinking: why we must transform our\u00a0teaching.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Hamilton-Revees, X. (2009). Critical thinking defined.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Petress, K. (2004). ‘Critical Thinking: An extended definition’.<\/a><\/p>\n

    Rusbult, C. (2001). Critital Thinking In Education And Life.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Introduction Technology, travel and business have brought countries together, so does\u00a0our thinking evolve. No more thinking within our boundaries, we need\u00a0critical thinking to evaluate our own decisions in everything we do. For\u00a0example, how do you teach students without discriminating their beliefs or\u00a0religion? How do we start a business in a country with different laws from\u00a0ours…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-critical-thinking","tag-education"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kadokowaza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}