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Reflect on Critical Thinking Assessment

My favorite classes in my undergraduate studies related to rhetoric and epistemology. Through my minor in Editing, Writing, and Media I took my first look at critical thinking as we analyzed the origins of knowledge. My personal definition of critical thinking is reflecting on how and why we come to the conclusions that we do in order to ensure we are making the best decision with the information at our disposal. This definition aligns quite closely with Richard Paul’s definition as described in Learning to Think Things Through; “Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking, while you’re thinking, in order to make your thinking better.” This definition resonates with me as it homes in on the metacognitive nature of critical thinking and highlights the relationships between epistemology and critical thinking (Nosich, 2012). This kind of reflection is central to thinking critically.

Having arrived at some basic understanding of how critical thinking operates in my studies, my results are on par with how I interpret my own understanding of critical thinking concepts. The Online Critical Thinking Basic Concepts Test reflects that I have a strong understanding of some basic critical thinking insight, answering 92% of the questions in this category correctly. That is to say that I understand, broadly, what critical thinking is and isn’t. The section about recognizing important distinctions in critical thinking shows that I lack understanding of more nuanced elements of critical thinking, having only answered 53% of those questions correctly. This is an opportunity for me to grow and learn, as I am not familiar with the terminology related to different parts, abilities, traits, obstacles, and intellectual standards as they relate to critical thought. The discussion around fallacies earlier this week reflect how important recognizing obstacles to, and the parts of critical thinking can be. In my example about purchasing an HP printer based solely off my friend’s experiences, I see how my own personal experience can be an obstacle to critical thinking. It also shows just how manipulative politics and advertising can be; they prey on our tendency to rely on shortcuts, feelings, and non-reasoning to earn our vote, or our money. By reflecting on the media that we consume, and how we make decisions we can become better critical thinkers and thus exercise more control over our lives. Having these real-life examples of how I personally fail to exercise critical thinking can help me to anchor the topics to something tangible and find alternative ways to move through the experiences of life.

I see that the Foundation for Critical Thinking is a wealth of knowledge about critical thinking and reinforces the assigned readings for the course. This Foundation was in fact founded by major contributors to the development of the discipline. In particular, the Elements and Standards Learning Tool at criticalthinking.org is a useful online model to help me conceptualize the elements of critical thinking as I read ahead to the next set of assigned readings. I hope to gain a strong understanding of the more nuanced elements of critical thinking throughout the Master of Science in Leadership Program by using these resources as well as additional scholarly articles that I can find through the Hunt Library.


References

Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning to think things through: A guide to critical thinking across the curriculum (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

 A500.1.4.GA Reflect on Critical Thinking Assessment


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