How do you know what to believe? How do you separate the truth from the myths?
The answer lies in critical thinking skills. The ability to clearly reason through problems and to present arguments in a logical, compelling way has become a key skill for survival in today’s world. This online coaching program will give you some practical tools and hands-on experience with critical thinking and problem solving.
“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” Michael Scriven & Richard Paul
This online facilitator-led learning experience will help you how to:
- Define critical and non-critical thinking.Identify your critical thinking style(s), including areas of strength and improvement.
- Describe other thinking styles, including left/right brain thinking and whole-brain thinking.
- Work through the critical thinking process to build or analyze arguments.
- Develop and evaluate explanations.
- Improve key critical thinking skills, including active listening and questioning.
- Use analytical thought systems and creative thinking techniques.
- Prepare and present powerful arguments.
Course Overview
Understanding Critical Thinking
The first session of the course will look at what critical thinking is, some characteristics of critical thinkers, and key critical thinking skills. You will also explore ways to develop your critical thinking skills.
Where Do Other Types of Thinking Fit In?
- Next, you will look at left- and right-brain and whole-brain thinking.
- Pitfalls to Reasoned Decision Making
- Then you will look at some of the barriers to good decision making and explore how to get around them.
The Critical Thinking Process
Next, you will delve into the Seven Phase Critical Thinking Model. You will also learn about the standards of critical thinking that serve as the foundation for this model. You will then practice the process through a case study.
A Critical Thinker’s Skill Set
This session will give you some skills necessary for critical thinking: Asking questions, probing, and Active Listening.
Creating Explanations
Another important part of critical thinking is being able to clearly explain why something is a particular way. This session will help you build that skill.
Dealing with Assumptions
Although assumptions can help us get through our everyday lives, they can be a major impediment to critical thinking. In this session, you will examine how to reduce the number of assumptions that you rely on.
Common Sense
This session will explore a frequently overlooked thinking tool: Common sense.
Critical and Creative Thought Systems
Next, you will examine some analytical and inventive thought systems, including De Bono’s thinking hats and brainstorming.
We often think of creative and out of the box thinking as an important problem-solving skill. While that is certainly true, there is a second part of the equation, and that is critical thinking. This mental skill is needed to look past the obvious solution. It helps you find the solution to problems you did not even know existed. That is the big difference between critical and creative thinking. Creative thinking allows you to come up with an out-of-the-box solution for an existing problem. Critical thinking helps you look beyond the obvious problem to find a problem and solution that was not obvious.
Putting It Into Practice
This final session will give you some tips on preparing and presenting a powerful, logical argument. You will also have an opportunity to prepare and present a critical thinking presentation.