Critical Thinking

1
Critical Thinking

• A Cultivated Skill

2
The Skill of Thinking

• Unique to each individual
• Own styles
• Innate and learned capabilities
• Can be improved by
• Gaining insight and self-awareness
• Acquiring instruction and feedback
• Consciously working to improve

3
Improving Your Ability to Think and Learn

• Believe in your ability to be a good thinker and
  learner.
• Be willing to work at strategies that can help
  you think and learn more efficiently in your own
  way.

4
Learning Styles

• Observers (visual)
• Doers (kinesthetic)
• Listeners (auditory)

5
Does Personality Affect Thinking?

• Major role
• What information you notice and recall
• How you make decisions
• Amount of structure and control you like

6
Importance of Considering Affect of Personality
on Thinking

• Connecting with own personality needs
• Answers how and why you think like you do
• Understanding other personality types
• Helps you realize how and why others think like
  they do
• Goal meeting of the minds

7
Learning Preferences and Thinking Styles

• No one style is better than another
• Affected by culture and upbringing
• What is important
• connect with your own style, celebrate strengths
  and overcome limitations
• understand people with different styles, respect
  their need to approach things in their own way
  (Box 2-3, p. 27)

8
Personality Profiles

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Informal test instrument www.personalitypathways.
  com/type-inventory.html
• Color Code
• www.thecolorcode.com

9
Importance of Mentors

• Can you name at least one person who has made a
  significant impact on how you think?
• Nursing Mentors (Preceptors)
• nurses with exemplary skills whose role is to
  teach, nurture, and empower new nurses on a
  one-to-one basis.

10
Factors Influencing Critical Thinking Ability

• Table 2-2, p. 30
• Ability to think well varies, depending on
  personal factors and circumstances that are
  present at the time.
• Particular circumstances can cause factors to
  either enhance or impede thinking ability

11
Promoting Critical Thinking Skills

• Box 2-4, p. 31 Using Emotional Intelligence to
  Promote Critical Thinking
• Box 2-5, p. 3233 Communication Strategies for
  Enhancing Critical Thinking

12
Barriers to Critical Thinking

• Self-focusing
• Mine-Is-Better (ethnocentrism)
• Tunnel Vision
• Choosing-Only-One
• Face-saving
• Resistance to Change
• Conformity
• Stereotyping
• Self-deception

13
Covey

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Be Proactive
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Put First Things First
• Think Win-Win
• Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the Saw

14
Critical Thinking is Outcome-Focused

• Goal General intent
• Outcome Observable results

15
Critical Thinking Strategies Ten Key Questions

• What major outcomes will drive our thinking?
• Exactly what are the problems, issues, or risks
  that must be addressed to achieve the major
  outcomes?
• What are the circumstances?
• What knowledge is required?
• How much room is there for error?

16
Critical Thinking Strategies Ten Key Questions

• How much time do I/we have?
• What resources can help?
• Whose perspectives must be considered?
• Whats influencing thinking?
• What must we do to prevent, control, or eliminate
  the problems or issues identified in question 2?
• (pp. 40 42)

17
More Definitions

• Logic
• Sound reasoning based on evidence
• Intuition
• Knowing something without evidence
• Trial and Error
• Trying several solutions until finding the one
  that works the best
• Can be risky but necessary

18
Using the Whole Brain to Think Critically

• Right Brain focuses on the big picture
• Left Brain focuses on details
• Questions to ask
• Whats the big picture?
• Am I considering both the parts and the whole?
• Am I paying attention to key details?

19
Strategies to Promote Critical Thought

• Anticipate questions
• Ask what-else questions
• Think out loud, or write thoughts down
• Ask an expert to think out loud
• Ask what-if questions
• Ask why
• Paraphrase
• Compare and contrast
• Organize and reorganize information

• Look for flaws
• Ask someone to look for flaws
• Develop habits of inquiry
• Revisit information
• Replace I dont know or Im not sure with I
  need to, or lets find out
• Turn errors into learning opportunities
• Share your mistakes
• (pp. 44,45)

20
Knowledge and Intellectual Skills Indicators

• Intellectual Skills demonstrate application of
  knowledge
• Table 2-3, pp. 46-47

21
Four Requirements of Learning to Think Critically

• Develop a critical thinking character
• Take responsibility and get actively involved
• Gain interpersonal skills
• Practice related technical skills
• Refer to Figure 2-1, p. 50