Wednesday, October 31, 2007

More on Critical Thinking

I found this blog piece on Sixteen Techniques of Critical Thinking recently, and I thought that the suggestions were excellent. A lot of it was stuff that I already do but hadn't formalized in my mind.

The author also provides as introduction several really good reasons that you would want to develop critical thinking skills. Those reasons include
  • Avoiding being taken advantage of by con artists
  • Avoiding false beliefs that are held simply because it makes you feel good or some sort of authority told you so
  • Being able to focus on goals instead of getting distracted
I would add to that list
  • Being able to defend your beliefs
  • Avoiding taking personally actions that you perceive as attacks, and being able to resolve conflicts in a positive way
  • Increasing your self-confidence by knowing that your judgment is good
  • Keeping your mind sharp

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've discovered one of the greatest benefits of using a critical thinking process is gaining the ability to sort through, focus, and effectively use the mass of information that we encounter each day--especially when we need to target that information toward a specific problem.