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Electrical and Computer Engineering Design Handbook

An Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering and Product Design by Tufts ECE Students

Critical Thinking for Engineers

Engineers are specialists in technical information. As the complexities of problems increase, there has been an increasing need for engineers to apply critical thinking in the context of problem solving. This article demonstrates the value and use of developing abstract thought in engineering, especially for students

Introduction

In school, the most widely used, or at least the most reputable method for solving problems is “Critical Thinking.” From understanding the works of a long dead philosopher to solving differential equations, “Critical Thinking” is like some sort of intellectual panacea. Although everyone can agree that “Critical Thinking” is usually a good thing, it is difficult to explain exactly what it is and even more difficult to teach it.

For most engineers, problem solving is essentially their profession. Critical thinking and abstract thought, then, are invaluable tools, which complement an engineer’s technical expertise. In this paper, our first goal is to define what exactly critical thinking is. From there, we will discuss examples, which highlight the importance of abstract thought as well efforts to teach this in the classroom. Finally, we will look at how this can be applied to our Senior Project and perhaps future work in general.

To begin, we will look at two definitions of critical thinking. In her 2002 article, Jessop argues that critical thinking is comprised of three major skills: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. She goes on to quote a statement by Scriven (n.d.) to define the term more explicitly:

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.(as quoted in Jessop, 2002, p. 141)

Analysis is breaking down the problem into parts and finding the relationships between them. Synthesis is thinking about other ways to solve the problem either by incorporating new information or combining the parts in a different way. Finally, evaluation is making a judgment about the results using the evidence at hand.

According to Scriven (n.d.), then, critical thinking is the combined process of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Since we are trying to use critical thinking as “a guide to belief and action,” synthesis, or the generation of new ideas or solutions, is a necessary component. However, creating these new solutions is difficult, if not impossible, without understanding the problem, which leads to analysis. The process of critical thinking, though, does not stop at synthesis. Out of the results from the synthesis stage, some may be better than others. Moreover, it is possible that none of the results actually solve the problem. Because of this, it is necessary to evaluate the results in order to find the best answer. To better understand this definition, we will apply this to an example.

Let’s assume we want an egg for breakfast. For analysis , the parts of this process might be putting butter in a pan, breaking the egg, and then cooking it. For synthesis , there are many different ways to prepare eggs. For example, we could whisk the egg to make scrambled eggs, or maybe we want hard boiled eggs instead. Finally, we need to evaluate our result. There are many different criteria for this, such as which one takes the least amount of time, which is the most delicious, which is the healthiest, etc. In order to apply critical thinking to this problem, the goals are to understand the problem, find possible solutions, and evaluate the result.

For comparison, we now look at another definition of critical thinking. Qiao (2009) writes, “When one used the methods and principles of scientific thinking in everyday life, then he was practicing critical thinking. So scientific and critical thinking are the same thing…” The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about “scientific thinking” is the scientific method, so at first, this comparison seems a little odd. For reference, the steps of the scientific method are presented as follows (Wikipedia, n.d.):

• Define a question
• Gather information and resources (observe)
• Form an explanatory hypothesis
• Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
• Analyze the data
• Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
• Publish results
• Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

In the steps above, we see some similarities with the earlier definition of critical thinking. Earlier, we stated that critical thinking was composed of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. While engineers typically begin with problems instead of questions, the gathering of information and resources is definitely a part of analysis. In both cases, understanding the problem or question is a priority. In critical thinking, the next step would be synthesis. A scientist may be trying to answer a question by forming a hypothesis, but the need to imagine different possibilities and find an answer that fits is the same in engineering. Lastly, steps 4-6 could be considered one way to evaluate the results from synthesis. While a scientist may test his or her hypothesis with experiments, an engineer may run simulations or create prototypes. The point in either case, though, is to make sure is to ensure the ideas from earlier actually work.

Although we defined critical thinking from an engineer’s perspective, it should not be surprising that we can apply it loosely in other disciplines such as science. After all, the capacity for critical thinking is not limited to or only useful for engineers alone. Writers, philosophers, mathematicians, and many other disciplines make use of critical thinking as well. Even if the process is slightly different for each, at the very least, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation lie at the heart of critical thinking.

As a technical example of critical thinking, let us examine a problem a Tufts University student encountered while doing research over the summer. This student was writing the image processing code for a robot, which had a camera mounted on it.

The code to retrieve the video and display it was already written, so the student only had to focus on the image processing part. As a simple test, the student wrote a piece of code to find the number of black pixels in a video frame. The code was easy to test since all the pixels could be made black by covering up the camera. The problem occurred when the student’s code tried to count all the pixels when the camera was covered up. In this case, all the pixels should be black, but the student recorded only a fraction of that number.

So how did the student use critical thinking to solve the problem? First, he took into account all of the available information and tried to find possible sources of the problem. The input was a video frame with an apparent size of 480 x 640 pixels, which matched the output displayed. Repeating the test for black pixels consistently returned the same fraction. When the student modified his code to check for pixels of any colors, the result found the expected number of pixels, so at first the problem appeared to be related to detecting the black pixels. The student, however, had tested that part of the code thoroughly, and was fairly confident that it was not the source of the problem.

Continuing on with his analysis, the student decided to directly save the video frame and display it. Upon seeing the result, the student at once saw the problem and found a solution. While the given video frame had room for 480 x 640 pixels, the actual image was stored in the upper left hand corner as a 240 x 320 image. Thus, the student’s code was correct, as he originally surmised, and it was actually returning the correct number. The code to display the video, it turns out, expected this input, and resized the image to the 480 x 640 video feed that the student originally saw.

From there, the rest of the problem was straightforward. For synthesis, the student decided to use the upper left corner of the given images and ignore the rest of the pixels. The result was more efficient than the original code, since it only had to process a 240 x 320 image and it ignored the pixels that were skewing the results. This example demonstrates the importance of analysis in critical thinking. Without an understanding of the problem, it is unlikely that the student would have found a solution by starting with the synthesis step. In this case, the solution and the tests to make sure it worked were relatively simple, so the synthesis and evaluation steps were not as important. Nevertheless, applying all of these steps in tandem allowed the problem to be successfully solved.

Engineering Curriculum

For the most part, critical thinking has typically been something reserved for the liberal arts, especially English and Philosophy. Even on standardized tests like the SATs, there is a critical reading section. However, as we discussed earlier, critical thinking is not limited to the liberal arts; it is also an integral part of the sciences and engineering.

Recently, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has been pushing for more emphasis on communication skills and understanding the global context of today’s problems in the engineering curriculum. Previously, and even now, the ABET accreditation process acknowledged schools that trained students not only to be able to apply their technical knowledge, but also lead and work well in teams. ABET believes that their new objectives can be achieved through the inclusion of more writing and critical thinking in the engineering classroom (Gunnink & Bernhardt, 2002).

Although most people agree that critical thinking should be a focus in school, there are a variety of proposed methods, but no single class or solution stands out. Even though we have been treating critical thinking as an individual effort, a few papers have suggested the use of group discussions and forums in order to encourage critical thinking (Radzi et al., 2009; Jacob et al, 2009). After defining critical thinking in her article, Jessop (2002) suggests a course based on Brainstorming and Critical Reading. For the brainstorming section, students are given a problem, and then, over the course of a few weeks, students must engineer a solution. For the critical reading section, students are given a number of journal articles to read and evaluate. Naturally, the brainstorming half is mainly concerned with the synthesis aspect of critical thinking while the critical reading half focuses on the analysis aspect (Jessop, 2002). The hope, of course, is that by practicing these steps, the students will become better at critical thinking in the future.

As mentioned earlier, Qiao (2009) was writing on critical thinking in schools in China. Qiao goes on to state, “The nature of authority has two forms: textbook authority and teacher authority. Laws and rules in textbook are golden and precious, beyond any manner of doubt. Science teacher is the prolocutor of truth.” (2009, p. 115). In order to promote critical thinking and a sense of skepticism, Qiao suggests a History, Philosophy, and Science (HPS) Education approach. In addition to the usual Science that students learn about, Qiao (2009) believes it is valuable to learn about both the History and Philosophy behind these advancements. While Jessop’s (2002) strategy is purely from an engineer’s perspective, Qiao’s approach relies on the idea that critical thinking is not restricted to engineers. Instead, the capacity for critical thought is developed through studies in history and philosophy.

Despite the differences in each method, the goal is the same. In order to tackle increasingly difficult problems, engineers will require more than just technical knowledge. To this end, there is a need for teachers and experts, whose job is to train these engineers, to bring critical thinking into the classroom.

Application to Senior Project

In this paper, we have attempted to answer questions like, “What is critical thinking?” and “Why is it important?” As we stated before, critical thinking can be thought of as similar to the scientific method, but its main points are the problem definition and understanding, the search for solutions, evaluation, and iteration. Since critical thinking is a powerful tool in problem solving, we have seen recent efforts to include it in the engineering curriculum. The final question we want to answer is, “How does this apply to our senior project?

The answer to this lost question is relatively simple. Each of our senior projects , if properly scoped and planned, should aim to solve a problem. In light of this, we should strive to solve these problems intelligently, which is to say, using critical thinking. This means fully researching and understanding the problem, creating new solutions and finding old ones, and evaluating the result. When our result is a failure, we go back, look for other solutions, and try again until we have solved the problem. So we can see that critical thinking is an important, if not essential, part of our senior project.

Cited References

• Gunnink, B., & Bernhardt, K. L. S. (2002). Writing, critical thinking, and engineering curricula. In Frontiers in Education , 2002. FIE 2002. 32nd Annual (Vol. 2, pp. F3H–2–F3H–7 vol.2). Presented at the Frontiers in Education, 2002. FIE 2002. 32nd Annual. DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2002.1158211
• Jacob, S. M., Lee, B., & Lueckenhausen, G. R. (2009). Measuring Critical Thinking Skills in Engineering Mathematics using online forums. In 2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED) (pp. 225–229). Presented at the 2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED). DOI: 10.1109/ICEED.2009.5490577
• Jessop, J. L. P. (2002). Expanding our students’ brainpower: idea generation and critical thinking skills. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine , 44(6), 140–144. DOI: 10.1109/MAP.2002.1167273
• Qiao, C. (2009). Science Education and Fostering of Critical Thinking in China. In Second International Conference on Education Technology and Training , 2009. ETT ’09 (pp. 114–117). Presented at the Second International Conference on Education Technology and Training, 2009. ETT ’09. DOI: 10.1109/ETT.2009.25
• Radzi, N. M., Abu, M. S., & Mohamad, S. (2009). Math-oriented critical thinking skills in engineering. In 2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED), (pp. 212–218). Presented at the 2009 International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED). DOI: 10.1109/ICEED.2009.5490579
• Scientific Method. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved December 18, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
• Scriven, M. & Paul, R. (n.d.) “Defining Critical Thinking.” National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking Instruction. Retrieved from http:/lwww.criticalthinking.orgiuniversitylunivclasslDe~ning.html

Additional Resource

• Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.abet.org/
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3 critical thinking strategies to enhance your problem-solving skills

Think back to the last time you made a big decision.

Maybe you were choosing between two jobs or whether to move across the country.

How did you make your choice? Most likely, you analyzed the pros and cons of each option and chose the one that made the most sense for you.

This decision-making process relied on an important skill we all need: critical thinking.

Critical thinking is usually associated with analyzing complex problems in a corporate boardroom or sitting through a tedious philosophy lecture. While those are undoubtedly valid applications of critical thinking skills, the truth is that everyone thinks critically every day — often without even realizing it.

Critical thinking strategies allow us to objectively evaluate information and make informed decisions based on logic and reason. The critical thinking process is essential for success in many areas, from business to academia to parenting. No matter your profession or lifestyle, learning how to think critically can improve your life in countless ways.

In this article, you'll learn more about critical thinking skills and how to enhance them by following specific, actionable critical thinking strategies.

What is critical thinking?

There are many ways to interpret the concept of critical thinking. Science, academia, and business all have their own viewpoints. An official definition of critical thinking is difficult to label, and that's logical. After all, the critical thinking process isn't about memorizing generic definitions — it's about asking questions for yourself.

At its simplest, the Foundation for Critical Thinking (FCT) Model defines critical thinking as "...the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it." The critical thinking process is about being objective — seeing different points of view and keeping an open mind when new information contradicts your beliefs and opinions. Critical thinkers prioritize facts over emotions, remove biases, verify information, and use logical reasoning to solve problems.

When is a critical thinking strategy essential?

Sound reasoning is essential to making good decisions. Since we all make thousands of decisions every day, it can be beneficial to strengthen our reasoning and problem-solving skills.

However, critical thinking skills can be more than just helpful in some situations — they're vital. These instances include:

• Interpreting the news . Social networking has changed the way we receive information. About half of U.S. adults get their news from social media , and more than a third regularly turn to Facebook as their source. Since anyone can share anything on social networks, fake news spreads quickly , so it's essential to think critically to discern fake news from accurate reporting.
• In the workplace . According to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking skills are one of the top two skills needed for the future of work as the Fourth Industrial Revolution develops). Indeed, 93% of executives say "a candidate's demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than their undergraduate major."
• Formal education and self-learning . Critical thinking skills help learners engage in the learning process. Thinking critically encourages curiosity, leading us to ask tough questions when faced with challenging situations or material and delve deeper into the new subject matter. As a result, we better understand the information and discover practical ways to integrate it.
• Parenting . Parenting involves various critical thinking skills, from managing discipline to making care decisions. A constant stream of opinions and trends on social media makes decision-making even more challenging for a modern parent. Asking open-ended questions, researching claims, becoming aware of critical thinking barriers , and being skeptical of trends are necessary to make informed decisions about children's care.

These are just a few examples of situations where critical thinking can be helpful. There are many other areas of life in which critical thinking strategies are beneficial. To use them properly, you'll need to develop a few key critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking skills

Applying critical thinking strategies requires the use of a few essential skills. Experts identify the core critical thinking skills as:

• Interpretation is the ability to understand and make sense of information. When we interpret something, we use subskills like categorization and significance to help us clarify the meaning.
• Analysis refers to breaking down complex ideas and concepts into smaller chunks that can be better understood. This skill requires effectively examining ideas to identify the critical components or problems.
• Evaluation is the ability to determine whether or not a particular claim or piece of evidence is valid and credible. Subskills like logic and reasoning help us judge the quality or value of something.
• Inference is the process of drawing logical conclusions from the presented information. This skill helps critical thinkers understand new ideas by looking for patterns and connections between different pieces of information.
• Explanation refers to effectively communicating in a way that others can easily understand. This entails simplifying complex information to present the findings of your reasoning in a clear way with well-reasoned arguments that look at the big picture.
• Self-regulation is the ability to monitor your own thinking and behavior to improve performance over time. This skill allows critical thinkers to reflect on their progress and make adjustments to achieve better results.

Developing these skills will lead to better critical thinking. Skill development can occur in a wide variety of situations by practicing specific strategies.

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3 critical thinking strategies to try

Developing and refining critical thinking skills takes time and practice. If you want to sharpen your problem-solving skills, here are a few critical thinking strategies you can use as a starting point.

Strategy 1: Comprehensive Analysis

A critical approach to any argument should begin with a detailed and systematic examination. When you break down the claim into elements, you can evaluate each segment separately to determine its legitimacy.

Start by analyzing the language of the argument. Analyze the following factors:

• Make sure that words are used in the correct context by checking their meaning
• The definition of words within the context of the argument should be accurate
• Make sure the language being used has clarity and makes sense
• Verify the accuracy of the language in the statement to ensure it is fair and factual

Evaluating an argument's words and phrases is an essential first step to determining validity.

The next step is to examine the claim's structure. There is a basic structure to all arguments — one or more premises lead to a conclusion. The premise is the statement(s) that provides evidence supporting the conclusion. The conclusion is the claim that is made in the argument, usually highlighted by words like "so" or "therefore." Understanding this basic structure is essential to identify each piece for assessment.

Standardization

Consider standardizing the argument if necessary. A few situations may require restructuring into a standard structure. When a statement isn't logically arranged, extracting premises and conclusions and rearranging them make them easier to comprehend.

When more than one premise exists for a single conclusion, making two separate assertions with the conclusion makes it easier to assess each assumption separately.

Sometimes, an argument is missing its conclusion because the author implied it. It's often easier to understand an implied conclusion when the structure is broken down into a standardized format. In the same way, a missing premise can occur when part of the element is common knowledge or assumed.

Classification

As a final step, classify the argument. All arguments are either deductive or non-deductive. The strategies you will use to evaluate your argument will vary depending on whether your argument is deductive. Deductive arguments contain premises that guarantee their conclusions. The premises of non-deductive arguments cannot guarantee the truth of their findings.

Strategy 2: Utilize Bloom's Taxonomy

Another strategy that can develop the critical thinking process is Bloom's Taxonomy . Educators worldwide have used the framework created by Benjamin Bloom to define and distinguish different levels of human cognition, like reasoning, learning, and comprehension.

In the original model, there were six main categories:

• Comprehension
• Application

In 2001, researchers, educators, and psychologists revised the taxonomy to reflect a more dynamic approach to education, changing the labels to represent the actions taken at each step of the system:

The six levels are arranged in hierarchical form, moving from the simplest level of cognition — thinking — to the highest, most complex level — evaluation.

Bloom's Taxonomy can serve as a useful critical thinking strategy in two ways. Teachers can use the taxonomy to promote critical thinking in their teaching strategies. By assessing the cognition level of their students, teachers can plan and deliver instruction at the appropriate level, ensuring that tasks and assessments align with the objective. Most importantly, they can tailor the types of questions they ask in classroom discussion by using strategic words that challenge students on different levels of cognition.

For classroom students and self-learners, the taxonomy provides a structured framework for decision-making. Students are guided through the process of critical analysis, starting with acquiring knowledge. As learners progress through the steps, they are encouraged to gather more information and examine it analytically before evaluating it to reach a decision.

Strategy 3: Apply the Falsification Theory

The Falsification Theory is an approach that aims to separate science from non-science proposed by 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper. In short, it implies that a scientific theory or hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be logically refuted by an empirical test. For example, observing a white duck can falsify the hypothesis that "all ducks are yellow."

It can be helpful to use falsification as a critical thinking strategy when evaluating new information or scientific claims. This encourages us to test our assumptions and seek disconfirming evidence. When we actively seek out information that contradicts our beliefs, we can more accurately assess the validity of our ideas by avoiding narrow thinking and removing bias.

The theory isn't without criticism, however. Skeptics argue that it's too simplistic. Some cite scientific theories (like Einstein's theory of relativity) that haven't been proven false yet are still considered scientific. Other people argue that some theories (such as Darwin's theory of evolution) have been tested and found true yet are still being tested and critiqued.

Whether or not the Falsification Theory is a perfect way of distinguishing science from non-science may be debated. Still, it remains a valuable tool for thinking critically about the information we encounter in everyday life.

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Enhance your higher-order thinking skills

Developing higher-order thinking skills and refining the critical thinking process are essential for those who seek personal and professional development. Enhancing your decision-making abilities requires developing essential critical thinking skills and learning how you can apply them.

The three critical thinking strategies shared here are just a sample of the many strategic ways you can use the critical thinking process. Higher-order thinking takes practice, so don't get discouraged if it feels difficult at first. With time and patience, you can become a master critical thinker.

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15 Things We Have Learned About Critical Thinking

Here are the key issues to consider in critical thinking..

Posted July 27, 2018

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Not long after the publication of my book, Critical Thinking: Conceptual Perspectives and Practical Guidelines , by Cambridge University Press, Psychology Today contacted me and asked me to write a blog on the subject. I never thought I would write a blog, but when presented with the opportunity to keep sharing my thoughts on critical thinking on a regular basis, I thought, why not ? Maybe my writing might help educators, maybe they might help students and maybe they might help people in their day-to-day decision-making . If it can help, then it’s worthwhile.

To recap, critical thinking (CT) is a metacognitive process, consisting of a number of sub-skills and dispositions, that, when applied through purposeful, self-regulatory, reflective judgment, increase the chances of producing a logical solution to a problem or a valid conclusion to an argument (Dwyer, 2017; Dwyer, Hogan & Stewart, 2014).

CT, if anything, has become more necessary , in this age of information bombardment and the new knowledge economy (Dwyer, Hogan & Stewart, 2014). It allows students to gain a better understanding of complex information (Dwyer, Hogan, & Stewart, 2012; 2014; Gambrill, 2006; Halpern, 2014); it allows them to achieve higher grades and become more employable, informed and active citizens (Barton & McCully, 2007; Holmes & Clizbe, 1997; National Academy of Sciences, 2005); it facilitates good decision-making and problem-solving in social and interpersonal contexts (Ku, 2009); and it decreases the effects of cognitive biases and heuristic -based thinking (Facione & Facione, 2001; McGuinness, 2013).

It’s now been just over a year since I started writing ‘Thoughts on Thinking’. As I consider my thinking and look over my writing during this period, I thought it would be worthwhile to collate and summarise some of the broader learning that has appeared in my writings. So, here’s what we’ve learned:

• We all know CT is important, but it may be the case that many educators, as well as students, don’t really know what researchers mean by "critical thinking" and/or simply haven’t researched it themselves.
• Just as many don’t really know what is meant by "critical thinking", there is also the problem of ensuring consistency across how it is defined/conceptualised, trained and measured , which is no easy task.
• Without adequate training in CT, it may be the case that mature students’ perceptions of how they approach CT do not match their actual ability - despite potentially enhanced autonomy, student responsibility and locus of control , it may be that an over- optimistic outlook on the benefits of experience (and its associated heuristic-based, intuitive judgment) takes centre-stage above and beyond actual ability.
• Social media is many things: entertainment, education , networking and much more. It is also, unfortunately, a vehicle for promoting faulty thinking. Being able to recognise persuasion techniques, illogical argumentation and fallacious reasoning , will allow you to better assess arguments presented to you, and help you to present better arguments.
• Values are unique to each and every individual. Though individuals can certainly share values, there is no guarantee that all of an individual’s values overlap with another’s. On the other hand, using the 'virtue' moniker implies that the individual is right based on some kind of ‘moral correctness’. Though there is nothing wrong with an individual presenting ideas and perspectives that they value, it is ill-conceived and dangerous to treat them as global virtues that everyone else should value too.
• CT is domain-g eneral, but explicit CT training is necessary if educators want to see CT improve and flourish across domains.
• A person with a strong willingness to conduct CT has the consistent internal willingness and motivation to engage problems and make decisions by using reflective judgment . Reflective judgment, the recognition of limited knowledge and how this uncertainty can affect decision-making processes, is an important aspect of critical thinking regarding ‘taking a step back’ and thinking about an argument or problem a little bit longer and considering the basis for the reasons and consequences of responding in a particular way.
• There is a need for general, secondary-school training in bias and statistics. We need to teach CT to the coming generations. When not critically thinking, people don’t listen, and fail to be open-minded and reflect upon the information presented to them; they project their opinions and beliefs regardless of whether or not they have evidence to support their claims.
• Be open-minded towards others. You don’t have to respect them (respect is earned, it’s not a right); but be courteous (sure, we may be in disagreement; but, hey, we’re still civilised people).
• A person said what they said, not how you interpret what they said. If you are unclear as to what has been said, ask for clarification. Asking for clarity is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of successful problem-solving.
• ‘Proof’ is the dirtiest word in critical thinking. Research and science do not prove things, they can only disprove. Be wary when you hear the word ‘prove’ or any of its variants thrown around; but also, be mindful that people feel safer when they are assured and words like ‘proven’ reinforce this feeling of assuredness.
• Creative thinking isn’t really useful or practical in critical thinking, depending on how you conceptualize it. Critical thinking and creative thinking are very different entities if you treat the latter as something similar to lateral thinking or ‘thinking outside the box’. However, if we conceptualize creative thinking as synthesizing information for the purpose of inferring a logical and feasible conclusion or solution, then it becomes complementary to critical thinking. But then, we are not resorting to creativity alone - all other avenues involving critical thinking must be considered. That is, we can think creatively by synthesizing information we have previously thought about critically (i.e. through analysis and evaluation ) for the purpose of inferring a logical and feasible conclusion or solution. Thus, given this caveat, we can infuse our critical thinking with creative thinking, but we must do so with caution.
• Changing people’s minds is not easy ; and it’s even more difficult when the person you’re working with believes they have critically thought about it. It may simply boil down to the person you’re trying to educate and their disposition towards critical thinking, but the person’s emotional investment in their stance also plays a significant role.
• There is no such thing as good or bad CT – you either thought critically or you didn’t. Those who try it in good faith are likely to want to do it ‘properly’; and so, much of whether or not an individual is thinking critically comes down to intellectual humility and intellectual integrity .
• Finally, there are some general tips that people find useful in applying their critical thinking:
• Save your critical thinking for things that matter - things you care about.
• Do it earlier in your day to avoid faulty thinking resulting from decision fatigue.
• Take a step back and think about a problem a little bit longer, considering the basis for the reasons and consequences of responding in a particular way.
• Play Devil’s Advocate in order to overcome bias and 'auto-pilot processing' through truly considering alternatives.
• Leave emotion at the door and remove your beliefs, attitudes, opinions and personal experiences from the equation - all of which are emotionally charged.

Barton, K., & McCully, A. (2007). Teaching controversial issues where controversial issues really matter. Teaching History, 127, 13–19.

Dwyer, C.P. (2017). Critical thinking: Conceptual perspectives and practical guidelines. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dwyer, C. P., Hogan, M. J., & Stewart, I. (2012). An evaluation of argument mapping as a method of enhancing critical thinking performance in e-learningenvironments. Metacognition and Learning, 7, 219–244.

Dwyer, C.P., Hogan, M.J. & Stewart, I. (2014). An integrated critical thinking framework for the 21st century. Thinking Skills & Creativity, 12, 43-52.

Eigenauer, J.D. (2017). Don’t reinvent the critical thinking wheel: What scholarly literature tells us about critical thinking instruction. Innovation Abstracts, 39, 2.

Facione, P. A., & Facione, N. C. (2001). Analyzing explanations for seemingly irrational choices: Linking argument analysis and cognitive science. International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 15(2), 267–286.

Gambrill, E. (2006). Evidence-based practice and policy: Choices ahead. Research on Social Work Practice, 16(3), 338–357.

Halpern, D.F. (2014). Though and knowledge. UK: Psychology Press.

Holmes, J., & Clizbe, E. (1997). Facing the 21st century. Business Education Forum, 52(1), 33–35.

Ku, K. Y. L. (2009). Assessing students’ critical thinking performance: Urging for measurements using multi-response format. Thinking Skills and Creativity,4(1), 70–76.

McGuinness, C. (2013). Teaching thinking: Learning how to think. Presented at the Psychological Society of Ireland and British Psychological Association’s Public Lecture Series. Galway, Ireland, 6th March.

National Academy of Sciences. (2005). National Academy of Engineering Institute of Medicine Rising above the gathering storm: Energising and employingAmerica for a brighter economic future. Committee on prospering in the global economy for the 21st century. Washington, DC.

Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the Technological University of the Shannon in Athlone, Ireland.

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Eight Instructional Strategies for Promoting Critical Thinking

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(This is the first post in a three-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom?

This three-part series will explore what critical thinking is, if it can be specifically taught and, if so, how can teachers do so in their classrooms.

Today’s guests are Dara Laws Savage, Patrick Brown, Meg Riordan, Ph.D., and Dr. PJ Caposey. Dara, Patrick, and Meg were also guests on my 10-minute BAM! Radio Show . You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also be interested in The Best Resources On Teaching & Learning Critical Thinking In The Classroom .

Current Events

Dara Laws Savage is an English teacher at the Early College High School at Delaware State University, where she serves as a teacher and instructional coach and lead mentor. Dara has been teaching for 25 years (career preparation, English, photography, yearbook, newspaper, and graphic design) and has presented nationally on project-based learning and technology integration:

There is so much going on right now and there is an overload of information for us to process. Did you ever stop to think how our students are processing current events? They see news feeds, hear news reports, and scan photos and posts, but are they truly thinking about what they are hearing and seeing?

I tell my students that my job is not to give them answers but to teach them how to think about what they read and hear. So what is critical thinking and how can we integrate it into the classroom? There are just as many definitions of critical thinking as there are people trying to define it. However, the Critical Think Consortium focuses on the tools to create a thinking-based classroom rather than a definition: “Shape the climate to support thinking, create opportunities for thinking, build capacity to think, provide guidance to inform thinking.” Using these four criteria and pairing them with current events, teachers easily create learning spaces that thrive on thinking and keep students engaged.

One successful technique I use is the FIRE Write. Students are given a quote, a paragraph, an excerpt, or a photo from the headlines. Students are asked to F ocus and respond to the selection for three minutes. Next, students are asked to I dentify a phrase or section of the photo and write for two minutes. Third, students are asked to R eframe their response around a specific word, phrase, or section within their previous selection. Finally, students E xchange their thoughts with a classmate. Within the exchange, students also talk about how the selection connects to what we are covering in class.

There was a controversial Pepsi ad in 2017 involving Kylie Jenner and a protest with a police presence. The imagery in the photo was strikingly similar to a photo that went viral with a young lady standing opposite a police line. Using that image from a current event engaged my students and gave them the opportunity to critically think about events of the time.

Here are the two photos and a student response:

F - Focus on both photos and respond for three minutes

In the first picture, you see a strong and courageous black female, bravely standing in front of two officers in protest. She is risking her life to do so. Iesha Evans is simply proving to the world she does NOT mean less because she is black … and yet officers are there to stop her. She did not step down. In the picture below, you see Kendall Jenner handing a police officer a Pepsi. Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal, except this was Pepsi’s weak, pathetic, and outrageous excuse of a commercial that belittles the whole movement of people fighting for their lives.

I - Identify a word or phrase, underline it, then write about it for two minutes

A white, privileged female in place of a fighting black woman was asking for trouble. A struggle we are continuously fighting every day, and they make a mockery of it. “I know what will work! Here Mr. Police Officer! Drink some Pepsi!” As if. Pepsi made a fool of themselves, and now their already dwindling fan base continues to ever shrink smaller.

R - Reframe your thoughts by choosing a different word, then write about that for one minute

You don’t know privilege until it’s gone. You don’t know privilege while it’s there—but you can and will be made accountable and aware. Don’t use it for evil. You are not stupid. Use it to do something. Kendall could’ve NOT done the commercial. Kendall could’ve released another commercial standing behind a black woman. Anything!

Exchange - Remember to discuss how this connects to our school song project and our previous discussions?

This connects two ways - 1) We want to convey a strong message. Be powerful. Show who we are. And Pepsi definitely tried. … Which leads to the second connection. 2) Not mess up and offend anyone, as had the one alma mater had been linked to black minstrels. We want to be amazing, but we have to be smart and careful and make sure we include everyone who goes to our school and everyone who may go to our school.

As a final step, students read and annotate the full article and compare it to their initial response.

Using current events and critical-thinking strategies like FIRE writing helps create a learning space where thinking is the goal rather than a score on a multiple-choice assessment. Critical-thinking skills can cross over to any of students’ other courses and into life outside the classroom. After all, we as teachers want to help the whole student be successful, and critical thinking is an important part of navigating life after they leave our classrooms.

‘Before-Explore-Explain’

Patrick Brown is the executive director of STEM and CTE for the Fort Zumwalt school district in Missouri and an experienced educator and author :

Planning for critical thinking focuses on teaching the most crucial science concepts, practices, and logical-thinking skills as well as the best use of instructional time. One way to ensure that lessons maintain a focus on critical thinking is to focus on the instructional sequence used to teach.

Explore-before-explain teaching is all about promoting critical thinking for learners to better prepare students for the reality of their world. What having an explore-before-explain mindset means is that in our planning, we prioritize giving students firsthand experiences with data, allow students to construct evidence-based claims that focus on conceptual understanding, and challenge students to discuss and think about the why behind phenomena.

Just think of the critical thinking that has to occur for students to construct a scientific claim. 1) They need the opportunity to collect data, analyze it, and determine how to make sense of what the data may mean. 2) With data in hand, students can begin thinking about the validity and reliability of their experience and information collected. 3) They can consider what differences, if any, they might have if they completed the investigation again. 4) They can scrutinize outlying data points for they may be an artifact of a true difference that merits further exploration of a misstep in the procedure, measuring device, or measurement. All of these intellectual activities help them form more robust understanding and are evidence of their critical thinking.

In explore-before-explain teaching, all of these hard critical-thinking tasks come before teacher explanations of content. Whether we use discovery experiences, problem-based learning, and or inquiry-based activities, strategies that are geared toward helping students construct understanding promote critical thinking because students learn content by doing the practices valued in the field to generate knowledge.

An Issue of Equity

Meg Riordan, Ph.D., is the chief learning officer at The Possible Project, an out-of-school program that collaborates with youth to build entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and provides pathways to careers and long-term economic prosperity. She has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a middle and high school teacher, school coach, college professor, regional director of N.Y.C. Outward Bound Schools, and director of external research with EL Education:

Although critical thinking often defies straightforward definition, most in the education field agree it consists of several components: reasoning, problem-solving, and decisionmaking, plus analysis and evaluation of information, such that multiple sides of an issue can be explored. It also includes dispositions and “the willingness to apply critical-thinking principles, rather than fall back on existing unexamined beliefs, or simply believe what you’re told by authority figures.”

Despite variation in definitions, critical thinking is nonetheless promoted as an essential outcome of students’ learning—we want to see students and adults demonstrate it across all fields, professions, and in their personal lives. Yet there is simultaneously a rationing of opportunities in schools for students of color, students from under-resourced communities, and other historically marginalized groups to deeply learn and practice critical thinking.

For example, many of our most underserved students often spend class time filling out worksheets, promoting high compliance but low engagement, inquiry, critical thinking, or creation of new ideas. At a time in our world when college and careers are critical for participation in society and the global, knowledge-based economy, far too many students struggle within classrooms and schools that reinforce low-expectations and inequity.

If educators aim to prepare all students for an ever-evolving marketplace and develop skills that will be valued no matter what tomorrow’s jobs are, then we must move critical thinking to the forefront of classroom experiences. And educators must design learning to cultivate it.

So, what does that really look like?

Unpack and define critical thinking

To understand critical thinking, educators need to first unpack and define its components. What exactly are we looking for when we speak about reasoning or exploring multiple perspectives on an issue? How does problem-solving show up in English, math, science, art, or other disciplines—and how is it assessed? At Two Rivers, an EL Education school, the faculty identified five constructs of critical thinking, defined each, and created rubrics to generate a shared picture of quality for teachers and students. The rubrics were then adapted across grade levels to indicate students’ learning progressions.

At Avenues World School, critical thinking is one of the Avenues World Elements and is an enduring outcome embedded in students’ early experiences through 12th grade. For instance, a kindergarten student may be expected to “identify cause and effect in familiar contexts,” while an 8th grader should demonstrate the ability to “seek out sufficient evidence before accepting a claim as true,” “identify bias in claims and evidence,” and “reconsider strongly held points of view in light of new evidence.”

When faculty and students embrace a common vision of what critical thinking looks and sounds like and how it is assessed, educators can then explicitly design learning experiences that call for students to employ critical-thinking skills. This kind of work must occur across all schools and programs, especially those serving large numbers of students of color. As Linda Darling-Hammond asserts , “Schools that serve large numbers of students of color are least likely to offer the kind of curriculum needed to ... help students attain the [critical-thinking] skills needed in a knowledge work economy. ”

So, what can it look like to create those kinds of learning experiences?

Designing experiences for critical thinking

After defining a shared understanding of “what” critical thinking is and “how” it shows up across multiple disciplines and grade levels, it is essential to create learning experiences that impel students to cultivate, practice, and apply these skills. There are several levers that offer pathways for teachers to promote critical thinking in lessons:

1.Choose Compelling Topics: Keep it relevant

A key Common Core State Standard asks for students to “write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.” That might not sound exciting or culturally relevant. But a learning experience designed for a 12th grade humanities class engaged learners in a compelling topic— policing in America —to analyze and evaluate multiple texts (including primary sources) and share the reasoning for their perspectives through discussion and writing. Students grappled with ideas and their beliefs and employed deep critical-thinking skills to develop arguments for their claims. Embedding critical-thinking skills in curriculum that students care about and connect with can ignite powerful learning experiences.

2. Make Local Connections: Keep it real

At The Possible Project , an out-of-school-time program designed to promote entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, students in a recent summer online program (modified from in-person due to COVID-19) explored the impact of COVID-19 on their communities and local BIPOC-owned businesses. They learned interviewing skills through a partnership with Everyday Boston , conducted virtual interviews with entrepreneurs, evaluated information from their interviews and local data, and examined their previously held beliefs. They created blog posts and videos to reflect on their learning and consider how their mindsets had changed as a result of the experience. In this way, we can design powerful community-based learning and invite students into productive struggle with multiple perspectives.

3. Create Authentic Projects: Keep it rigorous

At Big Picture Learning schools, students engage in internship-based learning experiences as a central part of their schooling. Their school-based adviser and internship-based mentor support them in developing real-world projects that promote deeper learning and critical-thinking skills. Such authentic experiences teach “young people to be thinkers, to be curious, to get from curiosity to creation … and it helps students design a learning experience that answers their questions, [providing an] opportunity to communicate it to a larger audience—a major indicator of postsecondary success.” Even in a remote environment, we can design projects that ask more of students than rote memorization and that spark critical thinking.

Our call to action is this: As educators, we need to make opportunities for critical thinking available not only to the affluent or those fortunate enough to be placed in advanced courses. The tools are available, let’s use them. Let’s interrogate our current curriculum and design learning experiences that engage all students in real, relevant, and rigorous experiences that require critical thinking and prepare them for promising postsecondary pathways.

Critical Thinking & Student Engagement

Dr. PJ Caposey is an award-winning educator, keynote speaker, consultant, and author of seven books who currently serves as the superintendent of schools for the award-winning Meridian CUSD 223 in northwest Illinois. You can find PJ on most social-media platforms as MCUSDSupe:

When I start my keynote on student engagement, I invite two people up on stage and give them each five paper balls to shoot at a garbage can also conveniently placed on stage. Contestant One shoots their shot, and the audience gives approval. Four out of 5 is a heckuva score. Then just before Contestant Two shoots, I blindfold them and start moving the garbage can back and forth. I usually try to ensure that they can at least make one of their shots. Nobody is successful in this unfair environment.

I thank them and send them back to their seats and then explain that this little activity was akin to student engagement. While we all know we want student engagement, we are shooting at different targets. More importantly, for teachers, it is near impossible for them to hit a target that is moving and that they cannot see.

Within the world of education and particularly as educational leaders, we have failed to simplify what student engagement looks like, and it is impossible to define or articulate what student engagement looks like if we cannot clearly articulate what critical thinking is and looks like in a classroom. Because, simply, without critical thought, there is no engagement.

The good news here is that critical thought has been defined and placed into taxonomies for decades already. This is not something new and not something that needs to be redefined. I am a Bloom’s person, but there is nothing wrong with DOK or some of the other taxonomies, either. To be precise, I am a huge fan of Daggett’s Rigor and Relevance Framework. I have used that as a core element of my practice for years, and it has shaped who I am as an instructional leader.

So, in order to explain critical thought, a teacher or a leader must familiarize themselves with these tried and true taxonomies. Easy, right? Yes, sort of. The issue is not understanding what critical thought is; it is the ability to integrate it into the classrooms. In order to do so, there are a four key steps every educator must take.

• Integrating critical thought/rigor into a lesson does not happen by chance, it happens by design. Planning for critical thought and engagement is much different from planning for a traditional lesson. In order to plan for kids to think critically, you have to provide a base of knowledge and excellent prompts to allow them to explore their own thinking in order to analyze, evaluate, or synthesize information.
• SIDE NOTE – Bloom’s verbs are a great way to start when writing objectives, but true planning will take you deeper than this.

QUESTIONING

• If the questions and prompts given in a classroom have correct answers or if the teacher ends up answering their own questions, the lesson will lack critical thought and rigor.
• Script five questions forcing higher-order thought prior to every lesson. Experienced teachers may not feel they need this, but it helps to create an effective habit.
• If lessons are rigorous and assessments are not, students will do well on their assessments, and that may not be an accurate representation of the knowledge and skills they have mastered. If lessons are easy and assessments are rigorous, the exact opposite will happen. When deciding to increase critical thought, it must happen in all three phases of the game: planning, instruction, and assessment.

TALK TIME / CONTROL

• To increase rigor, the teacher must DO LESS. This feels counterintuitive but is accurate. Rigorous lessons involving tons of critical thought must allow for students to work on their own, collaborate with peers, and connect their ideas. This cannot happen in a silent room except for the teacher talking. In order to increase rigor, decrease talk time and become comfortable with less control. Asking questions and giving prompts that lead to no true correct answer also means less control. This is a tough ask for some teachers. Explained differently, if you assign one assignment and get 30 very similar products, you have most likely assigned a low-rigor recipe. If you assign one assignment and get multiple varied products, then the students have had a chance to think deeply, and you have successfully integrated critical thought into your classroom.

Thanks to Dara, Patrick, Meg, and PJ for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

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You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

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Here's How to Improve Critical Thinking And Why It's Important

Critical Thinking can be improved in four phases Image:  Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

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Three-quarters of American companies say they have difficulty recruiting the right people, with critical thinking among the top requirements , according to the Society for Human Resource Management. That begs the question: How to improve critical thinking? Can such 'soft skills' be taught?

“It’s time to reject the notion that critical thinking is either an innate gift that can’t be developed or a skill learned only through experience,” says Matt Plummer, founder of online coaching company Zarvana.

“You can help your team members develop and improve their critical thinking as it is one of today’s most in-demand skills.”

Have you read?

The secrets of the world's most competitive economies, these are the world's 10 most competitive economies in 2019, how do you measure competitiveness, 4 phases to improve critical thinking.

Zarvana has published a Critical Thinking Roadmap to help employers guide their employees. It says the way to be a better critical thinker comes through these four phases: execute, synthesize, recommend, and generate.

The first phase or the execute phase to improve your critical thinking is when people are converting instructions into action.

“Once team members are making suggestions for how to improve their work, you know they’re ready for the next phase,” the Roadmap says.

The second phase to improve critical thinking is synthesize, in which team members sort through information and figure out what is important – summarizing key takeaways from a meeting, for example.

The third, recommend, is reached when employees move from identifying what is important to determine what should be done, even if their recommendations don’t align with the employer’s opinion.

Finally, the fourth phase in improving critical thinking focuses on generating, and team members are required to create something out of nothing.

“In this phase, they become adept at translating the vision in others’ heads – and their own – into projects that can be executed,” Zarvana says. Brainstorming and keeping lists of ideas to share are key at this level.

What is economic competitiveness? The World Economic Forum, which has been measuring countries' competitiveness since 1979 , defines it as: “the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country." Other definitions exist, but all generally include the word “productivity”.

The Global Competitiveness Report is a tool to help governments, the private sector, and civil society work together to boost productivity and generate prosperity. Comparative analysis between countries allows leaders to gauge areas that need strengthening and build a coordinated response. It also helps identify best practices around the world.

The Global Competitive Index forms the basis of the report. It measures performance according to 114 indicators that influence a nation’s productivity. The latest edition covered 141 economies, accounting for over 98% of the world’s GDP.

Countries’ scores are based primarily on quantitative findings from internationally recognized agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Health Organization, with the addition of qualitative assessments from economic and social specialists and senior corporate executives.

Explore the full report

Improving critical thinking is becoming more important as policy-makers around the world grapple to equip their citizens with the right education.

The World Economic Forum report The Future of Jobs identifies critical thinking and creativity as two of the main skills that will be in demand in 2022 and beyond. Hence it is important for individuals to know how to improve critical thinking.

And in The Global Competitiveness Report . the World Economic Forum looks at improving critical thinking as one element to assess how ready a country is for the jobs of the future 2030 .

The report poses the question: “In your country, how do you assess the style of teaching?” and asks respondents to grade their response from 1, which is teacher-based and focused on memorizing, through to 7 for encouraging creative and critical individual thinking. Finland comes top, with a score of 5.6 out of 7.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Home > Blog > Tips for Online Students > Why Is Critical Thinking Important and How to Improve It

Tips for Online Students , Tips for Students

Why Is Critical Thinking Important and How to Improve It

Updated: July 8, 2024

Published: April 2, 2020

Why is critical thinking important? The decisions that you make affect your quality of life. And if you want to ensure that you live your best, most successful and happy life, you’re going to want to make conscious choices. That can be done with a simple thing known as critical thinking. Here’s how to improve your critical thinking skills and make decisions that you won’t regret.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the process of analyzing facts to form a judgment. Essentially, it involves thinking about thinking. Historically, it dates back to the teachings of Socrates , as documented by Plato.

Today, it is seen as a complex concept understood best by philosophers and psychologists. Modern definitions include “reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do” and “deciding what’s true and what you should do.”

The Importance Of Critical Thinking

Why is critical thinking important? Good question! Here are a few undeniable reasons why it’s crucial to have these skills.

1. Critical Thinking Is Universal

Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. What does this mean? It means that no matter what path or profession you pursue, these skills will always be relevant and will always be beneficial to your success. They are not specific to any field.

2. Crucial For The Economy

Our future depends on technology, information, and innovation. Critical thinking is needed for our fast-growing economies, to solve problems as quickly and as effectively as possible.

3. Improves Language & Presentation Skills

In order to best express ourselves, we need to know how to think clearly and systematically — meaning practice critical thinking! Critical thinking also means knowing how to break down texts, and in turn, improve our ability to comprehend.

4. Promotes Creativity

By practicing critical thinking, we are allowing ourselves not only to solve problems but also to come up with new and creative ideas to do so. Critical thinking allows us to analyze these ideas and adjust them accordingly.

5. Important For Self-Reflection

Without critical thinking, how can we really live a meaningful life? We need this skill to self-reflect and justify our ways of life and opinions. Critical thinking provides us with the tools to evaluate ourselves in the way that we need to.

Photo by Marcelo Chagas from Pexels

6. the basis of science & democracy.

In order to have a democracy and to prove scientific facts, we need critical thinking in the world. Theories must be backed up with knowledge. In order for a society to effectively function, its citizens need to establish opinions about what’s right and wrong (by using critical thinking!).

Benefits Of Critical Thinking

We know that critical thinking is good for society as a whole, but what are some benefits of critical thinking on an individual level? Why is critical thinking important for us?

1. Key For Career Success

Critical thinking is crucial for many career paths. Not just for scientists, but lawyers , doctors, reporters, engineers , accountants, and analysts (among many others) all have to use critical thinking in their positions. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking is one of the most desirable skills to have in the workforce, as it helps analyze information, think outside the box, solve problems with innovative solutions, and plan systematically.

2. Better Decision Making

There’s no doubt about it — critical thinkers make the best choices. Critical thinking helps us deal with everyday problems as they come our way, and very often this thought process is even done subconsciously. It helps us think independently and trust our gut feeling.

3. Can Make You Happier!

While this often goes unnoticed, being in touch with yourself and having a deep understanding of why you think the way you think can really make you happier. Critical thinking can help you better understand yourself, and in turn, help you avoid any kind of negative or limiting beliefs, and focus more on your strengths. Being able to share your thoughts can increase your quality of life.

4. Form Well-Informed Opinions

There is no shortage of information coming at us from all angles. And that’s exactly why we need to use our critical thinking skills and decide for ourselves what to believe. Critical thinking allows us to ensure that our opinions are based on the facts, and help us sort through all that extra noise.

5. Better Citizens

One of the most inspiring critical thinking quotes is by former US president Thomas Jefferson: “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” What Jefferson is stressing to us here is that critical thinkers make better citizens, as they are able to see the entire picture without getting sucked into biases and propaganda.

6. Improves Relationships

While you may be convinced that being a critical thinker is bound to cause you problems in relationships, this really couldn’t be less true! Being a critical thinker can allow you to better understand the perspective of others, and can help you become more open-minded towards different views.

7. Promotes Curiosity

Critical thinkers are constantly curious about all kinds of things in life, and tend to have a wide range of interests. Critical thinking means constantly asking questions and wanting to know more, about why, what, who, where, when, and everything else that can help them make sense of a situation or concept, never taking anything at face value.

8. Allows For Creativity

Critical thinkers are also highly creative thinkers, and see themselves as limitless when it comes to possibilities. They are constantly looking to take things further, which is crucial in the workforce.

9. Enhances Problem Solving Skills

Those with critical thinking skills tend to solve problems as part of their natural instinct. Critical thinkers are patient and committed to solving the problem, similar to Albert Einstein, one of the best critical thinking examples, who said “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Critical thinkers’ enhanced problem-solving skills makes them better at their jobs and better at solving the world’s biggest problems. Like Einstein, they have the potential to literally change the world.

10. An Activity For The Mind

Just like our muscles, in order for them to be strong, our mind also needs to be exercised and challenged. It’s safe to say that critical thinking is almost like an activity for the mind — and it needs to be practiced. Critical thinking encourages the development of many crucial skills such as logical thinking, decision making, and open-mindness.

11. Creates Independence

When we think critically, we think on our own as we trust ourselves more. Critical thinking is key to creating independence, and encouraging students to make their own decisions and form their own opinions.

12. Crucial Life Skill

Critical thinking is crucial not just for learning, but for life overall! Education isn’t just a way to prepare ourselves for life, but it’s pretty much life itself. Learning is a lifelong process that we go through each and every day.

How To Improve Your Critical Thinking

Now that you know the benefits of thinking critically, how do you actually do it?

• Define Your Question: When it comes to critical thinking, it’s important to always keep your goal in mind. Know what you’re trying to achieve, and then figure out how to best get there.
• Gather Reliable Information: Make sure that you’re using sources you can trust — biases aside. That’s how a real critical thinker operates!
• Ask The Right Questions: We all know the importance of questions, but be sure that you’re asking the right questions that are going to get you to your answer.
• Look Short & Long Term: When coming up with solutions, think about both the short- and long-term consequences. Both of them are significant in the equation.
• Explore All Sides: There is never just one simple answer, and nothing is black or white. Explore all options and think outside of the box before you come to any conclusions.

How Is Critical Thinking Developed At School?

Critical thinking is developed in nearly everything we do, but much of this essential skill is encouraged and practiced in school. Fostering a culture of inquiry is crucial, encouraging students to ask questions, analyze information, and evaluate evidence.

Teaching strategies like Socratic questioning, problem-based learning, and collaborative discussions help students think for themselves. When teachers ask questions, students can respond critically and reflect on their learning. Group discussions also expand their thinking, making them independent thinkers and effective problem solvers.

How Does Critical Thinking Apply To Your Career?

Critical thinking is a valuable asset in any career. Employers value employees who can think critically, ask insightful questions, and offer creative solutions. Demonstrating critical thinking skills can set you apart in the workplace, showing your ability to tackle complex problems and make informed decisions.

In many careers, from law and medicine to business and engineering, critical thinking is essential. Lawyers analyze cases, doctors diagnose patients, business analysts evaluate market trends, and engineers solve technical issues—all requiring strong critical thinking skills.

Critical thinking also enhances your ability to communicate effectively, making you a better team member and leader. By analyzing and evaluating information, you can present clear, logical arguments and make persuasive presentations.

Incorporating critical thinking into your career helps you stay adaptable and innovative. It encourages continuous learning and improvement, which are crucial for professional growth and success in a rapidly changing job market.

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile from Pexels

Critical thinking is a vital skill with far-reaching benefits for personal and professional success. It involves systematic skills such as analysis, evaluation, inference, interpretation, and explanation to assess information and arguments.

By gathering relevant data, considering alternative perspectives, and using logical reasoning, critical thinking enables informed decision-making. Reflecting on and refining these processes further enhances their effectiveness.

The future of critical thinking holds significant importance as it remains essential for adapting to evolving challenges and making sound decisions in various aspects of life.

What are the benefits of developing critical thinking skills?

Critical thinking enhances decision-making, problem-solving, and the ability to evaluate information critically. It helps in making informed decisions, understanding others’ perspectives, and improving overall cognitive abilities.

How does critical thinking contribute to problem-solving abilities?

Critical thinking enables you to analyze problems thoroughly, consider multiple solutions, and choose the most effective approach. It fosters creativity and innovative thinking in finding solutions.

What role does critical thinking play in academic success?

Critical thinking is crucial in academics as it allows you to analyze texts, evaluate evidence, construct logical arguments, and understand complex concepts, leading to better academic performance.

How does critical thinking promote effective communication skills?

Critical thinking helps you articulate thoughts clearly, listen actively, and engage in meaningful discussions. It improves your ability to argue logically and understand different viewpoints.

How can critical thinking skills be applied in everyday situations?

You can use critical thinking to make better personal and professional decisions, solve everyday problems efficiently, and understand the world around you more deeply.

What role does skepticism play in critical thinking?

Skepticism encourages questioning assumptions, evaluating evidence, and distinguishing between facts and opinions. It helps in developing a more rigorous and open-minded approach to thinking.

What strategies can enhance critical thinking?

Strategies include asking probing questions, engaging in reflective thinking, practicing problem-solving, seeking diverse perspectives, and analyzing information critically and logically.

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8 Strategies to Boost Critical Thinking

Jun 6, 2023 | Assessment , Inquiry , Teaching

by Drew Perkins , Director of ThoughtStretchers Education

In an ever-evolving world, it is crucial for educators to equip students with the skills they need to navigate complex challenges. One way to foster the development of these skills is by designing and implementing rigorous critical thinking tasks and assessments. By doing so, we can challenge students to stretch their cognitive abilities and deepen their understanding of complex issues.

To truly enhance critical thinking, educators must ensure that the tasks and assessments designed for students reflect a high level of rigor. Here are eight effective strategies to boost the level of rigor in critical thinking tasks and assessments, empowering students to think deeply, analyze information critically, and construct thoughtful responses.

1. Establish Clear Learning Objectives

Before designing any critical thinking task or assessment, it is crucial to establish clear learning objectives. Clearly define what you want your students to achieve and articulate the specific critical thinking skills they need to develop. By setting explicit goals, you can design tasks and assessments that align with your objectives and encourage students to engage in rigorous thinking.

2. Incorporate Authentic, Real-World Contexts

To increase the level of rigor, consider incorporating authentic, real-world contexts into your critical thinking tasks and assessments. Present students with real-world problems or scenarios that require them to analyze complex information, evaluate multiple perspectives, and propose creative solutions. Authentic contexts not only make tasks more engaging for students but also promote deeper critical thinking as they grapple with real-world complexities.

3. Encourage Diverse Perspectives and Debates

Critical thinking involves considering different perspectives and engaging in thoughtful debates. To boost rigor, create opportunities for students to explore diverse viewpoints on a given issue. Encourage respectful discussions, Socratic seminars, or debates where students must articulate and defend their opinions using evidence and logical reasoning . These activities promote higher-order thinking, strengthen argumentation skills, and expose students to a range of perspectives.

4. Foster Collaboration and Discussion

Collaboration and discussion play a vital role in promoting rigorous critical thinking. Encourage students to engage in meaningful discourse, where they can articulate their ideas, challenge assumptions, and consider alternative viewpoints. By interacting with their peers, students develop communication skills, learn to defend their arguments, and refine their thinking. Incorporate group activities, debates, or Socratic seminars to create an environment that nurtures robust critical thinking.

5. Integrate Multidisciplinary Approaches

Critical thinking is not limited to a single subject area. Enhance the level of rigor by integrating multidisciplinary approaches in your tasks and assessments. Encourage students to draw from various fields of knowledge, make connections across subjects, and apply different thinking strategies. This interdisciplinary approach broadens students’ perspectives and encourages them to think critically from multiple angles.

6. Incorporate Scaffolding and Gradual Release of Responsibility

While rigor is essential, it is equally important to provide appropriate support to students. Scaffold critical thinking tasks and assessments by breaking them down into manageable steps. Offer guiding questions, graphic organizers, or structured frameworks that help students organize their thoughts and approach the task systematically. As students gain confidence and competence, gradually release the responsibility, allowing them to tackle more complex challenges independently.

7. Emphasize Inquiry Based Learning

Inquiry based learning is an effective strategy for fostering critical thinking. Design tasks and assessments that require students to engage in active investigation, problem-solving, and reflection. By posing open-ended questions and guiding students through the inquiry process, you encourage them to think critically, analyze evidence, and draw logical conclusions. This approach develops their research skills, information literacy, and ability to think independently.

8. Provide Opportunities for Reflection and Metacognition

To further enhance the rigor of critical thinking tasks and assessments, provide students with opportunities for reflection and metacognition. Encourage them to analyze their own thinking processes, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and identify areas for improvement. By engaging in metacognitive practices, students develop a deeper understanding of their own thinking and become more self-regulated learners.

See Workshop: Boosting the Level of Rigor in Critical Thinking Tasks and Assessments

Boosting the level of rigor in critical thinking tasks and assessments is essential for cultivating students’ higher-order thinking skills and preparing them for the challenges of the future. By establishing being intentional in our teaching educators can create engaging and rigorous learning experiences that foster the development of critical thinkers.

As we strive to prepare our students for an ever-evolving world, prioritizing the cultivation of critical thinking skills is a powerful step toward their success and empowerment.

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Critical Thinking Is About Asking Better Questions

by John Coleman

Summary .   

Are you tackling a new and difficult problem at work? Recently promoted and trying to both understand your new role and bring a fresh perspective? Or are you new to the workforce and seeking ways to meaningfully contribute alongside your more experienced colleagues? If so, critical thinking — the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution — will be core to your success. And at the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions.

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5+ Critical Thinking Strategies for your Essay

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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From your very first assignment at university, you will be assessed on how well you have shown critical thinking.

This is particularly important when you’re asked to write a Critical Analysis or Critical Appraisal.

The article outlines these 5 critical thinking strategies to use in an essay:

• Create a Pros and Cons List
• Create a Venn Diagram
• Reference People who Disagree with each Other
• Use Comparative Terms
• Use Evaluative Terms

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is something many students struggle with but it shouldn’t be too hard once you learn some strategies for showing critical insights.

Often, students will get feedback from their teacher saying that they need to be ‘more critical’ or show ‘more depth’.

Other times, teachers can’t explain why you didn’t get a higher mark. These teachers have an implicit understanding that they are looking for critical thinking but don’t know how to say it.

In other words, critical thinking is very poorly taught and understood in universities. Teachers just assume you’ll learn it by osmosis.

The further up you go at university, the higher the standard is for critical thinking.

If you’re in your first year of a four-year degree, you’ll want to start practicing providing critical commentary in your essays now. As you go through the university you will be asked to write a critical analysis and critical appraisal essays (such as character analysis essays ).

By the time you reach your third year, you’ll struggle to keep up with your classmates if you haven’t mastered critical thinking. At the graduate student level (Master’s and above), you’ll likely struggle to even pass your assignments if you haven’t shown critical thinking.

Below are our top strategies for including critical thinking in a critical analysis essay. These are very simple and easy strategies you can use straight away to start building your marks.

Being critical in essay writing is very, very different from being a critical person in everyday life. We tend to think of critical people as being endlessly negative, bossy, and hard to be around.

In academic writing, being critical is about:

• Analyzing something from multiple different perspectives;
• Analyzing strengths and weaknesses on an idea or topic;
• Analyzing similarities and differences between ideas and perspectives

1. Create a Pros and Cons list

This time-tested strategy for improving your critical thinking is worth your time and effort. Many students don’t know where to start out in writing a critical essay. They should look no further than the pros-cons list.

This list not only offers you the opportunity to identify both strengths and weaknesses of a certain topic , but it also helps you to sort out in your mind what you want to write about in your critical analysis, and in what order.

You will want to come up with more points for longer essays . A good guide is either:

• One point per 150 words. If you’ve been given a word count, subtract 300 words from your word count to figure out how long the ‘body’ section of your essay will be (these 300 words are reserved for your introduction and conclusion). Then, you can find out how many pros and cons you want to come up with. For example, an 1800-word essay will require about 300 words for your intro and conclusion, leaving 1500 words for the body of the piece where you place your arguments. You can fit 10 x 150-word points into the 1500-word body section of the essay. So, you’ll want to come up with about 10 points in your pros-cons list. This might consist of 5 pros and 5 cons
• Two to three points per page. If you’ve been given a page count rather than a word count , aim for two to three points per page. So, a 5-page essay might require about 10 to 15 points to discuss.

Obviously, this isn’t an exact science. As you progress into the higher-level university classes, you might find you need 300 or 400 words for each point you want to make, meaning you’ll want far fewer points in order to go into the sort of depth required in a higher-level course.

You’ll also want to make sure your pros and cons are somewhat balanced. Sometimes, you’ll end up with more pros than cons – and that’s okay. But make sure that you have a healthy ratio of pros and cons (strengths and weaknesses) of your essay topic or argument .

A good rule of thumb is to have no less than a 2:1 ratio of pros to cons, and no more than a 1:1 ratio. In other words, if you have a total of 30 key points for your essay, you’ll want somewhere between 15 and 20 pros (or ‘strengths’), and 10 and 15 cons (or ‘weaknesses’).

After writing the pros and cons list, you’ll be able to turn each of your key points into full, detailed paragraphs that explore both the strengths and weaknesses of the critical analysis essay topic.

2. Create a Venn Diagram

Venn Diagrams are another great tool for helping you with your critical thinking in a critical analysis essay. They help provide even more depth than a pros-cons list, and I strongly recommend them as a starting point for critical essays.

Venn Diagrams give you the opportunity to think about the differences and similarities between two arguments or ideas that you are comparing.

This will enable you to show that you don’t just see the strengths and weaknesses of ideas, but also how certain ideas intersect and overlap. This looks very, very good and you will grow your marks in your essay if you get this right – big time!

Let’s look at an example. A fun, easy-to-understand Venn Diagram might be a comparison of living in England and the United States. Most people have a general understanding of these two countries, so you’ll be able to follow along.

For the sake of this exercise, let’s say the essay topic is “A critical essay on migration from the United States to England” Here’s my brainstormed Venn Diagram:

In the above Venn Diagram, I’ve come up with 15 points that could be discussed about the United States and England, showing similarities, differences, and some benefits and weaknesses of each country. This would be a great starting point for my critical essay.

Be careful to ensure you identify a lot of similarities/overlaps. This is the hardest part of a Venn diagram to fill in, but it’s also the most important. Identifying similarities between competing perspectives looks very good in a critical essay.

After completing your Venn, you need to think about how you’d turn the points you brainstormed into paragraphs for a critical essay. In the above example, I would reflect on how I would turn my key points from each of the different columns into full detailed paragraphs and think about how I’d order them.

I could talk about the United States, then England, and then the similarities between them. Or, I could dissect the essay into themes like ‘Weather’, ‘Healthcare’, ‘Standard of Living’, and ‘Travel’. Let’s look at a quick essay plan for dividing my key points from my Venn Diagram activity into themes:

Here, I’ve used my initial Venn Diagram brainstorming activity to come up with some key points that show the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective, as well as points of overlap.

The strength of the Venn Diagram is that it forces you to consider similarities between ideas – something that a pros-cons list does not do. This can mean the difference between several marks in an essay, so I recommend using a Venn Diagram in the early stages of brainstorming if it’s appropriate to your critical analysis topic.

3. Reference People who Disagree with Each Other

Even if you very strongly sit on one side of an argument, you need to show that you understand the weaknesses of each perspective. A critical analysis essay is not supposed to show one perspective: it’s supposed to show you understand all perspectives.

You might not personally believe some criticisms of your ideas to be weaknesses, but you’ll need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a few moments to show that you understand an issue from multiple perspectives .

Nonetheless, the first step in showing different perspectives in a critical appraisal essay is finding people who have disagreements on each point you discuss.

To find competing perspectives on an issue, you might want to look at some of these places for good quality scholarly sources :

• The course’s lecture slides;
• Textbooks and journal articles . Most good academic texts show multiple perspectives on an issue. In journal articles, start out by looking at the literature review section . Did the author identify key debates in their area of study that you can mine for good competing points?

Once you have successfully identified the multiple different perspectives on an issue, explained them in detail, and given examples, you’ll then be able to explain why or why not a criticism is valid. It is okay to say “Despite the criticisms of this idea, it remains a valid and useful idea because…” and end your discussion with a strong point returning to why you prefer one point over another.

You could combine steps 2 and 3. If you find two authors who disagree on an issue, place the authors’ names at the top of each circle in a Venn Diagram and come up with some bullet points showing unique perspectives of each author as well as points where they overlap. This will help you to grow your marks even more.

4. Use Comparative Terms

Comparative language can be very useful for a critical analysis essay. The best place to use comparative words is at the start of a paragraph to indicate that the new paragraph is intended to be compared to the previous one.

Your marker will be scanning through your work looking for evidence of critical thinking. Sometimes you’ll try to show differences or similarities between ideas but these comparisons don’t jump out of your page.

Comparative terms help make your critical analysis jump off the page. Comparative terms help to signpost to your marker where and when you are being critical. Phrases like ‘However,’ and ‘Similarly,’ focus your marker’s mind and make them realize that you are moving onto a point that is being compared to your previous points.

Bear in mind that your marker has probably already read 20,000+ words this weekend: they’re prone to zoning out and missing points if they’re not blatantly obvious. I’ll repeat it again: make your critical analysis obvious for your marker by using comparative terms at the start of paragraphs.

A marker will always read the first line of a paragraph. After the first line, their attention wanes. If the paragraph stops making sense, they might write it off entirely and move on to the next paragraph.

Therefore, you want to make your comparative word the first word of the paragraph. Follow it up with a comma, and continue writing.

Which Comparative Terms Should I Use?

Unfortunately, only some comparative words can be used at the very start of a paragraph. The top 5 comparative words to use at the very start of a paragraph to indicate that the paragraph is being compared to the previous one are:

Bear in mind that only some comparative terms can stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph. In fact, most comparative terms are linking words that need to be contextualized.

I would recommend simply remembering the above five phrases and rotating between them when using comparative language at the start of a paragraph. However, I provide below a more detailed explanation behind this point for those of you who are interested.

Most comparative words require you to actually mention the two points you are comparing within the sentence itself. I have identified the two points that you are comparing as [X] and [Y]:

Note how the comparative terms in the second table require both points being compared to be included in the one sentence, whereas the comparative terms in the first table imply that [X] was already stated in previous sentences.

Here are some examples of what I mean by only some comparative words being allowed at the beginning of a sentence:

• England has universal healthcare. However, it has higher taxes. – Good.
• England has universal healthcare. Although, it has higher taxes. – Bad.
• Although England has universal healthcare, it has higher taxes. – Good.

Note above that ‘However’ can be used to imply [X] was already stated in the prior sentence or paragraph, while ‘Although’ cannot.

If you’re confused by this, simply rotate between the 5 comparative terms in Table 1 when using comparative language at the start of a sentence or paragraph.

5. Use Evaluative Terms

Like comparative terms, assignment markers use evaluative terms as signposts for whether or not you have been critical in your critical analysis .

In fact, comparative terms are a type of evaluative term.

Evaluative terms show that you haven’t taken an idea for its face value. They show that, instead, you have analyzed the merits of an idea and weighed them up in your mind.

Using evaluative terms is difficult. You want to avoid overly evaluative terms that appear to exaggerate or insert emotion. However, you still want to show that you have weighed up an idea and soberly, objectively, and thoughtfully assessed it on its merits.

Here are some evaluative terms you might want to use. On the left at terms that help you to appear balanced and thoughtful. On the right are terms that might be over-evaluative , which can make your marker skeptical. You don’t want to sound like a snake oil salesman:

Hopefully, you can see from the above examples that balanced and equivocal language is rewarded in academic writing. Aim to evaluate concepts in a balanced way, never speaking in absolutes, in order to strike the right tone and get the best marks.

To finish this point off, another thing to remember when being evaluative is to avoid first-person language. In other words, your evaluative phrases should not start with ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’.

Many of the ideas presented in this post are complemented by our post on which words to use and avoid in academic writing . I’d strongly recommend quickly browsing that post, which provides three simple points about how to keep your language calm, balanced and critical to get the top marks in your essays.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 20 Montessori Toddler Bedrooms (Design Inspiration)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 21 Montessori Homeschool Setups
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples

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Using 5 Critical Thinking Strategies

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To view this video, visit https://youtu.be/ytAdcXM2oyo.

You've probably heard that you need to think critically in all of your classes, but what is critical thinking? Watch the video to learn 5 strategies for critical thinking and a fun way to use them in any class.

Your Turn Try paper ball analysis. Crumple a piece of paper into a ball, and on five relatively flat spots, write 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Roll the paper ball. Match the number on top to one of the critical thinking strategies. Then write a paragraph using the strategy to explore a topic you are studying.

• Compare two things (show similarities).
• Contrast two things (show differences).
• Analyze a topic (break into its parts).
• Categorize something (tell what type it is).
• Evaluate something (explain its value or worth).

Your Turn Do a round-robin paper ball analysis. Roll the paper ball. Match the number to a thinking strategy. Then use the strategy to say something aloud about a topic you are studying. Pass the ball to the person on your right and repeat the process. See how long you can keep the analysis going.

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Who european region member states adopt two landmark health emergency action plans: preparedness 2.0 strategy and action plan and the emergency medical teams regional action plan 2024-2030 [en/de/ru], attachments.

Today, in Copenhagen, at the 74th session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe, a major milestone was achieved for the WHO European Region – the Member States adopted 2 critical strategies aimed at enhancing health emergency preparedness and response regionwide. The adoption of both the Preparedness 2.0 regional strategy and action plan on health emergency preparedness, response and resilience (2024–2029), and the Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) regional action plan 2024–2030 underscores the ongoing commitment of the 53 Member States of the WHO European Region to building resilience and bolstering health security for individual countries and the Region as a whole.

Preparedness 2.0: strengthening regional readiness

Preparedness 2.0 is WHO/Europe’s new regional strategy and action plan for health emergency preparedness, response and resilience for the next 5 years (2024–2029). Designed to elevate efforts in the Region to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and become more resilient to health emergencies, this forward-thinking plan takes preparedness to the next level as it builds on the lessons learned from recent crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This will help to close gaps in health security and strengthen collective readiness for future threats, such as the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events due to climate change and the emergence of novel pathogens with the potential to cause significant outbreaks and pandemics. Preparedness 2.0 was developed in close consultation with Member States, and tailored to their unique needs and contexts, with the aim of supporting countries in the WHO European Region to build national preparedness and response plans and systems that are fit for purpose.

Preparedness 2.0 responds to a review of recommendations and lessons learned, conducted jointly between the Health Emergencies division at WHO/Europe and the Preparedness 2.0 Technical Advisory Group, and is grounded in a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

The result is a WHO European Region-specific adaptation of the WHO global Health Emergencies Preparedness and Response framework, guided by 5 core components – the so-called “five Cs”: Collaborative surveillance, safe and scalable Care, Community resilience and protection, access to medical Countermeasures, and emergency Coordination. This approach also integrates health systems, research and digital health innovations as essential cross-cutting elements, ensuring that the plan adapts to the diversity of needs within the pan-European Region.

Preparedness 2.0 provides an implementation support package, which ensures that WHO/Europe’s assistance to Member States is readily available. It will also help to strengthen the Pan-European Network for Disease Control, launched in 2024, and create a more robust health emergency workforce. It encourages Member States to adopt a whole-of-government approach, ensuring that all sectors – not just health – are involved in health security planning.

“Preparedness 2.0 is our chance to build a better future for the European Region, with collective resilience, solidarity and trust,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have an opportunity to absorb and implement the lessons of COVID-19 and other health emergencies, and apply them in a strategic, ambitious yet practical way to ensure that we are better prepared for whatever may come our way, even as we safeguard everyday essential health systems to provide core services regardless of, and even during, emergencies.”

EMT regional action plan 2024–2030: bolstering EMTs

Immediately after the adoption of the new Preparedness 2.0 regional strategy and action plan, the Regional Committee took the first joint step of operationalizing Preparedness 2.0 by adopting the EMT regional action plan 2024–2030. EMTs provide life-saving care in the immediate aftermath of health emergencies, including natural disasters, outbreaks, and conflicts.

The WHO European Region is already home to one of the world’s strongest EMT networks, comprising over 85 teams with more than 75 000 highly trained medical professionals. The EMT regional action plan 2024–2030 seeks to further regionalize the global EMT strategy, ensuring that national EMT capacities are fully integrated into health systems. This will build long-term resilience and prepare countries to respond quickly and effectively to emergencies. The plan was crafted by a wide-ranging community of practice through a collaborative effort involving WHO counterparts, national governments, and technical experts, reflecting a whole-of-government approach.

“With the adoption of Preparedness 2.0 and the EMT regional action plan 2024–2030, the Member States of the WHO European Region came together to build a more resilient future for the Region, ensuring that as crises continue to evolve, countries will not face health emergencies alone, but instead avail of networks of support and best practices shared among countries and health partners,” said Gundo Weiler, Regional Emergency Director at WHO/Europe. “By strengthening regional cooperation and fostering a culture of preparedness, rather than unilateral action and working in silos, we are all the stronger.”

The Regional European EMT Capabilities Hub (REECH) based in Türkiye will provide the training and expertise needed to strengthen EMT capacities across the Region. The Knowledge and Information Management Emergency Platform (KIMEP) will help to coordinate teams in the field, monitor progress, and ensure that EMT systems are sustainable and meet WHO standards of care.

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