Critical thinking

Introduction

“It is important thing not to stop questioning” Albert Einstein

What is critical thinking? Let us tell you. All of us have certainly developed various approaches to problem solving or thinking as such. Quite often, we refer to what we call “common sense”, “street smarts” or even so well known method of trial and error. However, what we have already known can be consciously strengthened. The success lies in paying closer attention to what we already do, in conscious search for ways to do it better.

Critical thinking is a complex of conscious actions and skills, which we use while evaluating truth or a manipulation contained in the information we are provided with or which we provide to the others. We cannot speak about it like about some knowledge we could learn “on the way”. To get into it, it requires a lot of time and effort. Therefore you will find here just some information and some basic approaches which could lead you that way, but won't take you all the way to critical thinking competence.

At the beginning and at the end of the course you can take a quiz that will tell you how you proceeded. In between them you will find 5 sections on various aspects of critical thinking, showing basics of argumentation as well as introduction to manipulative techniques.

Syllabus:

• 39 pages
• 2 long quizzes
• Several exercises
• Several questions to reflect on as well as for discussion at Facebook profile of monda.eu
• Further reading section

Estimated length of the module: approx. 4 hours