Critical Thinking and Application Skills - Essay Example

CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION SKILLS October 2008 CRITICAL THINKING AND APPLICATION SKILLS Introduction Critical thinking is an important aspect to the logical feature of a person and the acquisition of knowledge. It mainly employs the usage of the human ability of logical analysis to develop an adequate and proper judgment regarding a specific scenario that a person is faced with. It is the analysis of the propositional arguments, which are presumed to be true and the evaluation of the information in forms such as evidences and subsequent facts. Thus, it is important to critically analyze and examine all the facts that are available to create a clear and concise judgment regarding a specific issue. Performing a critical analysis is not usually easy for an individual because of the abundance and ambiguous status of the facts pertinent to the scenarios that are to be analyzed. Some cases require further scrutiny to uncover unknown details, which are really important thus initial skepticism and open-mindedness are often required in developing good critical thinking. (Bloom's Taxonomy Internet) Take for example a certain job regarding work relation in a specific office. A certain piece of valuable went missing and the whole work community in the office is already chattering blaming a shy and timid employee as the thief who stole the missing valuable. Employing critical thinking would not let someone to hastily judge that employee because of his social diffidence. Instead of inappropriate judgment, analyze first the case at hand and evaluate the details pertinent to it to find clues and information leading to the solution. Failure to practice critical thinking will only lead to inaccurate and often wrong conclusion thus neglecting the purpose of the human logical capabilities. Proper judgment requires the critical thinking and analysis of the available information and specific details. It is very important that one must first utilize his or her brain before jumping to any hasty judgment to avoid mistakes and further aggravation of the problem already at hand. Thus, solution and accurate knowledge can only be attained by having critical analysis of the facts leading to the plausible conclusion. Several factors of education explain a person's pattern of learning. The aspects of philosophy of thinking and learning which merely refers to the thought provoking a person to have a yearning for learning usually helps an educator determine the progress of his student with regards to what he is teaching and what his student is able to grasp for learning.(King 3) The following paragraphs shall discuss the mentioned factors of education and shall clarify some points of consideration concerning the principles of learning involved in education. (King 4) Learning involves the utilization of reality. What does the context of reality actually mean Reality as defined refers to the facts that are present in the society. These so-called facts support the existence of several things in the environment. Through the utilization of the realties in educating a person, an educator is supposed to help the student reject the impractical and visionary aspects of learning. Through this matter of teaching, a student is able to see the importance of what is obviously seen and not what is simply imaginary. Gaining knowledge through this way would naturally help a person understand his being and his environment as well based on constructed foundation of belief. Naturally, learning in a perennial way gives an individual the most important knowledge he has to learn from life. His experiences are generated to become sources of practical understanding, which in turn would help him cope up with life's challenges due to the fact that he has learned to face he said obstacles through his experiential learning. (King 5) One's ability to value what he learns follows the process of learning. His capability of applying the knowledge he has gained is the turning point of his learning and the fact that what he has learned could be proved useful in his being and in his life. If his learned lessons from his experiences, his environment and from his educators and mentors as well are all practical and true, the knowledge he gained from those learning could now be utilized for his development as a person as he tries to apply the things he has gained from his sources of useful understanding. Education and its Implication to Developing Critical Thinking Skills Education is a process inclusive of a person's development based upon his ability to learn from what is being taught to him. His capability of taking into consideration all the things he has learned from his educators to becoming the source of his practical knowledge determines the fact that he has really learned valuable lessons from his educators. Hence, the art of leaning based from the process of teaching is indeed an important concern for any special educator to consider. It is the main responsibility of a special educator to ensure that his students are able to grasp what he teaches them in a manner that they not only learn but also able to determine the importance of what they learned. (Krathwohl 41) This involves not simple instructional processes but in depth teaching strategies used by the educator. It is good for a special educator to incite the art of thinking to his students so that they are able to identify the importance of what they are learning in an ideal way. By this, they are able to convey to their students the most practical and the most important knowledge, which they could use in their own lives later on. Personal Implication of Practice As for the author himself, he notes the fact that he has been able to learn the effect of education on the development of his own critical thinking skills. This development on the author's part has made a great impact on the process by which he has been able to deal with the different challenges that he needs to face as a student and as an ordinary individual that needs to make different decisions everyday. One particular matter in his life that has been directly affected by the process by which he applies critical thinking includes his capability to juggle the different schedules that he has to attend to, both in school and in his regular social and family life. Likely, having the capability to think critically through learning from the basic education that he has been able to acquire both from school and his regular experiences in life, has given him better chances of becoming more systematic in dealing with the issues that he has to face with at the time. Sample Situation As a sample situation to be dealt with in schools, a program activity could be used as a model situation that could bring students into great chaos especially when the programmed activities do not fall into the right place during the presentation proper. With regards the situation of the author, if in case faced with this particular situation, the first thing that the author would actually put into consideration is the effective use of the major resources that the group already has at the time. Whatever it is that may work for the program at the present time shall be utilized effectively to make the best out of the time that has been given for the presentation. Through this, it is expected that things would gradually fall into place. Conclusion Education may indeed involve a lot of processes of teaching, inculcating knowledge, learning and gaining practical knowledge. It could also involve many ways by which a person is able to learn from his environment, his own experiences and from his educator's lessons. However, the turning point of all these is the ability of the student to apply what he learned in his everyday life. The fact that he is able to use what he learned determines the value of his learning and thus gives him a better vision for his future. Reference: Bloom's Taxonomy. http://www.cte.usf.edu/materials/institute/ct/bltax.gif. (October 14, 2008). Patricia King, "How Do We Know Why Do We Believe Learning to Make Reflective Judgments". Journal Liberal Education (Vol. 78, No. 1, January/February 1992, pgs. 2-5). Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1999). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Co., Inc. Read More