What is critical thinking? Essay

The more you know, the easier it will be for you to learn new things. Critical thinking is not about accumulating information. A critical thinker knows how to utilize information in terms of problem solving, and seeks relevant resources to keep informed or updated. To come up with a creative solution to a problem involves not just having new ideas. It must also be the case that the new ideas being generated are useful and relevant to the task at hand. Critical thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas, selecting the best ones and modifying them if necessary. This promotes creativity. We acquire background knowledge through the interaction of two factors (1) our ability to process and store information, and (2) the number and frequency of our academically oriented experiences. The ability to process and store information is a component of what cognitive psychologists refer to as fluid intelligence. As described by Cattell (1987), fluid intelligence is innate. One of its defining features is the ability to process information and store it in permanent memory. High fluid intelligence is associated with enhanced ability to process and store information. Low fluid intelligence is associated with diminished ability to process and store information. According to Linda Elder and Richard Paul, authors of "Critical Thinking Development A Stage Theory," suggests, students who know how to analyse and critique ideas are able to make connections across disciplines, see knowledge as useful and applicable to daily life and understand content on a deeper, more lasting level. Thinking enables we as students to assess our learning styles, strengths and weaknesses, and allows us to take ownership of our education.
As A. E. Mander wrote in his book Logic for the Millions "Thinking is science education work. It is not true that we are naturally endowed with the ability to think clearly and logically - without learning how, or without practicing. People with untrained minds should no more expect to think clearly and logically than people who have never learned and never practiced can expect to find themselves good carpenters, linkman, bridge thespian, or pianists." According to Brody (2001), "background signal cognition refers to concepts, experience, information, and text structures that are relevant to a text under study." (Brody, 2001 pg. 241) On the other hand, prior knowledge refers to the accurate or inaccurate text-related knowledge that the reader believes prior to reading a text. Scholarly person come to the classroom with a broad range of pre-existing knowledge, skills, beliefs, and posture, which influence how they attend, interpret and organize in-coming information. How they process and integrate new information will, in tour, affect how they remember, think, apply, and create new knowledge. Since new knowledge and skill is dependent on pre-existing knowledge and skill, knowing what students know and can do when they come into the classroom or before they Menachem begin a new subject of study, can help us craftiness instructional activities that chassis off of student enduringness and acknowledge and address their impuissance.