Critical Thinking Disposition Self- Rating Form. - Pearson Learning ...

But first things first! Chapter 3, on problem solving, applies
critical thinking to something we all care about, namely
your being successful academically. From there we focus on
strengthening specific skills.
We begin with interpretation and analysis in Chapters 4
and 5 when we examine how to clarify the meanings of individual
claims and how to visually display the reasoning we use
to support our claims and conclusions. In Chapters 6 through
9 we will work on evaluation, looking first at how to assess
the credibility of individual claims and then at how to evaluate
the quality of arguments. Strengthening our self-regulation
skill will be our emphasis in Chapters 10 and 11 as we take a
closer look at how to strengthen our real-life decision making.
Snap judgments and reflective decisions are the topics for
those two chapters.
We draw everything we’ve learned about critical thinking
back together in Chapters 12, 13, and 14. In this set of chapters,
which emphasize inference and explanation, as we
focus on how human beings use their powers of reasoning
to acquire new knowledge by means of analogies, inferences
drawn from core ideological beliefs, and inferences drawn
through methodical scientific investigative inquiry. These
chapters explore the benefits, uses, strengths, and weaknesses
of the three most powerful forms of argument making:
comparative (“this is like that”) reasoning, ideological (“top
down”) reasoning, and empirical (“bottom up”) reasoning.
We complete the core set of fifteen chapters with one that
addresses the vital skill of communicating in writing the critical
thinking you have invested in a given question, issue, decision,
or point of view. Effective writing and critical thinking just
might be the two most important things to learn—period. The
two are connected not only in the world of education but in
every professional field and all throughout life.
If your instructor has elected to supplement the basics we
present in these fifteen chapters, she or he may have added
one or more of the four additional optional chapters to your
version of this book. One of those supplemental chapters is
on how social scientists think, one on how natural scientists
think, one on ethical decision making, and one is on the logic
of declarative statements. Building the connections between
critical thinking and each of those different domains was both
enjoyable and interesting for us, as authors. We sincerely hope
that you have the opportunity to enjoy and learn from one or
more of those chapters too. We think each of them, like the 15
we proudly included in the basic version of THINK Critically,
will further strengthen your critical thinking skills and habits of
mind. And that, after all, is our the whole point. It’s about you,
building up your critical thinking skills and habits of mind, and
you capitalizing on your critical thinking to achieve success in
college and throughout your whole life.
The key to getting the most out of this book is to practice
your critical thinking skills as often as possible. There
are literally hundreds of exercises in this text. Look for them
not only at the ends chapters but in the “Thinking Critically”
boxes within each chapter. There are more exercises for
you at www.mythinkinglab.com. You’ll find that some of
these exercises ask you to think to yourself while others ask
you to think in groups. This mirrors real life in that critical
thinking is both an individual process on some occasions
and a group problem-solving and a group decision-making
process on other occasions. The point of including all of
these exercises is that it is not enough to simply read about
critical thinking as a topic, or passively view others thinking
critically. We humans learn by doing. Building expertise at
reflective judgment—that is, at critical thinking—takes practice,
and lots of it! Explore the Concept on mythinkinglab.com
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Skilled and Eager to Think
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Think Critically, by Peter Facione and Carol Ann Gittens. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2013 by Pearson Education, Inc.