Critical thinking skills :

Done by :

M7amad abo-7sein

Supervised by :

Mahdia al-kony

The objectives :-

By the end of this lecture the student should be able to : 1- define the critical thinking skills and explain the strategies of it.

2- discuss the components of CT .

3- apply principles of CT in his work and personal life .

4- understand the tests of critical thinking .

5- participate in discussions about the CT skills .

6- evaluate his ability to develop him self to be critical thinker .

Lecture outline :

1- Definition of CT .

2- Components of critical thinking .

3- Tests of critical thinking .

4- CT and nursing education .

5- Problem solving skills .

6- stages of problem solving .

7- Conditions of learning for problem solving

A Definition

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content,or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it.

Critical thinking skills :

Pathway aims within health education are of two kinds : 1- the specific aims of the pathway in relation to its subject area and 2- the more general educational aims that apply to all pathway.

The latter are more general and include development of skills in communication , problem solving, evaluation , and critical thinking .

Components of critical thinking ?

1-define a problem.

2-select relevant information for problem solving.

3-draw inferences from observed facts 4-recognize assumptions; 5- formulate relevant hypothesis.

6-make deductions ; 7-Make interpretations from data ; 8-evaluate arguments .

There is some variation in the literature with regard to these components; Brookfield (1987) for example identifies the four components discussed below : A) identifying and challenging awkward questions in order to identify and challenge the problems .

 assumption ; critical thinkers ask assumptions wich underlie issues and

b) challenging the importance of context ; critical thinkers are aware that beliefs , actions, and established practice reflect the context in which they are set , both culture and professional. For example , opinions about the standard of appearance for nurses and midwives may be based upon the norms of generation or more ago , such as a particular view of what constitutes an acceptable hair style .

c) imagining and exploring alternatives ; critical thinkers have the ability to imagine and explore alternatives to established ways of thinking or behaving , because they are aware of the assumptions and the context of issues or problems .

d) reflective skepticism ;

reflective thinkers take a skeptical view of established dogma and practices , carefully scrutinizing them and questioning their current validity . for example , this approach is encouraged in project 2000 courses , but may be perceived as threatening by qualified nurses whose own professional education did not foster such an approach .

Tests of critical thinking ::

This tests the subject's ability on five aspects of CT : inference , assumption , deduction , interpretation, and evaluation of arguments .

1) inference : this is a conclusion based upon facts or observations . for example ; by looking at a post-operative patient's facial expression and body posture , a nurse may infer that he or she is in pain .

2) assumptions

assumptions : there are something assumed or taken for granted . for example , a nurse may assume that a post-operative patient will wish to be given analgesia as soon as pain is experienced .

3) deduction ;

4) interpretation :

5) Evaluation of arguments:

CT and nursing education How can the nurse teacher facilitate CT development in students ??!!

1-affirm critical thinkers and self-worth; it is when teaching CT to maintain an atmosphere of psychological safety, but they are not made to feel threatened or insulted .

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2-listen attentively to critical thinkers; the teacher must attend carefully to students verbal and non-verbal signals

3- show that you support critical thinkers efforts ; students initial efforts need support and encouragement if they are to progress , and their is delicate balance between this and the necessary degree of challenge and upset that is important for CT skills development .

4- reflect and mirror critical thinkers ideas and actions ; by using reflection techniques that let the student see how their behaviours and attitudes are berceived by others .

5- motivate people to think critically ; their is a delicate balance between motivating students to think critically , and helping them to estimate the risks involved in criticizing and destabilizing established practices .

6- regularly evaluate progress; to encourage students to engage regularly in reflective evaluation of CT skills.

7- Be a critical teacher 8- Make people aware of how they learn CT.

9- Help a critical thinkers to create network with other students who are developing CT skills.(self-help group).

10- Model CT ; teachers should model these skills during their everyday teaching .

Problem solving skills :::::!

This section addresses two approaches to problem solving : 1- gestalt approach 2-information processing approach

gestalt approach and insightful learning : the kind of learning described by gestalt psychology is called learning by insight , in which the students perception of a situation or a problem undergoes a restructuring , and he or she sees the aspects of the situation in a new relationship to one another .

this sudden insight into the problem or a situation applies to human learning also and has been termed the (aha) phenomenon .

information processing approach ::: which seeks to explain the sequence of operations that subjects use in solving problems . the problem situation is termed the "problem space" , and is composed of an 'initial state' in which the individual is currently in, a 'goal state' which is the desired end state, and one or more 'operators' which are a set of operations that transform the initial state into the goal state .

stages of problem solving :::

1- encode the problem in the working memory.

2- Search the long term memory for a plan or production system.

3- Execute the production system; and 4- Evaluate the results . This sequence may or may not be successful , depending upon the problem .

Conditions of learning for problem solving : 1- recall of relevant rules that have been earned previously 2- possession of verbal information organized in appropriate ways 3- cognitive strategies previously learned 4- verbal instructions by the teacher to stimulate recall of rules .