Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrected. In other words, it is a thought process that involves the evaluation, assessment, and correction of your own or others’ ideas and thought processes. Because of this, it is an iterative process that improves the idea or thought process. Critical thinking requires effort and dedication, but pays dividends for the time invested. In this challenge, we will consider how we can we can improve our critical thinking process by (re)evaluation.

Critical thinking comes into play in a wide variety of circumstances. As a citizen of a democracy, it is important to think critically and do background research each time an election is coming up, or if there is a news story that you want to be more informed about. If you are a student, you will want to think critically about near term options, such as what courses to take, and longer term decisions, such as what career you will find fulfilling. Should you spend a semester abroad? Will the job you've just been offered potentially help you once you graduate? What information sources would be most appropriate for your capstone paper?

Consider the following scenario, which presents the opportunity to think critically:

You need to select your courses for the fall semester. The requirements for your major leave you just one elective for the coming term. It is tempting to select a course that sounds like it will be easy, or that won’t be too early in the morning (or preferably both). You are in the midst of checking with your friends to find some good options, when one friend, a senior, mentions she has just been invited to join Phi Beta Kappa, an honor society. Your friend doesn’t know much about Phi Beta Kappa, nor do you, but together you look it up and find out it is the oldest undergraduate academic honor society in the US, and very prestigious. Your campus is one of just 286 in the United States that has a chapter. A high GPA is required to be invited, as well as a record of taking courses in a range of areas.

You are intrigued, and begin to wonder if that midday, easy course really is your best option. You note that you are well on track to being eligible yourself, but you are missing one foreign language course and one science course. These are not exactly what you had in mind, but you weigh the distinction of membership (if you meet all the requirements) and what it might mean for your future, versus being able to take things a bit easier. If you decide to aim for PBK membership, you will need to be:

• Self-directed: no one else is going to tell you what you have to do, you need to care enough to weigh choices and make these decisions

• Self-disciplined: signing up for another biology course—you found the last one rather tough, not to mention the need to keep your grades high

• Self-monitored: you will need to keep an eye on your schedule to make sure you fit in that needed language course

• Self-corrected: if you start to slide with your GPA, you need to change course

Often, we skip the critical thinking step, even for important decisions, and move straight to a conclusion or take some action. So let’s try to exercise some critical thinking. You'll have an opportunity to practice in the following activity.

Thanks to Furkan Gunay for crafting this quest.

PART 1:

First, identify a decision you puzzled with recently, or are in the process of working through. This might be a decision between two products you are considering buying, or a determination about the validity of a news source. After you pick a topic, write a sentence or two for each of the following five points:

1. What do you need to decide?

2. What will help you make a decision?

3. Make a tentative decision: How do you think this decision will play out?

4. Are there some loose ends or worries you have about the decision?

5. Who else might have good input?

Now, watch this TED-Ed video about thinking critically, and while you are doing so, jot down the five steps it mentions to improve critical thinking. Putting each step under the appropriate step from your first list.

Employing critical thinking strategies during (re)evaluation can help you improve your thought process and ideas. We will practice in part 2 of the activity.

PART 2:

Now it is time to (re)evaluate and improve your thinking strategy. In Part 1, you thought about making a decision and what you expected to find, but now you will act on the steps listed in the video. Add several sentences underneath each of the initial writing sections in which you explain how you went about each step from the video, and what the result was.

Finally, write a paragraph as a conclusion about your re-evaluation. Respond to the following questions for this conclusion:

• Did the reevaluation change your decision?

• Whether it did or didn’t, has your thought process in making that decision improve by re-evaluating? How so?

• Do you think your (re)evaluation would help you convince someone else to make the same decision?