Marwa Mohammad – H00233649
LSH 2203 Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developed throughout the past years. Critical
thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing,
applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by,
observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action
(Defining Critical Thinking, 2015). From my understanding, critical thinking needs a lot of
patience and thought before doing anything or give any reaction about a specific situation.
Having a critical thinking is a very good skill because, for example, if my teacher asked me
about the new useful ways to teach and give my opinion about teaching using only technology or
using only books I wouldn’t answer directly because I would have to give reasons and do a lot of
researching, observation and evidence to my answer what will make my answer stronger.
There are three main skills for critical thinkers. First, we have the Independent Thinking,
which means making sense of the world based on your own observations and experiences rather
than just depending on the word of others, trusting your own ability to make judgments (Presley,
2015). For example, if someone asked for my opinion in a specific thing I would have to give my
own ideas and thoughts about it not having others point of view to answer the question. The
second skill we have to be a critical thinker is Fair-minded Thinking, to see things in a more
relative perspective, recognizing that different people have different points of view (Presley,
2015). Being a fair-minded is different from one person to an other, being a fair-minded is to be
in someone else’s shoes, which means to think and feel the same way that the person feels which
can be difficult for some people because they haven’t actually been in that situation. However,
you have to understand others opinion and not be biased about your own opinions and thoughts.
The last skill is the Intellectual Humility, which means having a consciousness of the limits of
one's knowledge, including sensitivity to circumstances. Intellectual humility depends on
Marwa Mohammad – H00233649
LSH 2203 Critical Thinking
recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows ("Valuable Intellectual
Traits," 2014). Intellectual humility has to do with understanding that you don’t know
everything, that there is more to learn ("What is Intellectual Humility? | The Thrive Center for
Human Development," 2015).
Personaly, I would like to develop and improve my fair-minded skill. I think that this is
the most difficult skill that I find hard to reach because it’s a hard to judge something without
being influenced by own feelings and try to consider all the viewpoints equally. Developing this
skill needs a lot of patience and understanding so I will try to understand their ideas so that we
can be on the same point. This skill could help me during my time in college when we discuss
about a specific project that we need to work on.
Qualities of Critical Thinkers. The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, wellinformed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, Thus, educating
good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal (Facione, 1990, p. 2).
Marwa Mohammad – H00233649
LSH 2203 Critical Thinking
References
Defining Critical Thinking. (2015, March). Retrieved from
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766#
Facione, P. A. (1990). Executive summary of critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus
for purposes of educational assessment and instruction, including all tables, findings
and recommendations of The Delphi Report. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.
Presley, S. (2015, March 3). Independent Thinking Resources for Independent Thinking.
Retrieved from http://www.rit.org/essays/independentthink.php
Valuable Intellectual Traits. (2014, September). Retrieved from
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/valuable-intellectual-traits/528
What is Intellectual Humility? | The Thrive Center for Human Development. (2015, March 3).
Retrieved from http://thethrivecenter.org/intellectualhumility/what-is-intellectualhumility/