Teaching Learning Principles and Practices
Reflective Writing and Critical Thinking
Unit – 1
Sohail Sajid
Principal
New Life College of Nursing
RN, DWA,DTA, Specialized in CHN, Post RN BScN
1
Objectives
• Discuss thinking process, to understand the
reflective observation.
• List and compare types of thinking
• Define critical thinking
• Discuss the components of critical thinking
• Define reflection
• Discuss types of reflection
• Discuss process of reflection
• Analyze the role of critical thinking in
reflective practice.
2
Thinking
• Thinking means to use the mind in an active way to
form connected ideas. In simple words, it means
using knowledge that has been gathered in the mind.
• Types of Thinking provides a basic grounding in the
psychology of thinking for students with little
previous knowledge of cognitive psychology. This
clear, well-structured overview explores the
practical aspects and applications of everyday
thinking, creative thinking, logical and scientific
thinking, intelligent thinking and machine thinking.
It also explore. It also explores 'failures of thinking',
the biases and shortcuts that sometimes lead our
thinking astray.
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Thinking Process
• Thought can refer to the ideas or
arrangements of ideas that result from
thinking, the act of producing thoughts, or
the process of producing thoughts.
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Types of thinking
• Guilford JP has suggested that there are two
distinct types of thinking.
• Convergent Thinking
• Divergent thinking
• Critical Thinking
• Creative Thinking
• Implementation thinking
• Conceptual thinking
• Innovative thinking
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Convergent Thinking
• In this type, we select a single correct
answer or solution out of several
alternatives.
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Divergent Thinking
• In this type, we generate many different
solutions as possible. This type of thinking is
quite often associated with critical thinking
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Critical Thinking
• According to Brook Field 1987, critical
thinking is a process highly sensitive to
context the emotional and rational
dimension.
• In 1987 Kamp narrated, critical thinking is
an attitude of inquiry, involving the use of
facts, principles, theories, concepts
judgments, interpretation and evaluation of
arguments.
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Creative Thinking
• Creative thinking or original thinking is a
way of generating ideas that can in some
way be applied to the world. Creative
thinking is able to break the bonds of
traditional perception and habits and to
bend the mind to new ideas and possibilities
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Implementation Thinking
• Implementation thinking is the ability to
organize ideas and plans in a way that they
will be effectively carried out.
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Conceptual Thinking
• Conceptual thinking consists of the ability
to find connections or patterns between
abstract ideas and then piece them together
to form a complete picture.
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Innovative thinking
• Innovative thinking involves generating new
ideas or new ways of approaching things to
create possibilities and opportunities.
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Intuitive Thinking
• Intuitive thinking is the ability to take what
you may sense or perceive to be true and,
without knowledge or evidence,
appropriately factor it in to the final
decision.
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Components of Critical Thinking
• Every process or method is made of
essential components, and critical thinking
is no different. These components provide a
structure to the process, which if
incorporated, makes persuasive, truthful
and supportive verbal communication
possible to highly influence others’ points of
view and message acceptance. The major
components in critical thinking include:
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Components of Critical Thinking
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Perception
Assumptions
Emotion
Language
Argument
Fallacy
Logic, and problem solving.
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Perception
• Perception is considered to be the manner in
which individuals receive, interpret and
translate experiences. How individuals
perceive things works to define how they
think. Perception tends to provide
individuals a significant filtering system.
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Assumptions
• Assumptions are central to critical thinking.
They tend to be implied, where individuals
are not always conscious of them.
Assumptions are not always bad and often
rest on the notion that some ideas are
obvious. They tend to make individuals
comfortable with their present beliefs,
shutting out any alternatives.
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Emotion
• Trying to leave emotion out of almost
anything is impossible as it is part of
everything people do and think. Emotions
are the number one cause of creating and
putting into place thinking and operating
barriers, which are continually used as a
defense mechanism. Critical thinkers do not
ignore or deny emotions but learn to accept
and manage them.
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Language
• Thinking can’t be separated from language
since both tend to have three primary
purposes: to inform, persuade and explain.
Language denotes (designates meanings) and
connotes (implies or suggests something), and
relies heavily on the use of metaphors.
Metaphors are powerful language tools, which
are able to influence how individuals think and
problem solve. These figures of speech give
great color and depth to one’s language.
Metaphors can be short phrases, stories, or
even poetic renditions and is a verbal message
that listeners can easily interpret and visualize.
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Argument
• An argument is a claim, which is used to persuade
that something is (or is not) true, or should (or
should not) be done. An argument contains three
basic elements: an issue, one or more reasons or
premises, and one or more conclusions. An
argument can be either valid or invalid based on its
structure and only premises & conclusions are
reached, which are either true or false.
• The goal of critical thinking is to implement a sound
argument, which has both a valid or proper
structure and contains true premises. This is where
using logic makes all the difference.
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Fallacy
• Reasoning that doesn’t meet the criteria for
being a sound argument is considered
incorrect, or misleading. A misleading
notion comes from incorrect patterns of
reasoning. However, it does not always
mean that the conclusion is false, but it does
underscore the fact that the reasoning used
to support it is not valid, based on true
premises, or complete and does not include
all necessary relevant information.
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Logic
• Logic incorporates two methods or types of
reasoning: deductive and inductive.
Deductive reasoning relies on facts,
certainty, validity, truth of premises sound
arguments and supported conclusions.
Inductive reasoning relies on diverse facts,
probability, generalizations, hypotheses,
analogies and inductive strength.
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Problem Solving Through Logic
• A logic problem is like any problem. It
requires:
• Understanding the problem. In other words,
listen, read & take heed.
• Identifying all of the “unknowns” as well as the
“known.”
• Interpreting relationships between them
(visual aids can help).
• Generating a strategy from steps two and
three.
• Applying the strategy and solving the problem.
• Repeating the process if it is necessary.
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Reflection
• reflection in the context of learning is a
generic term for those intellectual and
affective activities in which individuals
engage to explore their experiences in order
to lead to new understandings and
appreciations”
• Boud 1985
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Reflection
• The definition of a reflection is a thought or
writing about something, particular in the past,
or what one sees when looking into a mirror or
body of water.
– An example of reflection is an article written
by an author discussing how he feels he has
grown in the past year in his writing style.
– An example of reflection is what a girl sees in
the mirror when she puts on her makeup.
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Reflection
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What is Reflective Practice?
• Ongoing process of examining and refining practice
• Taking the opportunity to think about the work you
are doing, as you do it, or after you have done it.
• ‘… looking back on an experience and making sense
of it to identify what to do in the future.’
(Drew and Bingham, 2001)
‘…do something, think about it what you did, come to
conclusions about what you did and plan to try
again.’
(Kolb 1984)
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What is Reflective Practice?
The art of writing things down helps you to
clarify your thoughts and emotions, to work
out strategies, and to focus on your
development and progress…’
(Cottrell, 2001)
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Types of Reflection
Schon 1987. Two types of reflection
Reflection in action ( think on your feet)
Reflection on action ( retrospective thinking )
Useful in unique thinking
Specially useful when know learnt theories
don’t seems to apply
Schon D 1987. Educating the reflective
practitioners.
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Process of Reflection
Getting Started: Methods of reflection
• For both instructors and consultants, the
process of reflection (both reflection-in-action
and meta-reflection) can be strengthened with
conscious, deliberate attention to the method of
observation. Observation focuses on concrete,
observable phenomena that are specific rather
than general, drawing from sensory
experience. Observations focus on what actions
and behavior people do rather than on who
they are.
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Process of Reflection
• When written down, observations rely upon
descriptive, concrete language rather than
evaluative, abstract language. Ideally,
observations include not only single instances
of a particular action or behavior but patterns
and repetitions.
• Along with observations, another method of
reflection is interpretation. Interpretation
focuses on the meaning and significance of
what is being observed. Thus, interpretations
are grounded in observable phenomena.
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Process of Reflection
• Reflective practice requires that instructional
consultants make this connection clear rather
than hidden. For instance, instead of simply
offering an interpretation of a behavior (“You
were frustrated”), a reviewer would include
observations of actions or behaviors that led to
that interpretation (“You shake your head
several times, paced back and forth, and then
got very quiet when students did not stop
talking.”)
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Reflective Learning
• Reflective learning is the process of
internally examining and exploring an issue
of concern, prompt by an experience, which
creates and clarifies meaning in terms of
self, and which results in a changed
conceptual perspective. We suggest that this
process is central to understanding the
experiential learning process.
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Analyze the role of critical thinking
in reflective practice. cont…
Role of Reflective Practice?
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Improving your teaching practice
Learning from reflective practice
Enhancing problem solving skills
Becoming a critical thinker
Making Decisions
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Analyze the role of critical thinking
in reflective practice.
•
•
•
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Improving your own organizational skills
Managing personal change
Acknowledging personal values
Taking your own advice
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Improving your teaching practice
• If you take the time to reflect on your
teaching, and reflect on how different parts
of what you do work well, where aspects of
your teaching can be improved, and how
problems which arise could be solved, that
is bound to help you to improve your
teaching.
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Learning from reflective practice
• There is a good range of evidence that
purposeful reflection helps ‘deep’ learning
take place, and for you as a teacher, it will
help you to make connections between
different aspects of your teaching and what
goes on around your teaching. Reflective
practice will help you gain new learning and
use it in your teaching.
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Enhancing problem solving skills
• When starting off with reflecting on your
teaching you may tend to concentrate on
problems which arise. By carefully and
honestly considering and analyzing those
problems, you will improve your own
capacity to find solutions.
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Becoming a critical thinker
• Critical thinking is about ‘thinking well’,
and ‘taking charge’ of your own thinking
(Elder and Paul, 1994), and reflective
practice will help you recognize and adjust
what you think to take account of changes
in circumstances, and by doing that help
you to be better equipped to find solutions
which work.
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Making Decisions
• As you reflect on your practice, you will find
you need to make decisions about what to do
(or not to do) next. You may well have a
number of choices which you have to weigh up,
and deciding which one to take can be difficult.
If you regularly reflect on your teaching in
depth, you are regularly going to come across
the need to make decisions, but the results of
your reflective practice will help you to make
those decisions in a more informed, thoughtful
and objective manner.
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Improving your own organizational
skills
• You will notice as this section progresses that
the benefits of reflective practice can reaching
into every aspect of your professional work as
a teacher. If you are thinking carefully about
what you are doing, identifying possible actions
and choices, trying out solutions, and adjusting
what you do to take account of the results, this
involves a good deal of organization. By
breaking down issues and problems into steps
or stages, you will get better at organizing your
time and your activity to concentrate on the
important, ‘solution- focused’ actions.
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Managing Personal Change
• Working in education involves managing regular,
rapid, and often confusing change, which can be
one of the most difficult aspects of being a teacher.
If you are using the techniques of reflective
practice, which involves, calm, thoughtful, honest,
critical and organized thinking and action, this
should introduce a calming and less emotional
response to that change. As reflective practice is
itself focused on seeking positive improvements
and solutions, managing change more effectively
should take place.
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Acknowledging Personal Values
• There will be things which take place within
your professional situation as a teacher which
you will whole heartedly agree with, and others
which will worry or alarm you. This is because
they may agree or disagree with your own
personal values such as what you believe in,
and what you think is wrong or right. How
these are affected by teaching will vary, but
you will almost certainly come across major
clashes of values as part of your work.
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Acknowledging personal values
• Reflective practice is an excellent way of
acknowledging and recognizing that those
values exist and have an effect, but which
concentrates on helping you to choose
approaches and actions which can help you
to resolve those clashes without it adversely
affecting the professional balance of your
work as a teacher.
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Taking your own advice
• Teachers are often more critical of their own
teaching than anyone else, and it could be
possible for this to develop into an attitude
about teaching which is negative and
destructive. The techniques and approaches
of reflective practice will place you in a
position where you are an informed, positive
agent in your own development and
improvement and one where you can ‘take
your own advice’ with a confidence that it is
reflective, focused and informed advice.
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Recognizing emancipator benefits
• If you reflect on the nine benefits of reflective
practice which have so far been described, you
will clearly see that this is a model of practice
which represents the teacher as someone with
influence over their own teaching and their
own destiny as a teacher. This is what is at the
heart of reflective practice, and as such it
should help considerably to free you from some
of the burdens which can weigh teachers down,
and refresh your confidence and your teaching.
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Role of Critical Thinking
1.Improved attention and observation.
2. Knowledge of how to get your own point
across more easily.
3. Skills of analysis that you can choose to
apply in a variety of situations.
4. Higher test score on class and
standardized tests.
5. Improved student understanding of their
own thought process.
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Role of Critical Thinking
6. Improved student ability to transfer
learned content skills to new applications.
7. Skilled decision making and problem
solving.
8. Intelligent choices in human
relationships.
9. Skilled public and personal choices.
10. How to write different level questions in
three areas; Knowledge, Comprehension
and Application
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Any Question
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Thank you
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