A strategy of critical thinking is simply a “means” to encourage or facilitate the cognitive act of thought in a critical way.
Critical thinking is the continuous application of an analysis, an analysis, an interpretation, a contextualization and a synthesis and synthesis of multiple sources of data and cognitive perspectives.
What are the 7 critical thinking strategies? Someone sent me an email recently by asking this question and I immediately wondered how much more than seven. 27? 77?
Infinity?
This is an article that should be updated over time because defining, clarifying, offering advice and examples of each would be a short book.
But I created a graphic and listed several dozen to start below (60 for now). I also started to add reflection for everyone but, as I mentioned, it will take time because it is such an ambitious list (a bit like the Types of questions Post that I recently made.) So, with the list.
1. Analyze
One of the most fundamental critical thinking strategies is “analysis”: identifying the parties and seeing the relationships between these parties and how they contribute to the whole.
2. Interpret
Explain the meaning or meaning of a “thing” in specific content or to a specific audience. Similar to “translate” but (generally) with more cognitive demand.
3. Infer
Draw a reasonable conclusion according to the best data available. This critical thinking strategy is useful almost everywhere – from reading to reading a game to solve a problem in the real world.
4. Use the Heick Domains of Cognition Taxonomy
In fact, many of these strategies are integrated into taxonomy.
5. separate cause and effect
And the concept will map it – and perhaps even consider the causes prior to the most immediate causes and predict possible future effects. For example, if you are considering an effect (for example, pollution), you might see a cause being a new industrial factory built near a river or runoff. But you could also consider what allowed or “caused” this factory to build – a change of zoning or a tax relief given by the local government, for example.
6. Prioritize
Priority is an executive neurological function which requires knowledge to then apply critical thinking towards or on.
7. Deconstructure
And tell or annotate deconstruction. Deconstruct a skyscraper or a cultural movement or a school or an application. It is somewhere between analysis and reverse engineering.
8.
9. Write
Writing (good) is one of the most demanding things. It is also a wonderful strategy to promote critical thinking – a kind of vehicle to help it develop. Admittedly, we can write without thinking in a critical way or thinking critically without writing but when they work together – in the form of a reflection journal, for example – the effects can be convincing.
10. Reflect
Observing and thinking is a basic model for thought itself. The nature of reflection, of course, determines if it is actually a strategy of critical thinking, but it is certainly an addition worthy of this list.
11. separate the subjective from the lens
And make opinion.
12. Be vigilant in the distinction of beliefs and facts or truths
Be able to think in a critical way requires
Dewey has described critical thinking as a “reflective thought” (see # 10) – “active, persistent and attentive consideration of any belief or form of knowledge supposedly in the light of the reasons that support it, and the additional conclusions to which it tends.” (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9) It is clear that in order to be able to do it in a coherent way, it is necessary to separate beliefs (which are personal and fluid) and knowledge (which is more universal and less fluid – although the depth and nature of knowledge and understanding can change with time).
13. Link and connect
This is somewhere between the analysis and mapping of the concept, but see the relationship between things – ideas, trends, opportunities, problems – not only useful as a strategy, but this is how the brain learns: by establishing links.
14. Use a formal and informal survey
15. Use 5 WS
A flexible strategy for investigation and thought, 5 WS provides a kind of starting point for continuous thought: who, what, where, why and when.
16. Use spiral thinking
17. Conceptual card
18. Illustrate what is known, currently unknown and unknown
This is a partly analysis, partly epistemology.
19. Use Bloom taxonomy
20. Apply enlightened skepticism
21. Use the question and declaration stems
22. Explore the story of an idea, a position, a social norm, etc.
Change especially over time.
23. Debate
24. Analyze from several perspectives
25. Transfer
26. Patience
27. Adopt the right mindset
28. Humility
29.
30. Study relations
Between beliefs, observations and facts, for example.
31. See “Truth” in degrees / non -binary
32. Improve something
33. Curiosity
Similar to the investigation, but more a cause of investigation than a strategy itself.
34. Creativity
35. Explore the nature of thought and belief
This opens the way to a long -term critical thinking.
36. separate people from their ideas
It is not necessarily a pure critical thinking strategy, but it can reduce biases and encourage rationality and objective analysis.
37. Make abstract concrete or something abstract concrete
38. Defain something
39. Predict and defend
40. Form a question, then improve this question before collecting information
41. Revise a question after information / observation
42. Criticize something
43. Observe something
Although it is not really “critical thinking”, critical thinking rarely occurs without it. It is one (many) fuel for “higher order” thinking.
44. Revise something
45. Transfer a lesson or a philosophical position from one situation to another
A nature lesson in the design of a tool or a solution to a problem.
46. Compare and contrast two or more things
47. Test the validity of a model
Or even create a basic mathematical model to predict something – traffic jams, real probabilities, etc.
48. Create an analogy
This highlights relationships, rules and effects.
49. Adapt something to something new
A new function or an audience or an application, for example.
50. Identify the underlying hypotheses
51. Analyze the role of social norms on “truth”
Or even the nature of the “truth” itself.
52. Narrow a sequence
53. Identify the first truths or principles
A first principle is a proposition that cannot be deducted from another proposal (or hypothesis) and can therefore be considered “the first” or the most fundamental.
54. Hold on a reflection journal
55. Identify and explain a model
56. Study the relationship between the text and the subtext
Or explicit and implicit ideas.
57. Elegantly impose the nuance of something
58. Identify cognitive biases and dead angles
59. Use learning based on a model
I will soon provide a model, but I have been using it with students for years.
60. Take and defend a job
Similar to the debate, but it can be unilateral, in writing, on a podcast, or even the mappas of concept. It is a simple strategy: specify a “position” and defend them with the best possible data and impartial thought
60 Critical thinking strategies for learning
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