Student Need To Develop Critical Thinking

The large amount of information confuses many people, especially since different sources often contradict each other. This is especially true for students who need to learn how to work with data and interpret it correctly. Critical thinking, which we talk about in today’s material, will help young people not to get confused in the cycle of facts, opinions, assessments and assumptions.

Critical Thinking: What is it and why do students need it?

Critical thinking of students is the ability to soberly evaluate information and not trust everything read, seen or heard. This skill is an important tool that helps us not to become a victim of manipulation and to see the real picture of the surrounding reality.

Student Need To Develop
Critical Thinking

Students who know how to think critically never draw conclusions based on only one source: they understand that this is not enough. Modern technologies make it easy to create fakes and spread them quickly, so information needs to be verified. This primarily applies to the media and social networks, but critical thinking is useful in many other cases:  

1. When working with scientific sources. Some books and articles contain outdated data that have been refuted by further research.
2. When participating in educational and scientific events. During a seminar or lecture, it is important to be able to critically perceive what you hear and ask clarifying questions.
3. For further employment. Not all employers behave honestly, and sometimes you can find inconsistencies in the vacancy announcement that will indicate that it is better not to send your resume to this company.

Features of students' critical thinking 

We can say that a student is considered a critical thinker if he can: 

• Find primary sources.
• Analyze facts.
• Build cause-and-effect relationships.
• Consider multiple points of view on a problem.
• Put forward and test hypotheses.
• Formulate logical conclusions.
• Participate in the discussion and argue your opinion. 

How to develop critical thinking in students?

This type of thinking is not an innate skill, so developing critical thinking in students is one of the goals of the educational process in universities. A teacher in any subject can help students acquire and develop this valuable skill; there are special teaching methods for this.

Such methods are implemented according to the principle of TRKM - the technology of critical thinking development - and assume the presence of three mandatory phases: challenge, comprehension, reflection.

Technologies for developing students' critical thinking

The following pedagogical methods for developing students’ critical thinking are considered the most effective:

1. Involving students in discussions. During a collective discussion of an issue, discussion participants learn to select the correct arguments and have the opportunity to compare their point of view with others.
2. Organizing brainstorming sessions. This is a method of collectively generating ideas and testing them for strength. Students put forward different versions of a solution to the same problem, and then analyze each of them and choose the most successful ones.
3. Debate style discussion. Students are divided into two teams and each team is given an opposing thesis. The task of the teams is to find arguments to convince the teacher of the correctness of their thesis. 

If teachers do not organize such activities, students can improve critical thinking on their own. For example: 

• Check the original sources referenced in posts and news. 
• Read publications on the same topic, but from different points of view, and analyze them. 
• Get acquainted with documentaries and popular science programs.