Assignment on:

Food for thought to enhance critical thinking

Submitted to:
Sir Sayed Wajahat Hussain

Submitted by:
Fahad Sattar

Roll No:
06

Class:
BBA (HONS) 4th R(1)

Date:
07-01-2013

Food for thought to enhance critical thinking

Food for thought:
Anything that provides mental stimulus for thinking is called food for thought.
Or something worth thinking about seriously is also called food for thought.
Food for thought increases our thinking ability and helps us to increase our
knowledge about any topic of interest and it make us broad minded so that we can think
about any topic rationally and positively.

Critical thinking:
Good critical thinking is skillful and responsible thinking in which you study
the problem from all angles and then exercise your best judgment to draw conclusions.
It is a way of deciding whether a claim is always true, sometimes true, partly
true, or fall. Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to
reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically
and consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They are keenly
aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked.

Food for thought to enhance critical thinking:

There are somethings which enhances our thinking power and these things
are called food for thought. The things which come under the head of food for thought are
given below.

Activities:
1)

Analyze:

Practice analytical thinking as often as possible. This involves mentally

breaking down a structure and examining its parts. For example, consider a charismatic
person and try to determine how her personality traits compose her overall charm. In
addition, always look for patterns and use them to make predictions. You can find
patterns while watching television shows, reading a book or reflecting on specific
behaviors of people in your life.

2)

Question:

Rather than being a passive listener, learn to question information given to

you. You should especially question statements that involve "never" or "always." For
example, if someone claims, "Humpback whales never feed in the winter," you should
conduct your own research before accepting the statement as a fact. Not only will this
strategy develop critical thinking skills, but it will also prevent you from blindly
following your peers.

3) Discuss:
Work in a group setting and hold discussions with peers. By listening to the
opinions of others, you will learn to explore alternative perspectives and practice
objective thinking. If you follow a certain religion or belong to a political party, open
your ears to people on the other side of the fence.

Methods:
1. Use Wasted Time.
2. A Problem A Day.
3. Internalize Intellectual Standards.
4. Keep An Intellectual Journal.
5. Reshape Your Character.
6. Deal with Your Ego.
7. Redefine the Way You See Things.
8. Get in touch with your emotions.
9. Analyze group influences on your life.

Exercises:
1) Logic Puzzles:
Logic puzzles require deductive reasoning or the process of elimination.
They also increase critical-thinking skills, because you must concentrate on the details of
the puzzle. Sudoku and Sudoku variants, such as Pic-a-Pix are classic and popular logic
puzzles. Sudoku is a logic puzzle that deals with numbers. Pic-a-Pix are picture logic
puzzles.

2) Values:
Practice critical thinking by applying reason to values. According to Open Course
Ware in Critical Thinking, moral claims are statements about right and wrong, good and
bad, or what might or might not be valuable.

3) Practice:
However, merely knowing the principles that distinguish good and bad reasoning
is not enough. We might study in the classroom about how to swim, and learn about the
basic theory, such as the fact that one should not breathe under water. But unless we can
apply such theoretical knowledge through constant practice, we might not actually be
able to swim.
Similarly, to be good at critical thinking skills it is necessary to internalize the
theoretical principles so that we can actually apply them in daily life. There are at least
two ways one is to do lots of good-quality exercises. Exercises include not just exercises
in classrooms and tutorials. They also include exercises in the form of discussion and
debates with other people in our daily life. The other method is to think more deeply
about the principles that we have acquired. In the human mind, memory and
understanding are acquired through making connections between ideas.

4) Attitudes:
Good critical thinking skills require not just knowledge and practice. Persistent
practice can bring about improvements only if one has the right kind of motivation and
attitude. The following attitudes are not uncommon, but they will not help you improve
your thinking.

5) Socratic Thinking:
The Socratic Method considers disciplined questions or inquiries that trigger
critical thought to answer. Challenge yourself by pondering complex issues or
hypothetical problems. Many exercises in the Socratic Method can be based on current
events, politics and religion. When examining these topics, analyze the concepts,
differentiate between opinion and fact, and propose solutions. For additional mental
exercise, reapply the Socratic Method to your solutions and test their validity.