Critical and Creative Thinking

Task 2

Tasks proposed by Stella Cottrell (2005) in her paper "What is critical thinking?"

For me, the emotions that are most difficult to manage when others disagree with me are:

Anxiety and frustration.

I deal with these by: relaxing and taking deep breath in order to calm down, because I have to be conscious that every person has a different point of view and way of thinking.

For me, the influences on my own thinking that I need to be most aware of  so they don't prejudice my thinking are:

Conformism and criteria.

I will deal with this by: accepting myself as something imperfect with prejudice as everybody else. Also, I'm always try to look for new information and knowledge, because I think that in this way I will grow wisely. 

For me, the things I find most difficult about challenging the opinions of other people are:

Religion ideologies and political ssues.

I deal with these by: listening respectfully to people's ideas and arguments. Also, If I want to have a constructive discussion I should have known a previous knowledge or information to have something to support my ideas against those specific topics. 

Do you recognise anything of yourself in Bodner's description of students?

Yes, I do. I recognise that I am a lazy student because sometimes I give for granted that those "expert" that make research in their fields has the only "true" answer" for those investigation. So, as student I have not curiosity in knowing or doing something from those investigations. 

What effect would the approach he suggests have on your learning and understanding?

in a positive way, I feel that everyone have to make a critical and detail study of others people works, because we use to give everything for granted. In a negative way, it show to us that people are lazy in order to know or investigate things that are relevant for ourself. 

Task 3

Stephen Brookfield 's summary on creative and critical thinking. 

Critical thinking is a process by which people became aware of the assumptions which frame the way people think. Also, the person who thinks creatively is capable of view ideas from multiple points of view. It means that the person is able to go beyond normal thoughts and make used of his imaginaton in order to get out of his comfort mental zone. Furthermore, this help people to do not give everything for granted. So, in this way it increase peoples' curiosity towards things that are in their context. 

According to this, students should be capable to know the classification of assumptions. In this way, they are going to improve their perception when reading between lines or have a critical thinking towards a specific topic.