Question

Early on, you were asked to write an explanation as to why you believe developing critical thinking and logic skills is important. How would you say your critical thinking or logic skills have changed by the end of this course? What do you think was the most valuable lesson from this quarter? Why?

Answer 1

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. Critical thinking skills has helped me to be able to do the following :

• Understand the logical connections between ideas
• Identify, construct and evaluate arguments
• Detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning
• Solve problems systematically
• Identify the relevance and importance of ideas
• Reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values

Critical thinking is not a matter of accumulating information. A person with a good memory and who knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. A critical thinker is able to deduce consequences from what he knows, and he knows how to make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform himself.

Logical thinking is the process in which one uses reasoning consistently to come to a conclusion. Problems or situations that involve logical thinking call for structure, for relationships between facts, and for chains of reasoning that “make sense.”

Logical thinking has encourage learners to think for themselves, to question hypotheses, to develop alternative hypotheses, and to test those hypotheses against known facts.

The most valuable lesson learnt is aside from food, water, and shelter, the one thing that a person will most need in life is an education. Of those four necessities, education is the only one that can help ensure a person’s consistent ability to provide himself or herself with the other three. Unfortunately, the importance of logical thinking skills is underestimated in education, and training in logical thinking skills is therefore grossly neglected.