Critical Thinking Knowledge SkillS

1. Critical Thinking Knowledge Skills To be a professional of any kind in the next 20 years, or even an enlightened citizen, will require a complicated set of thinking skills, more than reading and writing. The world isn’t filtered as it once was. Kids are thinking. What we’re trying to do is have them do it well. Peter Scharf, Professor of Social Ecology

2. Critical thinkers are intellectually curious

3. Critical thinkers are open-minded

4. Critical thinkers avoid “Red Herrings” Topic A is under discussion Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A = Topic A is abandoned.

5. Critical thinkers know how to use anecdotes (stories) effectively

6. Critical thinkers know how to handle confusion

7. Critical thinkers are able to control emotion

8. Critical thinkers are sensitive to the needs of others

9. Critical thinkers can distinguish between a conclusion that might be “true” and one that they would like to be “true”

10. Critical thinkers can admit to not knowing something

11. Critical thinkers seek a “dialogical” approach to the process of argument

12. Communication Critical Thinking By Jack Sterk and Jim Marteney

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