THIRD TASK

Stephen Brookfield on Creative & Critical Thinking

It is really important to help students to develop or improve their critical and creative thinking being that they need to have the ability to question others' assumption and their own, also they need to create new ideas or positions about a certain topic.

what is critical thinking?  Professor Brookfield always explains critical thinking as a process by which a person becomes aware of the assumptions that frame the way they think and they make sure that they are accurate, finally we need to prepare to take informed action.

Also, he said that someone who thinks creatively is able to:1. View ideas and practices from many points and do not think in the same way as they always do it. So,  they can generate interpretations, perspectives, and responses that are different. 2.  Communicate in different ways.

I think it is necessary to think in a critical way since we need to know how to respond to others´opinions or perspectives. Even, we have to know how to give our opinions or arguments with good and strong reasons.

Professor  Brookfield also spoke about what a critically and creatively informed action is: 
One based on evidence or experience that can be justified.
One that has its assumptions known and checked.
One that stands a chance of achieving its intended consequence that has been viewed from multiple perspectives.

Later, he explained the kinds of Assumptions which are :
1. causal: to explain a sequence of events 
2. prescriptive: to know how things should happen
3. paradigmatic: a kind of common sense taking from granted

For me, a good part of the lecture was when the professor Brookfield explained the four key intellectual traditions because I think we need to know these in order to start to develop our critical thinking skills. these intellectual traditions are:
1. Analytic Philosophy: logical fallacies, argument analysis, inductive, deductive, analogical, inferential reasoning

2. Natural Science: hypothetical/deductive method, a principle of falsifiability.

3. Critical Theory: uncovering power dynamics and ideological manipulation

4. Pragmatism: an experimental and creative pursuit of beautiful consequences. For example democracy, inclusion, connection. 

Although these four key intellectual traditions are relevant to our process of critical thinking.  In our course, critical thinking, the professor Insuasty told us that we are going to work with the critical theory and analytic philosophy.

Finally, the professor Brookfield gave some techniques that teachers can use to encourage students to develop their critical thinking skills. These techniques were: giving appropriate material to students related to their own context, encouraging students to speak and to give their opinions, and sending materials to your students in order for them to be prepared.

SECOND TASK

REFLECTION TASK 1: Emotional Self-management 

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

   

   Frustration: I feel really frustrated when people always

                        want that others respect their ideas but when I said something or I try to give my opinions. they always disagree with what I said and many times, I have a good reason or idea but at the end, I experience this emotion because I feel that I am not able to give my own ideas and convince others.

             

Irritation: It happens to me a lot because there are many people who disagree with me every moment they can do it. sometimes they do not have any arguments to say that the ideas I have are not correct  

Impatience: It is one of the most difficult emotions for me because I feel really impatient when people are always complaining about what I said or trying to make my arguments worth nothing.

For me, it is difficult to deal with these emotions or feelings but I try to do it through some techniques such as recognizing that I feel the certain emotion, then I meditate, I try to talk to myself to keep calm and finally I reflect about what happened.

REFLECTION TASK 2: Influences On My 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:

Other people's opinions: I sometimes change my way of thinking because of other people's opinions differ from my opinion and I feel that what I think is not correct or that my arguments or opinions are so poor.

Past experiences: when I am going to make a decision or to give an argument, I often related them to my past experiences and my thoughts are conditioned to these experiences.

I will deal with these by: first, I don't have to permit that my ideas or opinions will be devalued, not letting that others' opinion influence that much in myself.

REFLECTION TASK 3: Challenging Opinions

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

Giving stronger arguments than them: I think that if a person talks or give their opinion about a certain topic is because they have enough knowledge about it and they are always going to defend their point. So, the difficult part is when you are going to contrast their ideas.

people's reactions: Most of the people do not like that other contradicts their ideas, so their attitudes are not really good at the moment.

I deal with these by reading about different topics to have an amount of knowledge to provide better arguments. Also, I need to learn how to challenge others' opinions and not to be rude.

REFLECTION TASK 4

1. Do you recognize anything of yourself in Bodner's descriptions of students? 

Answer:  yes, the part in which Bodner talks about the necessity of developing the ability to critically evaluate the work of others. I think I need to develop it since many times  I do not pay attention if the evidence that people show really support the main point.

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

Answer: It can work a lot being that if we develop critical thinking. we can be aware of the importance of each one of the subjects in which we are going to go deeper to get a lot of knowledge about it in order to improve our learning and obviously the understanding of some issues.

RELECTION TASK 5

Consider what you could do to manage these barriers in the next few months?

Answer: I could  do several things to manage these barriers  such as:

1. paying attention to all the details and focus on a certain topic.

2.understanding that the critics could negative but also positive.

3. do not believe that our reason or ideas are the best.

4. knowing how to control the emotions.

5. Trying to use different strategies to improve my critical skills.