Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking is the ability to analyse and evaluate the world in order to form judgements, develop ideas and think for yourself.

Everyone has critical thinking abilities and it is a super important skill that means you can think in new ways and think independently.

Critical thinkers see issues from all sides and take in new evidence in an open-minded way, not holding on too tightly to what they already believe.

So what is Critical Thinking?

How will you ask better questions?

Problem-solving is part of critical thinking and we can use problems and riddles to train our critical thinking brains.

Using Brain Teasers to Build Critical Thinking Skills

Keep those tips in mind.

Can you solve this egg drop riddle?

If you liked that, there’s a link to more at the end of the mission.

But critical thinking is much more than just problem-solving.

5 tips to improve your critical thinking

Some of the habits of a good critical thinker are:

– Asking questions, particularly ‘why?’

– Trying to see things from different angles

– Gathering different ideas before making decisions

– Being open to changing your mind with new information

Critical thinking is something you can practice, and the next part of the mission is about practising seeing the world with a critical eye…

Step 1: Have a look around. What do you see in your home, in your street, in your local area, that might mean different things to different people. Try and spot as many things as possible.

For example, cars. To some people they are simply useful and necessary, for others they are a serious problem because of their environmental impact; and for some people cars are a really important part of their lives.

Step 2: Take a photo of 3 things that people might see differently.

By recognising the different ways people see things you are already training your critical thinking.

But its not just ‘things’ that people see differently, its people, places and ideas too.

Step 3: Take a moment to think of a time where you believed something that you later changed your mind about.

Maybe you made an assumption about something when you were younger that later turned out not to be true. Or you learned more and more facts about an issue and were persuaded to change you mind.

We all do this. And its a good sign that we are using are critical thinking and open-minded to change our opinions.

Step 4: Write down the thing that you changed your mind about.

Step 5: Using what you’ve learnt from this mission, write down 3 things that you could have done differently.

Be as specific as you can. For instance, instead of writing ‘ask questions’, write, ‘I could have asked my friend where they got that information from or ‘WHY’ they think what they think.

Go!