Final Essay/ Hum/111
Personal Reflection
HUM/111
Personal Reflection
Before taking this class, I had grown as a person over the years to the type of person who had started using my critical thinking skills. After taking this class, I will say I still had much to learn. I will continue to practice what I have learned so that I may apply my critical thinking skills in all my future endeavors. To say I have improved my overall thinking could not cover what I have learned. I have learned to look at everything I read, hear, and see differently. I examine it for opinions, facts, bias, or possible fallacies. I learned that egocentric defensiveness limits my ability to be a creative and critical thinker and I have to prepare myself by controlling my thoughts and emotions so that I am in charge of how I think. My thinking changed on how to express issues and problems through the course and how to distinguish when an issue became a problem, and to refine solutions to a problem or an issue. This was possibly my hardest chapter, as I look back but glad that it was there. I learned that assumptions could play a critical role in the thinking process. My favorite line in our reading is from Ruggiero (2012),”what you take for granted you will not examine closely.”
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and evaluate our thoughts to improve them. When we become disciplined and self-guided in our thinking then take our way of thinking to a higher level that is critical thinking (Elder, 2009). Having to pick just three things I feel is significant that I learned from this class was hard as I learned so much. The first thing I made a post-it-note and stuck to my desk was from overcoming bad habits. I learned about throbbing in that chapter but Ruggiero (2012) stated, “develop the habit of thinking about your thinking.” That was something that made me stop and think and continues to do so. The next thing I learned that was significant was to be a critical reader. I have been an avid reader my
HUM/111
Personal Reflection
Before taking this class, I had grown as a person over the years to the type of person who had started using my critical thinking skills. After taking this class, I will say I still had much to learn. I will continue to practice what I have learned so that I may apply my critical thinking skills in all my future endeavors. To say I have improved my overall thinking could not cover what I have learned. I have learned to look at everything I read, hear, and see differently. I examine it for opinions, facts, bias, or possible fallacies. I learned that egocentric defensiveness limits my ability to be a creative and critical thinker and I have to prepare myself by controlling my thoughts and emotions so that I am in charge of how I think. My thinking changed on how to express issues and problems through the course and how to distinguish when an issue became a problem, and to refine solutions to a problem or an issue. This was possibly my hardest chapter, as I look back but glad that it was there. I learned that assumptions could play a critical role in the thinking process. My favorite line in our reading is from Ruggiero (2012),”what you take for granted you will not examine closely.”
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and evaluate our thoughts to improve them. When we become disciplined and self-guided in our thinking then take our way of thinking to a higher level that is critical thinking (Elder, 2009). Having to pick just three things I feel is significant that I learned from this class was hard as I learned so much. The first thing I made a post-it-note and stuck to my desk was from overcoming bad habits. I learned about throbbing in that chapter but Ruggiero (2012) stated, “develop the habit of thinking about your thinking.” That was something that made me stop and think and continues to do so. The next thing I learned that was significant was to be a critical reader. I have been an avid reader my
References: Elder, L. (3/12/2009). Are you a critical thinker? Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 101(Issue 73), p9-9, 3/5p. Elder, L., & Paul, R. (1996). CRITICAL THINKING: A STAGE THEORY OF CRITICAL THINKING: PART II. Journal of Developmental Education, Vol. 20(Issue 2), p34, 2p. Ruggiero, V. (2012). The art of thinking: A guide to critical and creative thought (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Longman.