Self Reflection 2 - Creative & Critical Thinking

Topic 2 : Creative & Critical Thinking

First and foremost, thinking skills are involving the activities that occurs in the mental part where we as a human use it to process information, make connections, make decisions, and create new ideas. There is many types of thinking skills such as critical thinking and creative thinking. As we know, brain is the major organ that involved in the process of thinking. Brain is the one of our body organ that is placed inside our head, it controls our action, memory and feeling. Thinking skills are used during problem solving, decision making, when questioning something, making plans and when we want to organize data or information. So, everyone has thinking skills but did they use it wisely? Did they think affectively?

Good thinkers are people who have the ability to detect and analyze the problems that is taken place in complex stuations, and make an established evaluations. Next, good thinking skills is when you can develop and apply the ideas in the form of any discussions which other people too. The ability of someone to think critically and creatively is one of the components that included in thinking skills. Thinking enables us to to connect and combine all the new experiences into our existing understanding and thoughts of how something are.

Critical thinking is the use of cognitive skills or methods that increase the likelihood of a desired result (Halpern, 1999). Critical thinking is purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed. It is the kind of thinking involved insolving problems, formulating inferences, calculating likelihoods, and making decisions. Critical thinkers make appropriate use of these skills in a variety of settings, without guidance, and usually with conscious intent. Critical thinking is seen as skills for higher order thinking skills, such as observation, interpretation, and problem solving, deduction, and evaluation. That is, they're predisposed for critical thinking. Why students need to think critically?

It is because in the classroom, students who can critically think about something, they can easily understand the materials and informations that they are studying. Students also might be able to evaluate what we are learning in the class if we had critical thinking. Others benefits of critical thinking is that one can develop their own arguments on a particular issues easily. Basically, critical thinking helps us to avoid making some foolish decisions if we faced some problems in certain situations.

To be a critical thinker, it is not easy beacause it takes time by developing some skills that are required to become someone who thinks critically. Firstly, we need to ask something in order to think obviously it is because there is saying that said a person who asks questions is a person who thinks. Critical thinking starts when we question something that beyond and over from what we have given and get. It is like urge to know something with more details like how something can take place in some stuations, the causes and factors that make it happens and so on. And you also want to know what other possibilities that will happen if something is changed or remain the same.

Furthermore, I have learned that the characteristics that we can see in critical thinker is that they are open minded mostly. It is important to be open minded person because it gives us the opportunities to learn something new from other people by listening to their thoughts and opinion. Critical thinker usually studies the whole situation, which means they tend to look into the bigger views at first. By observing the overall situations, they can identify the main problem at first easily and then focus on finding the methods to solve it. In other words, people who think critically will try to look for a variety of choices that they can choose to be apply on the problems solving by choosing the most suitable ways. And the sources of their ideas is really important from where they search and find about. It must be come from any realistic and credible roots.

In addition, questioning something also need to be with a good ways. Okay so how to ask a question to someone? First step is we need to listen and observe everything around us. People should learn how to listen carefully and try to understand the topic or messages that are spoken up. With all the data and information that we can gain from the listening, it is important to gather up everything that can be use as the evidences. Next, planning and preparation for us to draft the question that we want to ask. It is better to start asking the first question with something simple and easy for them to answer honestly. Then, when you are in the situation to ask question to someone. You should respect them by asking them with an appropriate manner. Never increase your voices in front of them. We should make sure that they is fully aware of what we actually thinking in the situation and along the reasons why we think it like that. For example, we should tell the who are we and the purpose of asking them to answer some questions either it is for research or study.

For students, it is not complete to be a critical thinker only. So it needs to be balanced by having both critical and creativity thinking in order to be successful in university. Creativity is a mental and social process that involved the finding of new ideas or concepts. In a more simpler words, creative thinking is about how you think of something differently, unconventionally and it comes from a new perceptive. How does it feel like some people are always able to generate new ideas and think creatively, while others seem to be unable to do so? The answer depends on the ability for us to use creative thinking. There is many characteristics of that describes about creative person. As we know, to be creative people, it requires a lot of efforts. It is because people usually will use their creative thinking skills for a certain situation only and when it is really necessary to apply it. There are a number of tools and techniques to stimulate creative thinking that you can use.

So the first approach to be creative is we need to be fluency, which means that the ability to obtain a lot ideas as many as possible. Students should be flexible whenever they involved with something. It means that they have to use alternative ways, different viewpoints or thoughts in order to approach something. Next, to be someone who thinks creatively, we should be curious in a lot of things. Curiosity will encourage a person to think and wonder, show interest in learning things, to keep it up with intuition, to ask question and to discover problems and knowledge. Moreover, be a risk taker. Risk taking is when people have the courage and brave enough to speak up of their ideas, to take a chance and guess, being exposed to criticsm or failure and being prepared physically and mentally to prove something that is right or defend any ideas. The biggest risk not taking any risk at all. And for the last part, imagination played an important role in order to achieve creativity in thinking skills. It necessitates putting oneself in other’s shoes. We try to produce mental images and feeling intuitively in another place or time. This way can help us student to be a creative thinker after all.

In conclusion, both thinking have their own benefits and advantages to us. Critical thinking help us to make reasonable and intelligent decisions towards what we have to trust and obviously what are going to do. Creative people really have a lot of different characteristics, for me they are unique. Creativity is intelligence having fun. Fun fact; creative people can be from introverted and extroverted people. Thank you.

References

BASADUR, M., RUNCO, M., & VEGAxy, L. (2000). Understanding How Creative Thinking Skills, Attitudes and Behaviors Work Together: A Causal Process Model. The Journal Of Creative Behavior, 34(2), 77-100. doi: 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2000.tb01203.x

Halpern, D. (1999). Teaching for Critical Thinking: Helping College Students Develop the Skills and Dispositions of a Critical Thinker. New Directions For Teaching And Learning, 1999(80), 69-74. doi: 10.1002/tl.8005