Chapter 10: Become A Critical Creative Problem Solver THink

Chapter 10: Become A Critical Thinker & Creative Problem Solver

Math & Science Application

Thank you!

• Critical thinking an creating problem solving are essential to success in math, science, and computer science.
• Studying math and science develops everyday skills like interpreting interest rates on credit cards, calculating your tuition, managing your finance, and computing your GPA.
• The basic problem solving strategies also apply to math and science.
• An example to this would be making a model or a diagram, this could help you organize information and could help your visual problem situation.
• Draw and illustrate, make tables, charts, and list. Doing this will help you look for patterns.
• Overcome math and science anxiety thinking your material is hard before seeing it makes it more difficult to learn.
• Anxiety is a learned emotional response you were not born with it.
• Studying in goups is better because two heads are better then one.
• You have to become optimistic about what you are learning.

Creative Problem Solving

Creativity is thinking of something differently and using new approaches to solve problems. Many inventions have involved a break from traditional thinking and resulted "aha!" experience. Use creativity to explore alternatives, look for relationships among different items, and develop imaginative ideas and solutions. Try the following strategies to unlock your mind's natural creativity:

5. Change Mindsets. It is difficult to see another frame of reference once your mind is set. There is enormous power in shifting your perception and gaining new ways of seeing things, events, and people. You are conditioned to see certain things, depending on your beliefs and attitudes. Rather than seeing facts, you may see your interpretation of reality, Perceptual distortion can influence how you solve problems and make decisions.

6. Change Your Routine. Try a different route to work or school, Read different kinds of books. Occasionally break away from your daily routine, and take time every day to relax, daydream, and renew your energy.

7. Use Both Sides Of The Brain. You use the logical, analytical side of your brain for certain activities and your imaginative and multidimensional side for others. When you develop and integrate both sides of your brain, you become more imaginative, creative and productive.

1. Expect To Be Creative. Use Affirmations that reinforce your innate creativity:

• I am a creative and resourceful person.
• I have many imaginative and unusual ideas.
• Creative ideas flow to me many times a day.
• I act on many of theses ideas.
• I act responsibly, use critical thinking, check details carefully, and take calculated risks.

2. Challenge The Rules. Habit often restricts you from trying new approaches to problem solving. Often, there is more than on solution. List many alternatives, and imagine the likely consequences of each. How often have you told yourself you must follow certain rules and perform tasks a certain way? If you want to be creative, try new approaches, look at things in a new order, break the pattern, and challenge the rules

3. Use Games, Puzzles, & Humor. Rethinking an assignment as a puzzle, challenge, or game instead of a difficult problem opens your mind and encourages your creative side. Creative people often get fresh ideas while having fun engaging in an unrelated activity.

4. Brainstorm. Brainstorming is a common strategy for freeing the imagination. You can brainstorm alone, but a group may be more effective for generating as many ideas as possible. Brainstorming encourages the mind to explore without judging the merit of new ideas.

8. Acknowledge Your Style. Your personality type or learning style may coincide with the way your approach problem solving. If you tend to be a judger, for example, your thinking style may be to tackle problems quickly, looking for objective facts and precedents to support your decision. In contrast to a perceiver, you may not consider the "human toll" or circumstances that could take the decision in another direction. To think out of the box, recognize how you normally think and respond to problems, assess if your style clouds or limits your thinking, and determine how to expand your abilities.

9. Keep A Journal. Keep a journal of creative ideas, dreams, and thoughts, and make a commitment to complete journal entries daily. Write in your journal about risks you take and what you have learned from the experience.

10. Evaluate. Go through each step and examine your work. Look at what you know and don't know, examine your hypothesis.

11. Support, Acknowledge, & Reward Creativity. Get excited about new ideas and approaches, and acknowledge and reward yourself and others for creative ideas. Get involved with projects that encourage you to explore and be creative.

12. Allow Failure. If you don't fail occasionally, you are not risking anything. Mistakes are stepping-stones to growth and creativity. Fear of failure undermines the creative process by forcing us to play it safe. Eliminate the fear and shame of failure experienced in earlier years, and learn to admit mistakes. Creative people aren't afraid to look foolish at times, to generate unusual ideas, and to be nonconformists. They don't take themselves too seriously. They have courage to explore new ways of thinking and risk looking different, foolish, impractical, and even wrong.

13. Practice & Be Persistent. Problem solving requires discipline and focused effort. Learning any new skills takes time, practice and patience.

Common Errors In Judgement

• Stereotypes are judgements and over generalizations held by a person or a group about members of another group. For example, "All instructors are absent-minded intellectuals." Learn to see individual difference between people and situations.
• Snap Judgements are decisions made before all necessary information or facts are gathered.Too often, people attempt to solve a problem before it is even determined exactly what the problem is.
• Unwarranted Assumptions are beliefs and ideas that are taken for granted. For example, your business instructor allows papers to be turned in late, so you assume that your real estate instructor will allow the same.
• Projection is the tendency to attribute to others some of our own traits in an attempt to justify our own faulty judgements or actions. For example, Jack might perceive that others are behaving in a certain way in order to justify his behavior: "I cheat because everyone else is cheating."
• The halo effect is the tendency to label a person good at many things based on one or two qualities. For example, Serena sits in the front row, attends every class, and gets good grades on papers. Based on this observation, you decide that she is smart, organized and nice and is a great student in all her classes. First impressions are important in halo effect and are difficult to change.
• Sweeping Generalization are based on one experience and generalized to a whole group. For example, if research has been conducted using college students as subjects, you can not generalize the results to the overall work population.

Critical Thinking & Problem-Solving Strategies

1. Have a Positive Attitude. Our attitude influences the way in how we solve a problem or make a decision. So, it is important a positive attitude when we are dealing with a problem or trying to make a good decision because otherwise it will be harder.

2. Ask Questions. In order to solve a problem efficiently, it is important to have all the knowledge, so we should ask questions about the facts and opinions in order to succeed.

3. Persistence Pays Off. Most of the time we don't solve a problem in our fist effort, so it is important not to give up, find new ways to solve the problem, be persistent and patient.

4. Use Creativity. It is important to always look for new solving a problem if we want to succeed.

5. Pay Attention To Details. It is important to show accuracy and be careful when we are solving a problem, so we should always recheck calculations, look for any mistake or ask questions if we are not sure about something.

6. See All Sides Of the Issue. We should always think critically when we are reading, listening or watching something about a topic because sometimes the person who wrote the article or the person who is giving the information could be showing bias toward the topic.

7. Use Reasoning. We are always making inferences in order to explain or understand events. So, it is always good to check our inferences due they can be just assumptions. Effective problem solvers do not go straight to the conclusion. Also. there are 2 kinds of reasoning:

1. Inductive Reasoning is when we generalize from specific concepts to broad principles.

2. Deductive Reasoning is when we draw a conclusion based on going from the general to specific.

Problem-Solving Steps

• Define & Restate The Problem. What are you trying to find? What is known and unknown? What is the situation or context of the problem? Organize the problem. Restate the problem in your own words. For example, "We want to know a temperature in degrees Celsius instead of degrees Fahrenheit."
• Choose An Appropriate Strategy. Ask yourself what formula or calculation would be helpful. For example, "Since we have a formula that relates Celsius and Fahrenheit temperatures, I'll replace F in the formula with the value given for degrees Fahrenheit."
• Solve The Problem. Find needed and assumed information. Use all the data, conditions, and known factors in the problem. For example the formula you are given is F=1.8C+32. Substitution -22 for F in the equation leads to following solutions:

-22=1.8C+32

-22-32=1.8C

-54=1.8C

-54/1.8=C

-30=C

The answer is -30C

• Study In Groups. Learning does not take place in isolation but, rather, in a supportive environment where anxiety is reduced and each person feels safe to use trial and error methods. Creativity, interaction, and multiple solutions are proposed when you study in groups. You will build confidence as you learn to think out loud, brainstorm creative solutions, and solve problems.

Essential Critical Thinking Skills

Critical Thinking is a logical, rational, systematic thought process necessary for understanding, analyzing, and evaluating information in order to solve a problem. Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues outlined a hierarchy of six critical thinking skills that college requires: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

6. Evaluation. You will be asked to criticize a position, form conclusions and judgements, list advantages and disadvantages of a project or an idea, and devlop and use criteria for evaluating a decision

1. Knowledge. In college you are going to have to memorize list, identify facts, complete objective test, and recognize and recall terms and information.

2. Comprehension. You need to demonstrate that you understand the material.

3. Application. You will be asked to apply what you have learned to a new situation. You can learn application by applying ideas your own life.

4. Analysis. Sometimes you will be asked to break down ideas and relate them to other concepts, answer essay questions, identify assumptions, and analyze values.

5. Synthesis. In college, you will also be asked to integrate ideas, build on other skills, look for interconnections, create and defend positions, improve on an existing idea or design, and develop creative ideas and new perspectives.

To excel in school and make sound decisions in life, you must move beyond simple knowledge and comprehension and be able to apple, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate questions, and problems you are faced with.

By: Paola Escarra

Sabri Perez

Denicson Suarez

Carlos Guzman

Focus on Critical Thinking, Not Assumptions

Problem solving--coming up with possible solutions--and decision making--deciding on the best solution--go hand-in-hand. You have to make decisions to solve a problem; conversely, some problems occur cause of a decision you made. Many events in life do not just happen; they are results of our choices and decisions.