Thinking Skills: Workshop

 Workshop on Thinking Skills
Critical and Creative Thinking

The Department of English, MK Bhavnagar University had a two-day ‘Thinking Skills Workshop’, 13- 14 August 2022 by Prof. Milan Pandya. 

About the Resource Person:

Milan Pandya is a teacher, trainer, and educator in the field of Thinking Skills i.e. Critical, Creative, and Design Thinking, English Language Teaching and Communication Skills. With more than 12 years of teaching experience, Mr Pandya has authored 02 books and presented and published a number of research papers in national and international conferences and journals. Mr. Pandya has BA & MA in English Literature, an M.Phil in English Language Teaching (ELT) & his Ph.D. involves study into Online Teaching, Communicative Competence & Critical Thinking. He currently holds the position of Vice President of Advancement at Critical Thinking Solutions company in Ontario, Canada, and teaches at multiple colleges such as Conestoga and Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada.

Thinking styles include Critical, Creative, Design, Rational, and Scientific thinking. However, the primary focus of this session was critical and creative thinking. I'd like to begin this blog by quoting Prof. Milan Pandya's definition of "Critical Thinking."

 “Thinking about thinking in order to improve thinking.”

Let us go deeper into the understanding of critical and creative thinking.

What is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas.

Critical thinking has been described as “the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” (The Foundation for Critical Thinking) (Scriven and Paul)

In other words, critical thinking is a way of thinking that questions assumptions and looks at evidence in order to make a judgment. It is a tool that we use to weigh up the pros and cons of an issue and to reach a rational conclusion.

Critical thinking is not a new concept. It has been around for centuries. The Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates used critical thinking when he engaged in debates with his fellow citizens about important issues. He would ask questions that challenged their assumptions and forced them to think more deeply about their beliefs. Socrates is credited with being the first to use the Socratic Method, a method of questioning that is still used today in classrooms and workplaces all over the world.

How to Improve Critical Thinking Skills

There are many ways to improve your critical thinking skills. One way is to practice “thinking out loud.” This means verbalizing your thought process as you are trying to solve a problem. This will help you to slow down and think more deeply about the issue.

Another way to improve your critical thinking skills is to read and write more. Reading forces you to think about what you are taking in and to make connections with what you already know. Writing helps you to organize your thoughts and to communicate your ideas clearly.

You can also improve your critical thinking skills by taking courses and attending workshops that are designed to teach critical thinking. These courses will give you the opportunity to practice thinking critically about various issues and to receive feedback from instructors and other students.

Why are Critical Thinking Skills Important?

Critical thinking skills are important because they help you to:

- Understand the world around you

- Make better decisions

- Solve problems more effectively

- Communicate your ideas more clearly

Critical thinking skills are important for success in school and in the workplace. They are also important for citizenship and for life in general.

We live in a world that is full of choices. Critical thinking skills help you to evaluate those choices and to make decisions that are based on logic and evidence. Critical thinking skills are also important for solving problems. If you can think critically about a problem, you will be more likely to find a creative and effective solution.

Finally, critical thinking skills are important for effective communication. If you can think critically about an issue, you will be better able to communicate your ideas to others.

Critical and Creative Thinking: What’s the Difference?

Critical thinking is a type of thinking that questions assumptions and looks for evidence to support or refute an idea. Creative thinking is a type of thinking that generates new ideas or solutions. Both critical and creative thinking are important for success in school and in the workplace. However, they are different types of thinking. Critical thinking is focused on facts and evidence. It is logical and objective.

Creative thinking is focused on generating new ideas. It is more subjective and often takes place outside of the box. Both critical and creative thinking are important for solving problems and making decisions. However, you usually use one type of thinking more than the other.

For example, if you are trying to solve a maths problem, you will likely use critical thinking. If you are trying to come up with a new design for a product, you will likely use creative thinking. There are many ways to improve your critical and creative thinking skills. Some of the methods are the same, such as reading and writing more. However, there are also specific activities that you can do to improve each type of thinking.

For critical thinking, try to:

- Find evidence to support or refute an idea

- Analyse an issue from multiple perspectives

- Evaluate the pros and cons of different choices

For creative thinking, try to:

- Brainstorm new ideas

- “Think outside of the box” (Widely used but argumentative)

- Take on a new perspective

Both critical and creative thinking are important skills to have. Try to find ways to improve both types of thinking.

We practised some shorter examples of critical thinking in class. I'll go through this in more detail and provide some additional examples.

This is the image that was given in class and Prof. Milan Pandya only asked one question, which was something along the lines of "What is wrong with this picture?" At first sight, we may not see anything wrong with this image, but if we look closer and ponder for a moment, we may notice that the scriptwriter of this television serial made an oversight. The male protagonist is helping the female protagonist in draping a saree because she has a broken hand. But how on earth did she do her own elegant makeup and hair!

As Milan Pandya said,

“If something is true what else has to be true within.” 

We have to find the context for things to think critically.

We often talk about how, in this post-truth world, we must always examine the facts (fact-check) behind whatever we come across.

This is a recent tweet by Satish Shah, the Indian flag of 1942. If we know the history we realize that this flag was selected as a national flag after independence.

This was the national flag during the 1940s, Quit India movement.

More examples like this were offered in class to help students grasp critical thinking. Aside from that, we explored several examples of creative thinking; here are a few.

This may appear to be a weird or risky creation in our modern age, yet it may have had value when it was developed. It can also be considered the innovative invention of the period, but from today's viewpoint, one may call it frugal innovation or "hack" the kind we call DIY hacks.

Perhaps it's dangerous! Harmful. Technomodification by a group of bicycles and sewing machines. This picture can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It's 'The Family Bicycle,' equipped with a sewing machine for Mom. Invented by Charles Steinlauf in 1939 to allow the entire family to get out and enjoy some family exercise while also progressing on some sewing.

The above exercise was to see how creative and reflective we are and in order to do so we had to create a category that included at least two objects from the picture.

Various categories arose, such as toys, sports equipment, cuisine, gardening, religion, jobs, and so on, but what is essential is how you can look at things differently, and how creative you are. Some of the greatest categories that came up in class were,

• Fear of Science/AI- skull and robot.
• Halloween/Witches-
• Shakespeare’s tragedies- Hamlet, Macbeth
• Books- gun island, home, and the world, great Gatsby, Frankenstein
• Proverbs- the apple of my eye, the pen is mightier than the sword
• Things associated with Apple- Adam Eve (Biblical ref.), MacBook
• Metaphor in literature- axe, painting plate
• Quotes- Abdul Kalam on Pizza, today is a present
• Bollywood songs
• LGBTQ- colour plate, no gender of robot
• Movie names
• Phallocentric
• Current news, on Salman Rushdie- a book, fatva, being stabbed, etc.

We also had another exercise in which we were presented a picture and had to come up with non-obvious applications for it, such as brush-painting, cleaning comb, scratching; Gogals to hold your hair; it was a practice to perceive things beyond their use and attempt to be creative.

Patience is required to be creative, as the body may be developed by patience in exercise. Abstract thinking is a tough challenge.

We also did a thinking experiment that thoroughly cleaned our minds. Milan sir assigned us trolleyology problems to test our ability to think creatively and critically.

It was a fantastic drill. There were no correct or incorrect answers in this exercise. It was a test of an ethical quandary. Giving an answer isn't crucial here; what matters is the reasoning behind the answer.

You can visit this blog if you want to know more about this workshop. https://divyajsheta.blogspot.com/2022/08/sunday-reading-task-on-thinking-skill.html

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