MOOC: Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving (Part Arba’a)

First off, Happy Star Wars Day!!!! May the fourth be with you! I used to have a headband with Leia buns; alas, no longer.

Next, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been switching up the languages I’m counting in for these. So far, we’ve had ‘deux’ (French), ‘tres’ (Spanish), and now, ‘arba’a’ (Arabic). Not sure I’ve got the spelling right on that, but Google said it was okay, which obviously makes everything legit and factual, right? /sarcasm

Previously, I was making myself a planner and decided to list the days of the week in another language just for general education and funzies. I can’t remember which language it was, but I remember some of the days’ names (Sondag and Torsdag–Sunday and Thursday). Looks like at least Sondag is Sunday in a few languages. Anywho, I’m not bilingual in any way, shape, or form, but I do enjoy studying languages. So, we’ll keep going with this for now and have some fun nerding out together. Humor me.

Notes:

So, in our last post with Professor Mike, we reviewed some ways to work on critical thinking and just general thought stimulation. Guess what: there’s another list he compiled for when you have more time to work on it. I’m not going to go into as much detail on this one (Go Take The Course!) but I’ll hit wave tops for you:

• Write Stuff Down. This is where that Creativity Notebook comes into play. Use it to keep lists of things you’re curious about or random ideas that occur to you throughout your day.
• Sleep On a Problem. If you hit a wall on something and get frustrated, leave it alone. Get up and walk away from it or, even better, leave it alone for the rest of the day and come back to it the next morning.
• Relax. Enough said.
• Travel, or at least take a new route to the store. Changing up the route you take, place you park your car, or what have you is good for mental elasticity. That being said, I always park in the same general region of the parking lot ever since I lost my car and walked around like an idiot for half an hour, desperately pushing the button on the key fob in the hope that I’d hear or see my car in the distance. It was ugly.
• Become a wall-walker (for at least a few minutes). Allow me to explain: a wall-walker is a person who keeps a finger dragging down the wall next to them as they walk along, seemingly lost in their own little world. You’ll often see kids do this, running their finger along in the groove between cinder-block rows in the walls in grade school. The idea in this context is to focus on your steps. Count them. This will somehow engage your brain and sprout new ideas. Another suggestion, if memory serves, was to find a labyrinth in your community; however, many local communities’ idea of a ‘labyrinth‘ as just a flat, featureless brick circle falls far from my imagination of tall hedges, Jack Nicholson with an ax, or David Bowie wearing a codpiece. (That hyperlink on ‘flat, featureless brick circle’ leads to a Smithsonian article that implies that I’ve been misled in my idea of what a true labyrinth is, which, apparently, is *not* a maze. /Disappointed)
• Get lost. This goes hand-in-hand with the ‘take a new route’ one. Being in unfamiliar surroundings jogs the brain.
• Drop some eaves. Embrace your inner Samwise and listen in on some snippets of conversation while you’re out and about. Listen to the people in line by you at the grocery store. You never know what you’re going to hear, nor the thoughts it will provoke.
• Crack your dictionary. Open up your dictionary and read a random page. Truth be told, I love getting lost in a dictionary. So many interesting words out there for things I’d never even considered. If you don’t have a hardcopy dictionary, I’m pretty sure you can pick one up at the dollar store for a buck or two; of course the paper quality isn’t fantastic, but it’s a jumping-off point. Or, go to your local library.

Next, we’ll take a look at different ways of thinking: specifically, convergent and divergent thinking.

To channel my Harry Potter fandom, it’s kind of like magic: there’s ‘dark’ magic and ‘light’ magic but you can’t have one without the other. Same with convergent and divergent thinking. You can’t be successful by focusing on one at the expense of the other.

Divergent thinking involves:

• creating choices
• imagination
• creativity
• coming up with the new and the possible
• expanding the possible number of solutions
• not rejecting any idea out of hand
• being open

Convergent thinking involves:

• making choices
• making judgments
• evaluating
• sometimes testing
• rating
• making sense of various ideas
• ultimately clarifying the thinking

Another way to look at thought and brainstorming is thin versus thick thinking.

Thin thinking covers the most basic questions: your who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Thick thinking is a more diverse thing, focused on more thoughtful questions such as:

• What if…?
• What would happen if…?

There are degrees of thick thinking. These help us get to better questions, which in turn lead to better thinking. Another facet of this concept is concrete versus abstract thinking, contributing to a wider range of ideas.

We’re about to go even further down the rabbit hole… let’s talk METACOGNITION.

What’s that?

In simplest terms, metacognition is ‘thinking about thinking,’ and apparently only a handful of species are able to do it, if memory serves. I think it was us, dolphins, and monkeys, much as it usually is when talking about higher brain function.

So, some of the basic strategies of metacognition are:

• connecting new information to former knowledge or things we already experienced (I think our brains are hardwired to do this; it’s how we evaluate potential threats and whatnot in a timely manner. Obviously, it comes with its own pitfalls.)
• deliberately selecting thinking strategies
• planning, monitoring, and evaluating our thinking processes

There are four basic levels of thinking, with each becoming more metacognitive as we go along:

• Tacit use: everyday thinking, without thinking about the process
• Aware use: being aware that we are thinking in a particular way
• Strategic use: consciously planning to think about a problem in specific ways
• Reflective use: highest level of thinking; reflecting on how to proceed and how to improve the thinking process

Thoughts:

So. I’m fascinated by the concept of metacognition. I love the idea of continual self-improvement, and if thinking about how we think isn’t part of that, I don’t know what is. Do you ever stop yourself and wonder why you react to certain situations the way you do? Sometimes when I get frustrated with a situation (or other people), I imagine an old, original Nintendo game system with its Reset button; in my mind’s eye, I hit that button and try to force my thought processes and mental state to reset just as a game would. And sometimes it works, which leads to a much smoother path to resolving the problem than my bursting a blood vessel ever will.

How often do you stop to think about the way that you’re thinking? Whether your judgment is being clouded by bias or emotion? I’ve realized that I’m checking myself more and more in recent days. I recently got into a verbal disagreement with someone who took umbrage at the fact that I was gathering data rather than just taking their word for a situation; given the events in question, I thought it best to gather all the data I could before arriving at a conclusion. Apparently, sometimes people will give you crap for this. Ignore them. As Sherlock Holmes said, “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay!” Gather your data, avoid the pitfalls of groupthink, and think about the way that you’re thinking. Be present in your thoughts.

That’s all for now. Back soon.

-hxrg