Clarification

3). Pick one concept from throughout the semester that you feel can use further discussion.

I feel that the concept of casual reasoning should be further explained in our class discussion because this is one of the only concepts that I had to really do a lot of additional research on.  The website we were provided that was supposed to help us understand the concept had left me very confused at first, and so I went to other websites to fix this confusion. However, in the process I somehow got confused with some of the other websites as well, and this is evident in the blog I first posted on casual reasoning, as I accidently confused causal perceptions with casual reasoning. In other words, when I explained it to the class I gave a wrong example, as casual perceptions occurs when we make sense of why something occurs and casual reasoning means that everything has a cause and effect. When we know what the effects of certain causes are, we can either make things happen or prevent them from happening in our world from our reason. These are two very different things, and it wasn’t until reading other blogs did I realize that I made this error, and so I believe that this is a concept that should be better clarified.

Likes and Dislikes

2). What was your favorite thing about the class?  What was your least favorite thing about the class?  How can this class be improved?  Again, be specific.

My favorite thing about this class was never having to wake up early to physically go to the class, and that I could basically complete the assignments and tests on my own time. However, I did not like that there was a twelve hour gap between blog submissions because normally I wouldn’t be able to complete the assignments until the weekend, as other class filled up my time during the week. I would then end up finding myself waking up early, or submitting the assignments at random times on Fridays and Saturdays and feeling rushed, which is why I think that we shouldn’t have this 12 hour gap.  I also didn’t like that the days started on Sundays because I don’t want to start my workweek until Monday like my other classes. However, I do feel that if you keep the 12 hour gap, then you should start the workweek on Monday, so that we have all weekend to complete our assignments such as on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, without feeling rushed. I also didn’t like that once we’ve taken the test, we don’t get it back, so I don’t know what I’ve gotten wrong and what I need to improve on for the next test. Maybe by giving us the tests in an email with the answers, we may begin to learn where were making our mistakes and errors.

What I've Learned

1). What have you learned in this class over the course of the semester?  Be specific.

When I first signed up for critical thinking, I was really nervous because I had no idea what a class about critical thinking would be about. When I first thought of critical thinking, what came to mind were questions from math textbooks that said, “thinking critically,” which are always the questions I can never get right. However, I was happy to discover that this critical thinking class would be about analyzing arguments and statements in ways I had never thought of before. This may sound silly, but before taking this class I didn’t even know what a premise was, and now I find myself using the word all the time when I’m evaluating claims (there’s a premise and a conclusion). I also now know how to identify when an argument is weak, or valid or invalid, which is also something I didn’t fully know how to do before taking this class. This class also taught me how to tell when arguments needed repairing and what makes for a good argument such as that the premises are plausible, the premises are more plausible than the conclusion, and the argument is valid or strong.  I also learned what type of strategies to look out for in the real world that people tend to use to convince you of their argument, such as all the appeals to emotions.  Finally, this class has taught me how to work in small groups effectively by the small group communication book. Loved my group!!

Thanks for Reading!