4 Self Study Guide
The method Critical Thinking with Rationale is primarily aimed at students attending critical thinking training courses in an educational context. However, it is also possible to develop your critical thinking skills separately from an educational context. There are restrictions, though: in the case of self-study you will not benefit from feedback, explanation by the teacher and the collective analysis of interpretations; your blind spots will not be pointed out to you either. Naturally, you will have to do without the exercises, lessons and tests provided by the method.
Given these restrictions this self-study guide provides you with a concise guide to enable you to train several essential critical thinking skills for yourself. After an overview and details of those thinking skills a brief explanation will be given of Rationale itself and the accompanying exercise programs. At the end of this guide you will find two approaches to help you deal with this self-study.
4.1 Details of Critical Thinking Skills
Figure 4.1 The Critical Thinking Path
What are the critical thinking skills that are trained in the Critical Thinking with Rationale method? They are mentioned in the map below; they are first defined and then worked out in more detail in sub-skills.
Rationale is the instrument that you can use to train these critical thinking skills and for that purpose it provides three exercise programs with an increasing degree of difficulty. The following section will point the way through the program and the exercises, the so called Tutorials.
Figure 4.2 Skills developed by Critical Thinking with Rationale
4.2 Training Critical Thinking Skills
| Exercises | Background Material | |
|---|---|---|
| Grouping | - Tut. CT: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Critical Thinking > Set 1 - Tut. AM: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Argument Mapping > no 6 (you better do this tutorial after you have worked through the skills of reasoning and analyzing. This is because no 6 is about the grouping of arguments within a complex argument). | - Book CT: 1,2.1 - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Rationale Guide > Grouping - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Help > Grouping |
| Reasoning | - Tut. CT: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Critical Thinking > Set 2,7 - Tut. AM: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Argument Mapping > 'Before you start'. - Tut. RK: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Reasoning for Knowledge > Reasoning | - Book CT: 2.2 - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Rationale Guide > Reasoning - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Rationale Guide > Basis Boxes |
| Structuring | - Tut. CT: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Critical Thinking > Set 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 (the last one once you have practiced all the other skills). - Tut. AM: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Argument Mapping > no 1 | - Book CT: 2.3 - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Rationale Guide > Essay Planning - 'Essay Writing with Rationale'* - Scientific Writing Course ** |
| Analyzing | - Tut. CT: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Critical Thinking > Set 10 - Tut. AM: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Argument Mapping > no 2 - 6 - Tut. RK: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Reasoning for Knowledge > all parts except for Fallacies | - Book CT: 2.4 - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Rationale Guide > Advanced Reasoning |
| Evaluating | - Tut. CT: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Critical Thinking > Set 8, 9, 11 - Tut. RK: Rationale > Explore > Exercising: Tutorials > Reasoning for Knowledge > Fallacies | - Book CT: 2.5, 3 - Rationale > Explore > Working with Rationale > Rationale Guide > Evaluating |
See also: