根据图片生成讲授视频---Page Number: 6 Header: The Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study & Learn Main Title: How to Study and Learn a Discipline Section: The Problem: Text: All thinking occurs within, and across, disciplines and domains of knowledge and experience, yet few students learn how to think well within those domains. Despite having taken many classes, few are able to think biologically, chemically, geographically, sociologically, anthropologically, historically, artistically, ethically, or philosophically. Students study literature, but do not think in a literary way as a result. They study poetry, but do not think poetically. They do not know how to think like a reader when reading, nor how to think like a writer while writing, nor how to think like a listener while listening. Consequently, they are poor readers, writers, and listeners. They use words and ideas, but do not know how to think ideas through, and internalize foundational meanings. They take classes but cannot make connections between the logic of a discipline and what is important in life. Often even the best students have these deficiencies. Section: A Definition: Text: Critical thinking is the kind of thinking—about any subject, content, or domain—that improves itself through disciplined analysis and assessment. Analysis requires knowledge of the elements of thought; assessment requires knowledge of standards for thought. Footer Left: ©2011 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press Footer Right: www.criticalthinking.org The Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study & Learn 7 The Solution: To study well and learn any subject is to learn how to think with discipline within that subject. It is to learn to think within its logic, to: * raise vital questions and problems within it, formulating them clearly and precisely; * gather and assess information, using ideas to interpret that information insightfully; * come to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; * adopt the point of view of the discipline, recognizing and assessing, as need be, its assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; * communicate effectively with others using the language of the discipline and that of educated public discourse; and * relate what one is learning in the subject to other subjects and to what is significant in human life. To become a skilled learner is to become a self-directed, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinker, who has given assent to rigorous standards of thought and mindful command of their use. Skilled learning of a discipline requires that one respect its power as well as its limitations. Essential Idea: The skills of critical thinking are the keys to learning every subject. ©2011 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org Page Number: 8 Header: The Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study & Learn Title: How To Learn With Discipline Paragraph 1: When learning: look for interrelationships, try to connect everything together. Think of learning as figuring out the parts of an organized and intelligible system (with everything fitting together like the parts of a jig-saw puzzle). Paragraph 2: Everything you learn is related to every other thing you learn and learning things in relation to each other makes everything you learn more memorable, more intelligible, and more useful. Understanding science is understanding the "system" that scientific thinking represents. Understanding grammar is understanding the "system" that grammatical thinking represents. In other words, there is a logic to science, a logic to grammar, a logic to everything whatsoever! Science is about scientific thinking, grammar is about grammatical thinking, psychology is about psychological thinking, and so on. Paragraph 3: In grammar, nouns (having something to talk about) make no sense without verbs (saying something about them). At the same time, to use nouns (and hence talk about something) successfully you need adjectives (to qualify them). To use verbs successfully you need adverbs (to qualify them). Each grammatical structure plays a logical role in a system of meaningful relationships—which one understands best as an interrelated system of ideas. Paragraph 4: All "content" is logically interdependent. To understand one part of some content requires that you figure out its relation to other parts of that content. For example, you understand what a scientific experiment is only when you understand what a scientific theory is. You understand what a scientific theory is only when you understand what a scientific hypothesis is. You understand what a scientific hypothesis is only when you understand what a scientific prediction is. You understand what a scientific prediction is only when you understand what it is to scientifically test a view. You understand what it is to scientifically test a view only when you understand what a scientific experiment is, etc. To learn any body of content, therefore, is to figure out (i.e., reason or think through) the connections between the parts of that content. There is no learning of the content without this thinking process. Essential Idea Box: Essential Idea: When learning any concept, idea, law, theory, or principle, ask yourself: To what other concepts, ideas, laws, theories, or principles is this connected? Footer: ©2011 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org **Header:** The Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study & Learn 9 **Title:** How to Identify an Underlying Idea for the Subjects You Study **Introductory Text:** Virtually all courses have some inherent unity which, when understood, ties all the learning of the course together (like a tapestry). This unity is typically found in foundational ideas that define the subject and its goals. Below are suggestions for beginning to understand the foundational ideas behind some of the major disciplines. Use them to begin to think within the subjects. However, you must make sure you can state, elaborate, exemplify, and illustrate each of these ideas IN YOUR OWN WORDS with your own examples and illustrations. Otherwise, you are merely mouthing words that have no definite meaning in your mind. **Subject Underlying Ideas:** * Mathematics as learning to think quantitatively * Economics as the study of "who gets what, when, and how" * Algebra as arithmetic with unknowns * Sociology as the study of human conformity to group norms * Anthropology as the physical and historical study of humans in light of their evolution from non-cultural into cultural animals * Physics as the study of mass and energy and their interaction * Chemistry as the study of elementary substances and the manner in which they react with each other * Philosophy as the study of ultimate questions with a view to living an examined life * Biochemistry as the chemistry of life processes in plants and animals * Science as the attempt to learn through quantifiable observations and controlled experimentation * Theology as the study of theories of spiritual reality * Ethics as the study of principles to be used in contributing to the good of, and avoiding unnecessary harm to, humans and other sentient creatures * Art as the application of skill and judgment to matters of taste and beauty (as in poetry, music, painting, dance, drama, sculpture, or architecture) * Professions as ways of earning a living through the skilled and artful use of knowledge in everyday life **Boxed Text (Essential Idea):** Essential Idea: When beginning to learn a subject, it is helpful to formulate an organizing idea to guide your thinking. **Footer:** ©2011 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org Here is the extracted content from the image: **Page Header:** 10 The Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study & Learn **Main Title:** Understanding Content Through The Thinking It Requires: A Key To Deep Learning **Section Title:** All Subjects Represent A Systematic Way of Thinking. The first and most important insight necessary for deep learning of academic subjects is that everything you learn is, in the last analysis, nothing more nor less than a systematic way of thinking about a particular set of things. **Section Title:** Organized Systematically by Ideas. There is no way to learn a body of content without learning the ideas that define and structure it. There is no way to learn a concept without learning how to use it in thinking something through. Hence, to learn the idea of democracy is to learn how to figure out whether some group is functioning democratically or not. To learn the idea of fair play is to learn how to figure out whether someone is being fair in the manner in which they are participating in a game. To learn the idea of a novel is to learn how to distinguish a novel from a play or short story. To learn the idea of a family is to learn how to distinguish a family from a gang or club. To learn any body of content, therefore, it is necessary to learn to think accurately and reasonably within the ideas that define the content. **Section Title:** Leading to a Systematic Way of Questioning. Ideas within a subject are intimately connected with the kind of questions asked in it. All subjects represent ways of asking and answering a body of questions. There is no way to learn mathematical content without learning how to figure out correct answers to mathematical questions and problems. There is no way to learn historical content without learning how to figure out correct or reasonable answers to historical questions and problems. There is no way to learn biological content without learning how to figure out answers to biological questions and problems. We study chemistry to figure out chemicals (to answer questions about chemicals). We study sociology to figure out people (how and why people behave as they do in groups). All subjects can be understood in this way. **Essential Idea Box:** Essential Idea: All subjects represent a systematic way of thinking defined by a system of ideas leading to a distinctive and systematic way of questioning. **Footer:** ©2011 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org **Header:** The Thinker's Guide for Students on How to Study & Learn 11 **Titles:** How to Identify the Structure of a Subject: The Elements of Thought **Introduction:** The Elements of Thought: There are eight basic structures present in all thinking. Whenever we think, we think for a purpose within a point of view based on assumptions leading to implications and consequences. We use ideas and theories to interpret data, facts, and experiences in order to answer questions, solve problems, and resolve issues. In other words, all thinking within a discipline: **Bulleted List:** * generates purposes * raises questions * uses information * utilizes concepts * makes inferences * makes assumptions * generates implications * embodies a point of view **Chart Description:** * **Type:** Circular diagram divided into eight segments. * **Center Label:** Elements of Thought * **Segments (clockwise from top):** * Purpose: goal, objective, function * Question at issue: problem, issue * Information: data, facts, reasons, observations, experiences, evidence * Interpretation and Inference: conclusions, solutions * Concepts: theories, definitions, laws, principles, models * Assumptions: presuppositions, axioms, taking for granted * Implications and Consequences * Point of View: frame of reference, perspective, orientation, worldview **Concluding Paragraph:** Each of these structures has implications for the others. Change your purpose or agenda, you change your questions and problems. Change your questions and problems, you are forced to seek new information and data... If you want to think within a discipline, you must become deeply familiar with each of these structures. You should look for these structures as you learn: in lectures, discussions, textbooks, concepts, laws, theories... **Essential Idea Box:** Essential Idea: There are eight structures that define thinking. Learning to analyze thinking requires practice in identifying these structures in use. **Footer:** ©2011 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org