Organizing a critical thinking workshop

Becki stands in an office lounge with floor to ceiling windows, black armchairs and a gray L-shaped couch. You know what you're thinking. But do you know how you're thinking? Your critical thinking workshop will provide the time and training to help your team do exactly this. Think about how they think and get better at it. A week before your workshop, give these assignments to each participant. One, at a desk, a man in an open, short sleeved dress, shirt and red T-shirt sits looking at a laptop. He wears large headphones and nods. Ask them to bring a song to serve as their critical thinking trigger and earbuds or something to listen to it. Play the song. We return to Becki. Fast, intuitive thinking stops and slow, deliberate, critical thinking starts. Two, A file path displays. In the exercise files folder is competency questions.pdf. Have them prepare answers to the following competency questions. A, a point form list appears. Point A. What do I know about critical thinking? What do I already know about critical thinking? B. Point b, how closely does critical thinking relate to something I know? How closely does critical thinking relate to something I already know? C. Point C, what questions should I have? What questions should I have about critical thinking? And D, Point D. What does the opposite of critical thinking look like? What does the opposite of critical thinking look like? We return to Becki. There are hundreds of mental models to help you think about how you think. But the three we'll cover are particularly useful for jumpstarting critical thinking. A file path displays. In the exercise files folder is circle of competence.pdf. The circles of competence mental model creates an honest assessment of what we know and what we don't know. An illustration shows two circles. A smaller one fits inside the larger one. The smaller reads, what I know. The larger reads, what I think I know. Don't be alarmed, it looks something like this for all of us. Warren Buffett uses these circles to focus investors on only operating in areas they know best. He explained, We return to Becki. you don't have to be an expert on every company. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle isn't important. Knowing its boundaries, however, is vital. Use answers to the competency questions to help create circles of competence for critical thinking. Later, you can use circles of competency to assess your knowledge about other things. So how do I know what I know about critical thinking becomes how do I know what I know about design trends, for example. A line divides two lists inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. The next two mental models are inductive and deductive reasoning. Under inductive reasoning, a point reads observation supported by trends or patterns that arrive at a theory. Inductive reasoning starts with an observation, supports it with trends or patterns and generalizes to arrive at a theory. Examples. We return to Becki. Someone challenges my boss. He gets angry. Anger is a sign of stress. My boss is stressed out. My team seems less engaged in meetings before lunch. I'm switching meetings to later in the day. They'll be more engaged from specific to general. Under deductive reasoning, a point reads, theory supported by observations are facts that arrive at an inference. Deductive reasoning begins with a theory or set of facts, supports it with an observation or a second set of facts, and then arrives at an inference. Like A point form list reads A equals B, B equals C, and A equals C. A equals B, and B equals C, therefore A equals C. From general to specific. Note how these examples relate to the inductive reasoning examples. Another list reads, angry equals stress, stress equals boss, and angry equals boss. All anger is a form of stress. My boss is angry. My boss has stress. Another list. No concentration equals hungry, hungry equals team, and no concentration equals team. Studies show we can't concentrate in meetings when we're hungry. My team is hungry before lunch. They can't concentrate in meetings before lunch. We return to Becki. Create examples for your team to match both types of reasoning. Your reasoning improves when you understand both types. Use inductive reasoning to come up with a theory and then deductive reasoning to determine if it's actually true. Setting aside time and training for critical thinking will be incredibly valuable. Let me know how your first workshop goes and what trigger songs you pick.