Learning more about critical thinking has always been a latent interest of mine up until now where I am facilitating an online forum on it for one of my PIDP 3250 Instructional Strategies Course. I found the article Universal Intellectual Standards by the Critical Thinking Community to be a helpful introduction as it explained the 8 pillars of Critical Thinking. Reflecting on these 8 pillars and what I hear in the media today I can't help but come to the conclusion that it is a rarity to come across examples of critical thinking in today's media. My initial assumption is that in today's data age where vast reams of information on modern pop culture to the dawn of the universe is simply a click away critical thinking should be the norm not the exception. This would imply that access to data is not a significant barrier to critical thinking and makes me ponder two questions:
- What are the significant barriers to critical thinking?
- Why did I assume access to data is a barrier to critical thinking?