Physical Chemistry

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the questioning or inquiry weengage in when we seek to understand, evaluate, or resolve issues in different spheres of our lives. As a student, you will come across information from many sources: lectures,the library; in databases,in books, from your friends, social media among other sources. For this, you will need to develop critical thinking skills that will help you distinguish fact from opinion.

A critical thinker possesses the following characteristics:

• Is able to admit a lack of understanding or information and thus asks pertinent questions.
• Assesses statements and arguments and is willing to examine beliefs, assumptions, and opinions and weigh them against facts. This helps to separate personal opinions from facts.
• Looks for evidence to support assumption and beliefs and is able to adjust opinions when new facts are found.
• Listens carefully to others and is able to give feedback.
• Suspends judgment until all facts have been gathered andconsidered.
• Rejects information that is incorrect or irrelevant.

To think critically, studentsmust be willing to consider and evaluate ideas and theories thatare new to them, rather than accept them as gospel truth simply because they are presented in a lecture or in book. This means that a learner has to:

• Critically read different texts, and use the information togain new understanding and insights on a topic or issue. This is known as syntopic reading and it helps one to understand different points of view in a bid to get a complete picture before integrating new information into his/her body of knowledge.
• Evaluate and summarize readings,identify meaningful relationships or connections that reachacross texts
• Analyzing conflicting views, and synthesizing ideas as well as exploringmoral dimensions of conflicting positions and analyzing value-laden issues.

Problem-Solving

A problem is a situation which interferes with an individual’s efforts to attain agoal. Problem solving isthe process by which the hindranceto attaining a certain goal is overcome.For effective problem solving, there is need for a methodologicalapproach before and during the problem solving. A problem canbe any task or assignment or project that you need to complete.