Thinking Skills

Thinking skills 

Hello, readers! I am Divya Parmar and I welcome you all to read my blog. This blog is based upon a thinking skill workshop by Milan pandya sir. 

"Thinking about thinking in order to improve thinking" - Prof.Milan Pandya. 

Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Gujarat organized academic workshops yearly. This year we had a fantastic two-day workshop on Thinking Skills, conducted by Prof.Dr.Milan Pandya Sir. 

Milan Pandya is a teacher, trainer, and educator in the field of Thinking Skills i.e. Critical, Creative and Design Thinking, English Language Teaching & Communication Skills. With more than 12 years of teaching experience, Mr. Pandya has authored 02 books and presented and published a number of research papers in national and international conferences and journals. He has taught/trained in numerous Universities/Institutions training more than 30,000 people in Thinking Skills across world.

Mr. Pandya has BA & MA in English Literature, M.Phil in English Language Teaching (ELT) & his Ph.D involves study in Online Teaching, Communicative Competence & Critical Thinking. He currently holds a position of Vice President of Advancement at Critical Thinking Solutions company in Ontario, Canada, and teaches at multiple colleges such as Conestoga and Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada.

13 August 2022 is the first day of the Workshop. Basically, we just heard the word thinking skill, but after coming to the department we did and doing our task as a thinking activity to explore our creative and critical thinking. But the workshop gives more insight about thinking in a Logical, Rational, and Scientifically way. This trio of the process of doing critical thinking is very much necessary while attempting the criticism in a certain way. 

Why Logical, Rational, and Scientifically? 

As per what I understand of Critical thinking, these three notions give the accurate value of the answer to the arguments. This also helps to understand the arguments in a more clear way by proving the thing. Reasonable answers give moral support to the argument. With the essence of logic in the argument, the process of answering it has become more clear while reaching the final stage of the argument. So, these three concepts of critical thinking are very much necessary when attempting such a critical argument. 

The Lecture also gave such wonderful examples which help to understand the critical thinking process in an easier way. There is Context and Proof are very much necessary to organize the final stage of our argument. These are important ornaments that make the argument in more beautiful way. Here I want to explain some examples that sir gave: 

For Context, we introduced in detail through living examples and advertisements. Knowing the context helps 50% of our argument. The Lecture also gave an example of a soap advertisement which is starring by celebrities. In that the critics argue might arise that why one wealthy man doing advertise of cheap things like soaps which are available within 30 or 40 rupees! 

Another example like, one recent tweet by Indian Film actor Shatish Shah, (the photo is in the center, given in the above collage at the bottom row). He posted on his tweeter account, "The very same TIRANGA DHWAJ my mother had got during Quite India Movement 1942). And then people are doing to fact change. The very next image is showing that one man and one is probably his children who riding the bicycle. The woman is doing sewing at the center and the little girl is enjoining the ride. It seems very useful but as harmful also. Also one can see binaries between man and woman.

We also come to know about a new word, which is quite important in thinking skills:

Other examples like Shraddha Kapoor's post on Indian Soldier. 

This photo was posted in 2017Along with Shraddha Kapoor, BJP MP Kirron Kher also posted a fake photo. The photo is not actually of Indian army soldiers but of Russian Army Soldiers. So it describes that, 

"If something is true, what else has to be true in that" 

It is also worth notice that how much we invest in the self while writing and marketing or attempting criticism. Opinions also make us confused to do fact-checking. However, no one is critical-minded by born. One has to practice and keep thinking by questioning in a certain way. 

The next day on 14 Aug 2022 we learned Creative thinking through several interesting activities. 

From this image, we are supposed to create categories that will be something beyond normal categories like food, Money, and other things. I found several categories like Life and Death, Science and Technology, Music and Painting, Money and Banking, and Weapons. Lecturer also gave some more keys to connect like with song, literature, Idioms, and Phrases. With literature, I also found one novel by Kazuo Ishiguro 'An Artist of the Floating World', and very famous thoughts 'Art for the sake of Art.' Lecturer also shows another image like a toothbrush and gave the task to think more about ways of its use. Mind is immediately connected with obvious use or thing. Attempting something creative we have to see beyond the common thing, it is the primary purpose of creative thinking. We also come to know that creativity is trained in your mind in what others can not able to do. And also have patience while doing something creative activity. We also practiced through some situations and dilemma given by the lecturer, Like Trollyology. 

After attending such interesting sessions, I come to know that Studying criticism is very hard while we try to attempt certain theories in our life. To break the construction without breaking its value is very much necessary while attempting criticism. It depends on how much you invest yourself in the thinking process. The process also consumes time, it is necessary to have patience. Thanking to the head of the department, Prof.Dr.Dilip Barad sir for organizing the workshop.