The prerequisite level required for the specialized level tracks includes a 2-day critically thinking foundation workshop, delivered in 3 sessions.
Workshop 1.1: Critical Thinking and its function in Professional life
Critical thinking is defined as serving a double function: it challenges us in order to develop higher level of reflection and improve our own ways of reasoning; it enhances our ability to evaluate arguments and information. We will discuss how critical thinking is functioning in life and organizational setting and in which areas is required as a crucial skill.
Workshop 1.2 Evidence: The Foundation for Argument
Technology today has overloaded us with massive amount of data. This poses the challenge: “how to extract useful and meaningful information? And how to effectively use it?”. Some of the information is credible, other is not at all. We need credible information in order to persuade and sustain our arguments. It is essential to be aware of the absence or misuse of evidences in an argument, and avoid common fallacies. The purpose of this session is to discuss the nature and types of evidence and provide guidelines to properly use it.
Workshop 1.3: Revealing the Structure of Argument
Argument analysis can be used to understand, evaluate and refute arguments. By diagramming an argument, we discover how the statements relate to each other, we can identify ambiguities, isolated and incoherent claims, irrelevant statements, and perform other operations leading to an effective argument criticism. Thinking and communicating in a structured and clear way not only helps the ideas to become more presentable but also help the person who is presenting them look more competent and well-prepared. In this session we are going to put all our previous theory together and focus on general principles that can help guiding through the case development.
Workshop 1.1: Critical Thinking and its function in Professional life
Critical thinking is defined as serving a double function: it challenges us in order to develop higher level of reflection and improve our own ways of reasoning; it enhances our ability to evaluate arguments and information. We will discuss how critical thinking is functioning in life and organizational setting and in which areas is required as a crucial skill.
Workshop 1.2 Evidence: The Foundation for Argument
Technology today has overloaded us with massive amount of data. This poses the challenge: “how to extract useful and meaningful information? And how to effectively use it?”. Some of the information is credible, other is not at all. We need credible information in order to persuade and sustain our arguments. It is essential to be aware of the absence or misuse of evidences in an argument, and avoid common fallacies. The purpose of this session is to discuss the nature and types of evidence and provide guidelines to properly use it.
Workshop 1.3: Revealing the Structure of Argument
Argument analysis can be used to understand, evaluate and refute arguments. By diagramming an argument, we discover how the statements relate to each other, we can identify ambiguities, isolated and incoherent claims, irrelevant statements, and perform other operations leading to an effective argument criticism. Thinking and communicating in a structured and clear way not only helps the ideas to become more presentable but also help the person who is presenting them look more competent and well-prepared. In this session we are going to put all our previous theory together and focus on general principles that can help guiding through the case development.
