Assignment: Becoming A Good Thinker

Assignment: Becoming A Good Thinker

Assignment: Becoming A Good Thinker

As you journey through this unit and are honing your critical thinking skills, you might recognize many ideas identified in the Game Plan. To assist in your critical thinking process, the Game Plan (located on pages 38-42 in your textbook) was created to help assist you in making critical decisions through the use of ten strategies.

This assignment calls for you to complete a table that will focus on a recent experience in your life. Within the table, you will identify your experience, how you reacted to the experience, two game-plan strategies that could have changed your outcome, and what the new outcome might have been.

Make sure you:

Describe the situation and why it was important to you.

Describe how you reacted.

Identify two of the strategies identified in the book and develop critical thinking questions you would ask yourself as part of your self-assessment.

Include bullet points sharing your decision-making process.

Address the new outcomes/solutions resulting from the integration of these strategies.

Click here for the assignment template.

Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.

Unit IV Assignment

Becoming a Good Thinker

The goal of this assignment is to progress as a questioner and, therefore, as a thinker. For this assignment, select an important problem faced by society today (e.g., income inequality, gun violence, online privacy), and construct three questions that will result in critical thinking using the assignment template.

In the template, under the first column, provide your own original questions related to your chosen important problem.

In the second column, identify domain of thinking.

Examples of these can be found on pages 139–140 of your textbook.

In the third column, list the intellectual standards and element of thought that relates to your question. Briefly explain why the question is important in this context (i.e., the elements of thought or reasoning that led you to this thinking).

The eight elements of thought can be found beginning on page 62 of your textbook.

The intellectual standards are on page 58 of your textbook and are defined on page 103.

In the fourth column, label your question as fact, preference, or judgment.

This information can be located on pages 126–127 of your textbook.

Click here for the assignment template.

Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.

Unit VI Assignment

Decision-Making Table

For this assignment, you will apply analytical reasoning and identify strategies for self-assessment to reconsider your decision-making patterns. You will need to complete a table with four columns to complete this task.

In the first column, you will provide two personal examples where you acted in accordance with one or more of the patterns of irrational or unethical decision-making.

In the second column, you will identify which pattern(s) of irrational or unethical decision-making applies to your situations.

In the third column, you will identify any characteristics of egocentrism or sociocentrism, as well as any pathological tendencies of mind, involved in your thought process.

Finally, in the fourth column, share how you could have applied the keys to sound decision-making to approach the situation more rationally.

Click here for the assignment template.

Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.

Unit VII Assignment

Article Reframing

For this assignment, you are to choose any article written within the last month, and consider how certain words and tone are utilized to direct your opinion.

In one to three brief paragraphs, identify any biases or fallacies you detect and any words the author uses to impart a certain message. What words or phrases could you replace to change the reader’s opinion? APA is not required, but remember to provide the title, date, and source of your chosen article.

Information about accessing the Blackboard Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

• The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

  Discussion Questions (DQ)

  • Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
  • Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
  • One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
  • I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

  Weekly Participation

  • Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
  • In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
  • Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
  • Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

  APA Format and Writing Quality

  • Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
  • Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
  • I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

  Use of Direct Quotes

  • I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
  • As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
  • It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

   

  LopesWrite Policy

  • For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
  • Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
  • Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
  • Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

  Late Policy

  • The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
  • Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
  • If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
  • I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
  • As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

  Communication

  • Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
    • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
    • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.