On December 4, 2023, Veronika Oleshchenko, a senior lecturer at the Department of Theory and History of the State and Law of the Faculty of Law, took part in the "Developing critical thinking" training.
This training is organized within the framework of the Project "Development of labor potential for Ukraine", which is conducted by the NGO "International Development Foundation" with the assistance of the USAID Project "Economic Support of Ukraine", one of the goals of which is to improve the qualifications of teachers of higher education institutions in order to improve educational programs and training plans
The training "Developing critical thinking" is one of the trainings for acquiring soft-skills, aimed at structuring one's own thoughts, acquiring skills in planning work, managing time and priorities, increasing productivity and work efficiency.
During productive three-hour work with an experienced trainer, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences Nataliya Kupalaeva and training participants, among whom were educators from various educational institutions, Veronika Oleshchenko, the materials of the block "Development of critical thinking" were worked out, which consisted of understanding the concept and components of critical thinking, methods of developing critical thinking , performing practical exercises on building a "decision tree", practical application of the algorithm for substantiating one's opinion and position by the "PRES" method. Ms. Natalya highlighted interesting techniques for the practice of developing critical thinking both for an individual and for a group of people - the exercise "Walt Disney's 3 chairs" and the exercise "De Bono's Hats".
The last block of the training was work on cognitive biases or "cognitive distortion" - a widespread negative phenomenon according to which a person creates his "subjective social reality" based on his own perception of data from the outside world.
Summarizing the results of the meeting, the project trainer noted: "Cognitive bias is a widespread negative social phenomenon that exists even among highly educated people, because we are all human and can make mistakes. To eliminate negative consequences, it is worth working on oneself (lifelong education), developing critical thinking (working with information, self-education, working in training teams). Modern challenges and the speed of development of the outside world encourage us to improve our skills every day."