What is success and critical thinking

In college there are a lot of teaching methods that help students to learn about various ways to improve the ability and skills we have had already, and then to know more regarding thecultureand life of college and how important it is. In this “ Case StudyinCritical Thinking: A Fish Story”, a college professor teaches his class how to learn deeper to find more answers from their observations. From this lesson the students learned to find as many answers as possible on their way without clues in the class based on their life experiences. I believethis lesson helps the students learned a lot about searching the facts in every problem independently.

“ In this critical thinking lesson: A Fish story”, the biology professor put a fish on each lab table in the lab class and told the students to “ please observe the fish and write down all the observations” (para. 3) then he left the class room and then he checked the paper the next day. The same first day, one student had written “ I see a small fish” and the another one added “ it’s on the white plate” (para. 4).

However, that is what students could write for that day, the next day in the second class they found the same fish on the same white plate on the middle of each table and the same procedure as the pervious class, so the student’s confused and they looked at one another and they said “ Was the professor crazy? “ A fixed mindset student blaming the professor and complaining. But still they didn’t know what they were going to write since it was again only a stupid fish.

Suddenly one of growth mind set student seeking for solution and looked a book in the professor’s desk. It was a book guides how to identify a fish, then immediately she took the book and read. Then she discovered what kind of fish was laying on her plate and theobservationis not just with eyes. This is a lesson we learned a lot of things about college, and life in college it’s not easy to find something better, unless we have to work hard to find the solution of every problem to understand things to reach our goal and create betterenvironmentfor learning.

In this lesson the students improve their observations and continued to learn more about the fish because of the long absence of the professor. And the students worked up for five days of examining the fish and thereafter that the professor decided to begin his lesson. During their five days observation, the students identified the fish types, odor, dissected, and other observations. The students’ curiosity was very high. They employed critical thinking to evaluate the situation. The way the professor taught the students is based on self-responsibilitybecause he made the students try harder in the class. However, some students complained by saying “ what are we paying tuition for any more?” But in the meantime, others made basic observations on the fish even on the first day.

In the same fashion those students who complained pushed the whole responsibility to the professor instead of trying strain their brains to figure out more observations about the fish, and I believe what the professor tried to teach the students is to try hard and put their efforts to dive deeper into exploring further lessons. If I had been in that class, I will be ready to take the responsibility and to figure out what the professor expects from me instead of looking for excuses.

In my observation, those students having a victim mindset showed a behavior of blaming the professor, finding excuses and complaining . On the other hand students with creator mindset exhibited a behavior of seeking solutions, taking actions , trying something new. They started identifying the basic observation and went to dive deeper working hard to get more observations about the fish and finally they become the leader of the class so that the others could follow their foot steps towards extending further their observations to the fish. Having a creator mind set is a critical behavior to make someone successful not only in such biology class but also in all other college courses throughout the rest of theacademicyears.

In this lesson by reading this “ A Fish story”, I learned different kinds of lessons about college culture , about mindset as well as life. To become a successful student, I should know about college culture and therefore it’s the combination of language, behavior, respectthe classroom and the professor, respect others’ beliefs, help each other and be positive, learn what should I have to learn, ask a question about what I don’t understand , be honest for my work. Besides students will be empowered and comfortable through providing feedback in a continuously improved class room teaching and learning from mistakes to improve their knowledge so in this lesson we can learn that the students should work together and share ideas from the book.

In the past two weeks in the class room I learned a lot about victim and creator mindset. In my opinion in this lesson there are two kinds of students. Some of them have a victim mind set because the way they answer, then they are constantly blaming theteacheror situation for feeling miserable, they feel powerless to change their circumstances even when things go right, they find something to complain about everything.

On the other hand, the others have a creator mindset . They always see multiple options and take effective actions to achieve their goal, they always seek solutions and they keep trying something new, so they are achieving theirgoalsas they wanted and learned so much information about the fish.
In general, in this lesson I learned a lot of things that could help me to improve my college life and my personal life .