No one is born with critical thinking skills. When these skills begin to develop naturally, they rarely develop beyond the survival level of thinking. Therefore, you must undertake different exercises to develop various critical thinking skills over time.

The good news is that you can assess, analyze, and evaluate your thought patterns on processes and find ways to improve your skills. Critical thinking activities or exercises are key to this progress. With regular practice, your critical thinking improves, the same way you get stronger muscles with regular exercise. Here are critical thinking exercises to try.

1. Team Building Games

Engaging in critical thinking team-building activities is an effective and fun way to increase camaraderie and improvement. Remember, these aren’t cheesy icebreakers. There may be many team-building exercises, but the specific ones that can help improve skills must prompt your team to think beyond the initial idea, assess situations from different perspectives, and flex your creativity.

2. Explain it to a five-year-old

Defining the problem is an important part of coming up with a solution for a specific problem. As a critical thinker, you must understand the issue you’re trying to solve to such a degree that you can explain it in simple terms. Practice by assuming you’re explaining it to a five-year-old.

This approach allows you to break down complex ideas into straightforward and coherent steps or a narrative. The next time you read a complex medical journal article, consider how you may explain the concept to a curious five-year-old.

3. Ponder Brain Teasers Regularly

Solving difficult-to-answer questions, such as ethical dilemmas and brain teasers, is a good way to improve your critical thinking skills. You can handle these questions alone or as a group. Such questions force us to;

• Think beyond the initial idea (outside the box)
• Analyze the problem or issue from different angles
• Confront your bias
• Rationalize your conclusion effectively.

4. Balance Your Thinking

If you under-think a problem, there’s a good chance you’ll end up making an irrational or impulsive response. At the same time, overthinking it can freeze you in place and make you unable to act. So, practice balanced thinking.

A great critical thinker knows it’s crucial to transcend ‘gut feelings’ and assess facts or evidence to find meaningful answers. However, digging too deeply into an issue can send you down a time-consuming rabbit hole filled with unreliable or irrelevant information.

Imagine critical thinking is a road. Overthinking and under-thinking are deep ditches on either side of the road. So don’t fall in.

Practice, Practice, Practice

To become better at chess, you must practice it. Similarly, long-distance runners practice a lot. The same goes for creative and critical thinking. If you wish to become a good critical thinker, you must practice. Start with the critical thinking exercises discussed.