The Logical Reasoning Skills Facilitator Guide is a collection of step-by-step instructions for teaching 20 cognitive skills activities (293 minutes) to groups of youth and adults.
Knowledge is extracted from what you observe, experience, infer, and read. When you try to understand and make sense of information, you use reason. The right side of the brain seeks patterns. The left side of the brain uses the patterns (sequence of events) to predict the likelihood of something happening. This prediction is called a probability. For example, you might reason that if little Johnny has played the same wrong note in his piano piece the last two times he has performed it, there is a good probability that he will play the wrong note again the next time he performs the piece. Scientists and mathematicians use logical reasoning to prove conclusions. Policemen, detectives, and attorneys use logical reasoning to prove criminal cases. You use logical reasoning every day of your life to make and prove conclusions. If you know the structure of an argument you will be able to recognize the point of it, recognize the role that words and phrases play, and be able to evaluate the argument's validity. Activity Titles
- Logic and Reason
- Are You A Logical Thinker?
- Accuracy of Probabilities
- Making Predictions
- Thinking of Possibilities
- Begin a Mystery
- Games of Thought
- Mind-Set
- Stereotypes
- A Mental Trap
- Off On a Tangent
- Premises and Conclusions
- Inductive Reasoning
- Deductive Reasoning
- Deductive Reasoning Practice
- Critical Thinkers
- A Critical Eye
- Fact or Opinion
- Inference Doesn’t Make It Fact
- Statistics Scrutinized