critical thinking in the real world smu

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PSC037 - Introduction to Critical Thinking

Course description.

Critical thinking is an intellectual model for reasoning through issues to reach well-founded conclusions. It may be the single-most valuable skill that one can bring to any job, profession, or life challenge. Being able to ask the right questions, critique an argument, and logically dissect an issue occur constantly in the workplace and our lives. This introductory-level course is designed to help learners define and identify critical thinking and reasoning skills and develop those skills.

Course Outline

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Define critical thinking, reasoning, and logic
• Ask appropriate questions for critical thinking
• Understand the process of systemic problem-solving
• Identify and overcome barriers to critical thinking
• Articulate common reasoning fallacies
• Understand critical thinking as it pertains to the workplace

Learner Outcomes

• 0.7 IACET CEUs
• 7 HRCI Credits
• 7 SHRM PDCs
• 7 ATD CI Credits

Applies Towards the Following Certificates

• Specialization: Professional Power Skills : Critical & Creative Thinking

PSC037 - 251PSC037A-O

Session Time-Out

Self-paced online.

Self-Paced Online Instruction

This delivery method allows students to complete coursework at your own pace. Coursework may include homework, research, reading, discussion board participation, and other activities. To complete online coursework, you should have a reliable internet connection, an email account, and access to current versions of a web browser (like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc.). Some courses may have additional hardware and/or software requirements.

Registered students will receive individualized communication with further instructions to help you prepare for class.

Standard Rate

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Critical Thinking in Real World (COR1701)

Hai, just want to ask whether it's compulsory to get the textbook and is there any place to get it online for free/at a cheaper price? I feel like textbooks will not be fully used 😕

I know that there isn't any other readings given so we probably have to get the textbook but its $56 so I'm super relunctant to get it.

Checked carousell and its all sold out. Can't find it on libgen or anywhere.

Thanks in advance for advice and help!

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Modes of Thinking (1 CU)

The learning outcomes for all courses under modes of thinking are:  , disciplinary and multidisciplinary knowledge.

At the end of the courses, students will demonstrate an understanding of how argument, broadly understood works, what constitutes a good argument, and what makes a problem solvable or unsolvable. 

INTELLECTUAL AND CREATIVE SKILLS

Students will be able to use a set of thinking skills and/or problem-solving techniques to answer or solve a range of real-world questions and problems. 

COURSE OVERVIEW

In the 21st century job market you need the ability to think clearly and intelligently about a diverse range of issues. Recent surveys show that critical thinking and problem solving skills are the most important attributes employers are looking for in employees. Cognitive psychology has shown that our thinking is easily distorted by systematic blindspots, and that we often overestimate our reasoning abilities. In this course we will teach you how to be a better thinker, a skill that can be applied to whatever topic you choose or any issue you need to think clearly about.

Topics covered include identifying different types of reasoning, distinguishing good from bad reasoning, constructing arguments, identifying logical fallacies, and expressing yourself with clarity. This course is specifically designed to improve writing, thinking and oral presentation skills that are applicable to all areas of academic study and relevant to working life. Careful application of the content taught in this course will not only benefit your performance in subsequent university courses, but also deepen your capacity to critically evaluate everyday practical scenarios and will help you ‘think outside the box.

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, students should be able to:

• Improve their effectiveness in arguing for and developing a position on any issue.
• Strengthen their ability to clarify confusing ideas, texts, and situations.
• Acquire several formal tools useful for effective decision-making.
• Increase their ability to plan ahead and exercise reliable judgment.
• Increase their mental agility and adaptability.
• Develop their ability to present ideas clearly and persuasively.

Computational Thinking and Programming equips students to tackle complex computational problems; it trains students to design solutions to solve those problems using a computer program. It draws upon concepts from mathematics and computer science – more precisely, discrete mathematics, data structures and algorithm design.

This course will hone students’ analytical skills as they are challenged to think abstractly and computationally. Their minds will be open to the wonders of computing, as they go behind the scene to unravel the fundamental analytics that empower social networking sites, consulting agencies and service companies.

NOTE: To facilitate learning in this course, you are required to know and use programming. You are advised to pick up the Python programming language before the course, for instance by practising with online tutorials such as  http://learnpython.org.

• Discover the science of computing (or How to think like a Computer Scientist).
• Model problems and learn practical problem-solving techniques to tackle complex computational problems (beyond what a spreadsheet is capable of solving).
• Apply problem-solving techniques to develop more elegant and efficient programs.
• Learn to write programs to represent and manipulate with complex data objects.
• Understand the challenge of scale, not only in dealing with large data sets, but also in appreciating the nature of computing and computability.

The dynamic and fast changing nature of our world today is best described by VUCA, a term coined by the US Army War College. VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. The Arab Spring saw a change of government in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Once powerful countries in Europe are now fighting bankruptcy. The growth of the developing world which was taken for granted has begun to slow down. Even companies that were synonymous with their product categories just a few years ago are now no longer in existence. Kodak, the inventor of the digital camera had to wind up its operations, Borders, once the second largest US bookstore, has shut down due to their inability to evolve their business models with the changing times.

With such momentous changes happening in the world today, this course prepares the students to better understand the complexity and difficulties in reacting to the ambiguity inherent in those changes. This course helps students to understand the tensions in a given situation and how they need to think through a problem from multiple dimensions. The course aims to give students an insight into the mega trends and forces that are impacting their world. We ask what are some of the causes of these trends and their business implications? What can future managers like themselves do about understanding these changing trends, and why they need to address, appreciate, adapt and attempt to manage these changes in their ecosystem?

The course aims to introduce some basic VUCA concepts, in order to broaden their world view of management and nature of managing complex problems.

The first half of the course introduces some of these trends, while the second half provides tools and possible frameworks to deal with the VUCA aspects that they will face in the future.

At the end of the course, students should be able to:

• Describe and interpret some of the trends impacting our world and explore their ramifications for the world of business.
• Explain the factors that underlie these increasingly complex problems.
• Understand the larger context of a problem, while examining some of the details in a more focused way.
• Learn the ability to identify and analyse a problem from various perspectives and develop a mind-set to appreciate the complex, uncertain and ambiguous nature of problems.
• Developing your own problem-solving mind-set and building future oriented capabilities.

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SMU Deason Center’s tireless warrior holds feet to the fire when it comes to public defense

Pamela metzger wields the sixth amendment to assure justice for all..

Business columnist

6:00 AM on Aug 21, 2024 CDT

SMU’s law school might not spring to mind as a bastion for the downtrodden.

But fighting for the legal rights of the country’s most vulnerable has been the career-long crusade of Pamela Metzger, executive director of the school’s Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center.

That’s what drew Metzger to the Hilltop from Tulane University seven years ago for what she saw as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Wealthy Dallas businessman Doug Deason had assembled $7 million to create an independent research and educational legal reform center at SMU’s Dedman School of Law.

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Related: SMU celebrates 75 years of pro bono legal clinics in Dallas

The law school lured Metzger with a tenured professorship and the top job at the Deason Center to get her here. She’s been doing both ever since.

“My North Star is getting justice for the least amongst us,” Metzger said in a recent interview. She sees the Sixth Amendment with its constitutional guarantee to a speedy fair trial with the assistance of a public defense as the best vehicle for achieving that.

Today, Metzger and the Deason Center are nationally recognized for that expertise, educational initiatives and criminal legal ethics.

Yet, their work is relatively unknown in their hometown.

“Our kind of deep work is not flashy. As a result, people in Dallas often don’t know we’re doing it. It is quiet, steady, technical and methodological. It is not the stuff that makes the nightly news.”

But someday, it will be, she promised.

“We’re building something very special and innovative right here in Dallas that’s going to stand the test of time,” she said. “We have absolutely the best and brightest minds in indigent defense.

“It’s really a credit to SMU and the Dallas community.”

Liberal, conservative connect

Metzger and Deason, 62, are an odd pairing. She leans hard left. He’s a staunch conservative. But both are activists who believe that the U.S. judicial system is broken at every level and needs a systemic overhaul.

Deason’s instructions to the law school: Build something meaningful.

Metzger took that to mean she should build a nonpartisan, world-class research and advocacy center to lead the nation in criminal legal reform.

That’s right on target, said Deason, who oversees Deason Capital Services, which manages the $1.5 billion in assets built by his 84-year-old computer services magnate dad, Darwin Deason.

“I asked her not to just crank out academic white papers that no one would ever read, but instead do studies and pilot programs that we could base legislative changes upon,” Doug Deason said. “I was preaching to the choir.

“We are fast friends. We are hard to say no to when we team up.”

Deason describes her as driven, altruistic and brilliant.

Professionally, Metzger goes by Pamela, but otherwise, she’s Pam.

Metzger’s in the hiring mode, expecting to fill three additional positions in the next few months.

The current staff of 12 full-timers ranges from junior lawyers to seasoned attorneys and researchers, as well as people who never went to law school. Some work remotely in different states; others are on campus.

Representing 10,000 prisoners

Metzger, who grew up in Atlanta, started her legal career three decades ago as a federal public defender in New York.

Her commitment to public defense coalesced in 2005, when the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court assigned her to represent nearly 10,000 men, women and non-adult inmates stranded after Hurricane Katrina destroyed Orleans Parish Prison.

You might recall TV cameras scanning hundreds of abandoned prisoners lined up helplessly in the smoldering heat on a highway overpass.

Metzger learned that the New Orleans public defender office kept lousy records even before the storm. It didn’t know how many people were in jail, why they were there or even their names.

“Public defenders simply showed up in court, and whoever was in court that day, who didn’t have a lawyer, became their client,” she said.

“It was a real introduction to a way of thinking that said it’s not enough to handle one case at a time,” Metzger said. “You have to think about systems and how to improve them.”

Stats and Stories

Metzger is part data cruncher and part storyteller.

It’s not that she’s particularly enamored with statistics.

“I just find them useful,” she said. “I’m not a mathematician. I can’t add. But I’ve learned you have to have stats and stories. The stats tell you the scale of why things matter, but the stories tell you why they matter to your heart.”

The center is using ArcGIS geospatial mapping to identify small, tribal and rural legal deserts where there aren’t enough criminal lawyers to meet local prosecution and defense needs and where people have to travel long distances to get to courts, law offices and jails.

“We actually put things on a map and then measure drive times to see how far away people are from the courthouse and how long it takes them to drive there,” she said.

Using that data, the project is finding innovative ways to recruit, train and retain experts in criminal law. “We’re honoring the right to legal counsel for people no matter where they live,” she said.

Justice by geography

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ranks No. 1 in Metzger’s legal heart. She’s determined that every state lives up to that constitutional promise.

Many aren’t, she says, including Texas.

To most of us, the word indigent means someone who is extremely poor without the means for a normal life. But in the legal world, indigent specifically means someone who can’t afford to hire an attorney, Metzger said. Just who qualifies for court-appointed counsel varies significantly in Texas, where individual counties set the rules.

For example, West Texas counties of Borden and Lynn are adjacent to each other, but you have to be more than twice as poor in Borden to qualify for court-appointed representation than you do in Lynn.

“You’ve just been arrested in Borden. You might be in the greatest crisis of your life. But you’re expected to somehow prove to a judge that you don’t have enough money to hire a lawyer even though you make 75% of the federal poverty level,” she said. “You go one county over to Lynn — where you can earn twice the federal poverty level — and it’s an entirely different experience.

“That kind of justice by geography just isn’t right.”

And when it comes to indictments, you can be jailed in Texas for 90 days without being charged with anything. In Mississippi, you can be held indefinitely. Such jail time without being charged equates to “a state-sanctioned disappearance, and we allow this all over the country,” she said.

Experiments and grants

The Dallas County DA’s office wants to make sure this doesn’t happen here, she said.

The Deason Center is doing an experimental study to see how Dallas County can improve the charging process.

She tells me about this “randomized controlled trial,” and my eyes glaze over.

Then she puts it in lay language.

“The cases that aren’t going to be prosecuted are taken out of the system earlier, therefore freeing up more resources for cases that are going to continue,” she said. “It’s very, very special. We’re working with the Chrest Foundation and the Child Poverty Action Lab.”

Together, they’ve hired two experienced intake specialists to work assault cases as soon as the complaints are filed, listen to the parties involved and determine which cases should be pursued.

“In general, the [Dallas County] DA’s office doesn’t have enough bandwidth to offer services to victims and witnesses until much later in the process,” Metzger said. “When this is all done, I think people not only in Dallas will know about it, but really across the country, because it is a first-of-its kind study.”

The center also landed a prestigious $800,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to explore ways to shore up the enforcement of the Sixth Amendment.

It is one of two national grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice in honor of the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that said criminal defendants must be provided a defense attorney, even when they can’t afford one.

“Go into a misdemeanor court in Texas, and there is an excellent chance that most of the people will not have a lawyer by their side even though they could go to jail,” she said. “That’s not the way the [Constitutional] framers envisioned this.”

The Deason Center’s work came to the local forefront in 2019, when it worked with Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot concerning his decision not to prosecute first-time misdemeanor marijuana offenders where there’s no evidence of a weapon, distribution or possession in a school zone.

The center’s research demonstrated that after Creuzot implemented this policy, police referred far fewer cases to the DA’s office for prosecution, freeing them to do more critical work and saving taxpayers money.

But the center’s study, Fewer, Not Fairer , indicated that police in many Texas counties were far more likely to refer Blacks for marijuana prosecution than other races.

Hard decisions ahead

What are the trends she sees for indigent public defense?

Louisiana, where she spent 16 years working on public defense initiatives, was once a model for the nation, she said. But it has had a “shocking retrenchment” on core principles that’s “terribly disappointing.”

On the other hand, places like South Dakota have passed impressive indigent defense legislation.

“But the thing that is most worrisome — and it is true across the country from Florida to Maine to Oregon — is that we’re confronting a desperate shortage of people to provide representation in criminal cases, and we’re also seeing a shortage in prosecutors.”

That means the country needs to make hard decisions about the legal system, she said.

“We can’t simply say, ‘Well, the Constitution doesn’t apply when you don’t have enough lawyers.’ We’re either going to have to change the way we think about crime or make the work of being a prosecutor and a public defender more sustainable so that we can encourage people to take on those roles for justice to work.”

Meet Pamela Metzger

Titles: professor Dedman School of Law; executive director Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Education: Bachelor of Arts, Dartmouth College, 1987; J.D., New York University School of Law, 1991

Resides: Dallas

Cheryl Hall , Business columnist . Cheryl, a journalism graduate of SMU, has covered business for more than 45 years and gets her phone calls returned. She's won numerous awards including several Katies from the Press Club of Dallas and a lifetime distinguished achievement award from the Society of American Business Editors and writers.

• Profile Type Full-time Faculty Visiting Faculty Adjunct Faculty Professor Emeritus
• By Schools College of Integrative Studies Lee Kong Chian School of Business School of Accountancy School of Computing and Information Systems School of Economics School of Social Sciences Yong Pung How School of Law

Faculty Directory

Faculty profile.

Joshua THONG

Qualifications.

• PhD in Philosophy, Australian National University, 2022

Course(s) Taught in SMU

• Critical Thinking in the Real World

Research Areas and Areas of Expertise

• School of Social Sciences