Teaching Critical Awareness in an Introductory Course, Essay Example

Critical awareness is the act of taking in observations and analyzing them within the context of new situations or thoughts (Mayer, 1986). Leaders have the potential to influence creative awareness in those around them. To do so, it is important for leaders to provide people with guidance rather than simply providing them with an answer, to believe that people are smart enough to make critical assumptions once information is given, and to allow people to make their own adjustments to work if they believe that it will confer improvement as part of a learning experience (Miller, 1993). Critical awareness has the potential to impact evidence based practice by allowing the individuals that need to use information to apply it to new situations or to use the information in a more meaningful way. Furthermore, it allows individuals to combine information learned from a variety of sources to contribute to effective evidence based practice.

Critical awareness is important in a variety of fields, but has a high potential in improving health care (Hamer & Collinson, 2005). Since there is a wealth of knowledge available for health professionals to use, they must know how to effectively search through existing data to determine which information is useful in a particular situation. Critical thinking is a necessary part of this process because it helps professionals piece this data together like a puzzle in a manner that derives a meaningful solution. Overall, critical awareness allows existing knowledge to be compiled in a manner that is more useful to society. It is important for health professionals to maintain this understanding in practice so their work can be produced in a manner that positively contributes to the development of health care as a whole.

References

Hamer, S. & Collinson, G. (2005). Achieving evidence based practice: A handbook for practitioners. (2nd ed.). New York City, New York: Baillere Tindale.

Mayer J. (1986). Teaching Critical Awareness in an Introductory Course. Teaching Sociology. 14(4): 249-256.

Miller K. (1993). Assisting Our Communities: Critical Awareness and Self-Direction. Catalyst, 23(1).