Collaborative brainstorming sessions are essential for the spiritual explorer. Learn how to use these individual and group critical thinking activities to enhance your intellectual and spiritual growth.
A group of people is not a team. It takes work to build a team. To have a team, you need teamwork, which relies on the skills of the team members and trust for efficient collaboration.
The same principles govern teams in work and spiritual settings. Learning to think critically and logically is one of the key skills necessary for decision-making and problem-solving. It is the ability to think rationally and logically, balanced with intuition and self-awareness.
Organized religion mimics the trust of a group in order to make you a paying customer. When you join a religion, you become a follower, not an equal member of the group. Religious services mirror political rallies in their emotional triggering. You don’t need this to brainstorm solutions.
Brainstorming Techniques for Critical Thinking
The umbrella of spiritual exploration seems like an odd place for group analytical thinking. But it is not. Analytical thinking skills are essential in this field. Spirituality contains a lot of false information, so enhancing these skills will increase your problem-solving ability and help you avoid many of the pitfalls of religion.
When we pose this idea of using collaborative brainstorming sessions, people are surprised. They don’t think they are appropriate for the spirituality arena, but they are. Collaboration is the basis of the teacher, coach, or partner with the learner. Collaboration is necessary when learning any advanced spiritual technique.
If you are facing roadblocks to your personal development, you cannot solve them alone. Collaborating with others can help you identify the problem and the solution.
Everyone Loves Group Critical Thinking Activities, Right?
Thinking critically means the ability to apply logic and rational thinking. It helps us gather, analyze, validate, and test arguments. The focus is on using evidence and logic to make informed decisions. Here is where we learn to apply the weight of the evidence.
You would think everyone would want to learn these skills, but you’d be wrong. Organized religion sees this as a threat to their customer base. If you ask questions about their doctrines, they get upset. Organized religion does not want you to use these analytical tools to investigate their system. Don’t listen to them. Be a Freethinker!
Religion uses groupthink manipulation tactics to keep you a customer. These are the tactics of propaganda and censorship which control thinking and values. Strategies like these allow someone to program your mind in ways that violate your natural moral compass and common sense.
Organized religions don’t want you to use brainstorming techniques for critical thinking. These tools bring to light the inconsistencies and errors in their doctrines. Rational ideas cause people to leave religion behind. This is one reason organized religions oppose many scientific theories. Any process or field of inquiry that threatens their doctrines is branded as heretical. They have fought against all types of scientific advancements.
Creating Collaborative Brainstorming Sessions
You need the right mindset to get the most out of group critical thinking activities. Cooperation is necessary between musicians in a songwriting and recording session. One person can dominate the process, and if they are exceptional, then the product will be popular. However, collaboration allows others to be involved in the creative process, which can add new dimensions to the final product. It is the same in business or in personal development.
The Beatles is an example of how collaborative brainstorming sessions can boost the creative process. They are also an example of what happens when collaboration breaks down. The body of work they produced when they were together will stand the test of time. They even carried some of this inspiration into their individual efforts after the Beatles disbanded. Much of their collaboration happened spontaneously while on the road, but they also set aside time to focus on creating new material.
Creating the right environment for success requires the right ingredients. The first is a unifying objective. The second is trust. The third is the opportunity to share and contribute.
The Best Group Critical Thinking Activities
Picking the right brainstorming format for your session is easy; just look for a format that solves your problem. You don’t even need a group to brainstorm ideas. However, the synergy created by doing this with other people can yield even better results. Another person’s idea can be the spark for you.
The larger your group, the more time and effort you’ll need to organize the session. Once you have more than four or five people, it is helpful to have a blackboard and someone to document the ideas.
Here’s a list of the most efficient and productive formats:
1. The Basic Problem Brainstorming Session
Have a problem? This is one of my all-time favorite brainstorming techniques for critical thinking. It provides ways to describe and outline your problem, making it easier to solve. Brainstorming helps you see the issue from different angles. Then, generate as many ideas and ways as possible to solve or address it. All options are on the table, no matter how outlandish and far out.
Collaborative brainwashing sessions are something we use throughout our blended learning process. It never fails to produce solutions that are better than the advice of any one expert.
This activity builds team collaboration and strengthens problem-solving skills. Let people analyze and consider the data and all the problems that could result from implementing solutions. This kind of discussion is non-threatening and helps us stretch beyond our current worldview. Free-flowing creativity may be just what you need to help solve a roadblock in your personal development.
2. Round-Robin
This is a variation of the basic problem brainwashing session, where you sit in a circle and share one idea at a time. Everyone contributes a new idea or solution, sparking creative ways of describing the problem and solutions. The key benefit of this is to ensure everyone is part of the process. So, the collaborative process brings those who would otherwise sit back into it. It’s a team-builder and a problem-solving technique.
3. The Debate Forum
Use this tool when investigating the potential unintended consequences of something. Perhaps you are considering taking a certain seminar, and you are uncertain if it is the right option.
Create two teams, one for and one against the issue. Prepare for only five minutes. Then, debate the issue for no more than five minutes, documenting the arguments for and against it.
Then, switch teams. The team that was for it is now against the issue, and those who were against it are now for the issue. You can’t use the same arguments for or against the issue; you need to find new arguments. Again, prepare for only five minutes and debate again. Repeat until you absolutely run out of new ideas for or against the issue.
Debating is a great way to enhance group critical thinking activities. Presenting arguments, evaluating evidence, and challenging opposing viewpoints develop problem-solving skills and give you new ways to look at problems. The debate forum is one of those collaborative brainstorming sessions that can be a lot of fun and provide excellent solutions.
4. The Case Study Approach
Take your problem or situation and look at it as a case study. Analyze the issue like a reporter looking in from a third-party point of view. Adopting this mindset helps you detach from the emotions that may be attached to the situation. Being detached allows you the freedom to apply critical thinking skills to dissect the problem. By examining different aspects of the situation, you may discover new causes and solutions.
5. SWOT Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis is a tried-and-true business approach. However, it also works well with spiritual issues. It helps you evaluate your personal growth in a way that gives you a structure breakdown. By identifying internal and external factors that may affect your growth, you can make better choices.
6. The Repetitive Question Circle
We use the Repetitive Question in a variety of ways. Here’s one that incorporates brainstorming in a circle. We pose the problem as a question, then go around the circle; each person must come up with a unique response solution. When you hear other people give solutions to your problem, it confirms and reinforces your own decision process. It enables others to provide their wisdom, insights, and perspectives in a non-threatening way.
7. The Panel Discussion
This format is a favorite of those who study the Enneagram as part of their path of personal growth. You can create a panel based on any attribute. With the Enneagram, you can create a panel by personality type or instinct and then ask them to provide advice on any personal growth issue. You can do the same by grouping people by religious beliefs.
Tools for Collaborative Brainstorming Sessions
You can meet and use any of the brainstorming formats. However, you won’t get excellent results unless you have the right tools in these meetings. Individual and group thinking activities are virtually the same.
Brainstorming helps us make better decisions because it helps us make decisions based on the weight of evidence and facts. We think it is essential today more than ever. You’ll need it when swimming in the waters of spirituality, but it is also vital in our day-to-day lives. Religion and politics are at the forefront of our lives.
Using these tools will help you spot errors and fallacies in many areas. They allow you to discern fact from fiction and metaphor from mythology. You can use them with almost every type of social media, from the internet to TV. These tools are beneficial for news and religious programming.
These tools are easy to use. You can learn to use several by reading articles on this website. The more familiar you become with them, the more you’ll be able to use them.
1. Logical Thinking Skills
The first tool, Logical Thinking Skills, helps us see how people use arguments to sell us everything from toothpaste to ideologies. It’s one thing to buy the wrong toothpaste. But, if you buy into a harmful ideology, you can harm yourself and others.
2. Spotting Logical Fallacies
The second tool helps us spot Logical Fallacies. It outlines the most common ways people misuse arguments to sell things. If we learn to recognize these ploys, we are less likely to be persuaded by illogical propositions. It keeps you from the slippery slope, which supports conspiracy theories and other unhealthy thinking.
3. Spiritual Axioms
The third is the Spiritual Axioms. It’s a list of practical principles to help you identify the misuse of reasoning in religion and politics. Again, if you learn to spot common sense and logic abuse, you are less likely to be sold on a bad idea.
These critical thinking activities enhance your ability to discern facts from fiction. Mark these articles in your favorites so you can return to them regularly to refresh your skills. They help you determine the weight of the evidence, no matter the subject.
4. Comparative Analysis
Comparative Analysis is another valuable analytical tool. It is a structured way of approaching comparative religion. This process introduces the challenge of comparing their beliefs to other worldviews. Here, we also learn why it is so important to use emotional checks. It helps us research with the least amount of bias and prejudice.
This tool isn’t just for research. You’ll find a use for it every day. In addition to their use in religion and politics, they are also helpful with TV and radio newscasts.
5. The Repetitive Question Exercise
Asking the same question repeatedly and seeking a new answer is an excellent tool for getting past the typical answer. It forces us to dig deeper for unique solutions.
In Conclusion
Group critical thinking activities and the tools for collaborative brainstorming sessions go hand-in-hand. Don’t overlook the opportunity to use these techniques.
Resources and references
Some other excellent resources to help you improve your analytical thinking abilities include:
Measuring the Effects of Self-Awareness. Construction of the Self-Awareness Outcomes Questionnaire: National Library of Medicine.
Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces: Wikipedia
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 471st ed. Edition by Ludwig Wittgenstein: Wikipedia
The Undiscovered Self: The Dilemma of the Individual in Modern Society by Carl Jung: archive.org
The Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Modern Library Classics): archive.org
If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients by Sheldon B. Kopp: archive.org
The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality by Michael Talbot (Author): Wikipedia
E=Einstein, His life, His Thought and Influence on Culture by Donald Goldsmith and Marcia Bartusiak: archive.org
Models For Critical Thinking: A Fundamental Guide to Effective Decision Making. Deep Analysis, Intelligent Reasoning, and Independent Thinking by Albert Rutherford: goodreads.com.