Running head: CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION Critical Thinking Self-Reflection 1 CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION 2 Critical Thinking Self-Reflection The ability to use critical thinking is very important in my day-to-day life as my profession involves life and death situations on an almost daily basis. The Critical Thinking Community (2013) defines critical thinking as “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action” (para. 3). As this examples states critical thinking is much more than having an opinion on a subject, it carefully looks at all aspects of a situation before a decision is made. In my current profession as an Air Intercept Control Supervisor and Anti Air Warfare Coordinator in the United States Navy it is very important that I do not jump to a decision in any given situation. It is imperative that I look at all of the data that has been presented to me and analyze it prior to making a critical decision. If I did not take all of the data into consideration, and critically look at the situation, the results of my actions could be detrimental. Critical thinking is such an important skill that classes on the subject has been incorporated into the staff colleges of all branches of the United States Military. An additional aspect in which critical thinking is very important in the United States Navy is in the taking of advancement exams. In the Navy enlisted members must take an advancement exam to be advanced to pay grades E-4 thru E-7. While this is just one of the requirements for advancement, it carries the largest weight on if a member is going to be advanced or not. The exams that the members take are presented in a multiple-choice format. While I know that there are many educators that feel that multiple-choice format test do not require critical thinking, these questions are written in a way that do require the member to use CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION 3 critical thinking. The Schreyer Institute of Teaching Excellence (2014) states, “Although multiple choice test items are well-suited for assessing fact recall and comprehension, with some extra effort, they can also be used to assess higher-order thinking such as application, analysis and evaluation” (para. 1). For this reason, if members use critical thinking in answering the test questions they have a much better chance in getting the questions right. While I routinely employ critical thinking in my professional life, I may not always use it as a tool that I use in my personal life. As I think that most of us do when it comes to our family and close friends, we may tend to want to jump right in and help them before we think about the situation. Many of these situations can involve loaning friends and family members money or property. While the loan that is made may very well be done in good faith with the expectation that it will be returned or repaid my not always be the case. One example of this that I have recently had in my personal life had to do with selling my niece a car and carrying the loan for her. While selling her the car was done in good faith, I did not employ many of the critical thinking techniques that I should have before I made this decision. Some of the aspects of the situation that may have made to jump to this decision included knowing that she needed a car to be able to get back and forth to work and school, me wanting to get rid of the car and wanting to help out a close family member. If I would have used critical thinking in the above situation, I am sure that I would have done things differently. If I would have looked into the reason why my niece was not able to get a loan from a bank for this car, or any other car for that matter, then I may not have been so willing to carry the loan for her. In addition, I should have also looked closer into why she needed the car. I know that the vehicle that she had was not running well, however, I did not CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION 4 know till later that this was due to her negligence on maintaining the car properly. If I had used critical thinking in this situation, I would not have carried the loan on this car for her. The main person that I look too to make sure that I am using critical thinking effectively and at the proper times is a former commanding officer of mine Rear Admiral Dewolfe H. Miller. Rear Admiral Miller always bestowed upon his crew how important it was making the right decision not always the fast decision. This included looking at both the technical and tactical impacts on a decision not only in the immediate future but also down the road. By using critical thinking this way you were always able to stay one step ahead. Currently an inference that I made that I am dealing with has to do with my next duty assignment. A few months ago I was contacted by my placement officer and was asked where I would like to go for my last tour of duty in the Navy before I retire in three years. I informed him that I would like to stay in the San Diego area. I also informed him of what possible commands I would like to be assigned to. Staying in the same geographic area is not only good for me and my family it is also good for the government as is saves on moving costs. The commands that I listed are all ones that I know would be requiring someone with the same skill set that I have around the time that I was due to transfer. The placement officer then gave me the impression and I drew the conclusion that everything that I had stated was good and that he would make all efforts to keep me here in San Diego and assign me to one of the commands that we had talked about. I could not have been more wrong. Now in my next to last chance to pick orders the only things that have been offered to me are orders in Yokosuka, Japan and Norfolk, Virginia. For this reason I now have a very hard decision to make on whether or not I stay in the Navy till my 26 year mark or I retire at 23 years. CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION 5 Another inference that I have made in the past had to do with a rental property that I was living in. My landlord at this property gave me indications that I was going to be able to rent his house for as long as I wanted as he was keeping this property as an income property and had no intentions of selling it. This ended up not being the case. Three years into living in his house he sends me a letter telling me that he has sold the property and that I 30 days to find someplace else to live. This incident has made me always get in writing, when I rent a house, that the landlord has to notify me in writing if he is going to put the house on the market. CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION References Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence. (2014). Writing multiple choice questions to assess higher-order thinking. Retrieved from http://www.schreyerinstitute.psu.edu/ Tools/MultipleChoiceItems The Critical Thinking Community. (2013). Defining critical thinking. Retrieved from https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 6 Critical Self-Reflection Essay In this reflective writing exercise you will analyze yourself with regard to the stage of development at which you are today as a critical thinker and your strengths and challenges in the matter of becoming a critical thinker with advanced reasoning skills. As you internalize critical thinking concepts, models, and theories, what do you want to understand about being a fair-minded critical thinker when you leave this class that you can use in the “real world”? Directions: Using the concepts learned through the readings and lecture pages, write a selfreflection essay that answers the following: • What does critical thinking mean to you? Describe the role that critical thinking plays in your life today. Explain and offer examples of how you might further apply critical thinking in your life. Critical thinking is the process of thinking of thinks to evaluate it in order to improve it. “Please add more to this definition and include an out sourced citation.” Critical thinking is about every day problem solving in my daily life. “Example 1” I am an Information Technology “IT” professional working with computers, networks and different computer systems. My problem solving approach is to check elements one by one to get to the solution. Critical thinking played a major role in my past life to get to the experiences what I do have now. Example 2” I hold certification from Microsoft and other IT companies. Prior earning this certification I have to go over an online exam that uses multiple choice question I remember I did apply critical thinking to get the right answer; by reading and understand the question well then start the process of elimination for answers and check every answer with it relation to the question. These examples illustrate how critical thinking play a major role in my life in the past and still in the present and the future. What does this course have to do with good thinking in general or with your particular beliefs? This course is about to test all of knowledge about critical thinking and put them in a measurement and see if I am on the right track of the critical thinking or I still need to do more with it. This course is very mandatory in my life because as • I described earlier all of my work is depending in critical thinking so, as I get to know my weakness point of my critical thinking that would help me in turning it to strength and of course that is the way to get to my life goals faster. • Define and explain a point of view or primary value you sometimes rely on to guide your thinking. Briefly describe how you personally analyze and assess thinking. I rely on circumstances most of the time before I try to think in judging. I consider to be patient before set a point of view is important because getting to know the action and all of its relation would help to get the truth. Consider all aspects and evaluate them by being patient is a very important thing for me. • List three inferences you have made in the past. Is it possible to separate emotions from issues that are heavily based on belief systems such as religious beliefs? I am open-minded person try to think critically in every action I take in my life in order to avoid issues. 1. First, two years ago when I was looking for apartment to buy I went to the most expensive building in town and bought my apartment honestly, after sometimes I released this action as a type of egocentric because buying such an this apartment cost me a lot of effort to put in my shoulder that what drive me to think in my thinking to get a proper solving for this problem which is getting more income which was a grace so I was going to think critically in everything and that helped me evaluate my opportunities better which assisted my in the past. 2. In the past my sister was going through financial hardship I did has the same problem but my emotions to help her drove me crazy to borrow her some money, honestly, I wasn’t ready for such this action to take but that was what occurred. 3. ---- Please add an example from your side include it as a loan to be taking from a bank. Requirements: • In this self-reflective assignment, you need to back up your ideas and claims with scholarly sources. Keep in mind that critical reasoning and thinking skills are not the same as opinions. While it is acceptable to write in the first person, as needed for this assignment, be sure to support your ideas with valid, reputable, and scholarly articles. • Include at least 1-2 scholarly sources The paper should be 4-5 pages in length, well written, and formatted
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