Reflection Activity: The Benefit of Thinking Critically
Trinh Van Hoa
Columbia Southern University

Reflection Activity: The Benefit of Thinking Critically Critical thinking nowadays has been applying very early state from the primary school and being upgrade to higher level of master degree. In the “An Educator’s Guide to the Four Cs”, (National Education Association [nea], n.d.). Stated that “the Critical thinking and problem solving” is one of their first priority of 4Cs, the following 3 Cs are “Communication”, “Collaboration”, and “Creativity and Innovation”. According to Montopoli (2009, para. 32). President Barak Obama has been presented his attention on the soft skills for the student, especially on Critical thinking. President Obama's full remarks, as provided by the White House, are below.

“I'm calling on our nation's governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.”

By simply “click” on the research of “Critical Thinking”, we can find 248 million of results on the Internet for just about its. The awareness of the importance was positioned at a high level from societies. This skill becomes a survival method for people are living in the industrial life where the technology is speedy changing. What is that? Source of Information is huge via Internet and human connection is also much easier to get from the Internet or different sources of database. At this practical time, the critique thinking needs to apply for filtering screen. It requires filtering out the chaotic information then selecting carefully the most close to the truth article that can set the direction for a solution or giving decision. Kinney (2011, May 27) [3-5] stated clearly in her analysis about the benefit of critical thinking on the college students, is written in below.

“Critical thinkers make decisions based on taking the time to gather appropriate information, research and weighing the possible outcomes. Critical thinking allows people to compare, analyze, critique, and synthesize information. Critical thinkers keep an open mind and change there views based on new knowledge acquired. Critical thinkers examine there actions to see why they make the decisions they do. Good critical thinkers know how to separate opinions from facts. Critical thinkers make better decisions, which are less impulsive, leading them to be more successful in life. They also know the difference between rational thoughts and emotional impulses. Critical thinking greatly increases success in college students”.

George N. (2014) also said “Critical thinking forces employees and managers to look at a situation and weigh all possible solutions before coming up with a final answer. It can be a long process that requires input from different people within the organization. The benefits to critical thinking make it a worthwhile practice for any small business”.

Critique thinking is an excellent tool and method for finding solution, setting a new way of working and implanting. It is gather different results for comprehensive overview of a selective objectives, and optical absorption all ideas for an efficiently way. We should understand the root cause of problem and solving it by own way or support of others. As a result, we can improve the method of business as well as employ it at the work and the life. The movement of Critical thinking is being propagative everywhere not only spreading at college or school but also business.

Additionally, it requires a practice to get this skill. We should review together an example from the question number 19, Critical Thinking Assessment Practice Quiz (2010, p. 4), be unearthed and checked what wrong with the logic of the following statement is "How can you believe his testimony? He is a convicted felon!” In a conventional way, we look at the issue, and we immediately build our own assumption about it. In this case, we assumed if he were a convicted felon, he would be lye. Sometimes our assumption is working but sometimes it is not such as this case. The correct answer is “The fact that the person testifying was convicted of a crime does not mean he is lying” (APQ 2010, p4). By giving diverse question on the initial assumption when having namely, why do the testimonies tell lie? Do they all lye? How are they lying? Why they have to lye when they already in prison? What should they lye? What is benefit for felon to be lying behind the iron prison bars? etc., when we look at the scenario from different points of out of old views, it pops up a number of good questions which can help to find out the realistic answer of “felon or not” un likely linking with lying.

Critical Thinking requests to be out of the box of assumption and look at the thing differently. Sometimes it is not easy to get out of our own ways; we do not want the questions assumptions naturally. The experience has established firm, it created a barrier for aborting new ideas and taking risk to try a new solution. I think the most efficient critical thinkers are children. Once looking at a thing or observing a physical phenomenon, they put a varity questions to build their own creative ideas about it. It is easy to learn this skill from children. With the same tactic of putting the question on the question number 17 (APQ 2010, p.4) where we can find the objective about Abraham Lincoln from the official site of the presidential library in Springfield.

This Critical thinking skills are really convinced me. I am currently managing the purchasing team of 21 people doing the sourcing, buying, specifying products, offering, marketing, developing and building sale strategy for a biggest Cash and Carry wholesaler in Vietnam. Our team is a backbone of the organization, which direct manages all Non Food suppliers nationwide. We used to have a meeting about different critical issues everyday asking us to give solution, connect people from different teams and implementing our action plan. The issues used coming from Operation team, sale force team, accounting team, logistic team and delivery team. Our issues related to the current down turn situation when the GDP & CPI are going down and the inflation is going up then effected strongly to our business. Understand the process and tactics to practice it would help me a lot to the improvement for the current down trends and pressure by involving different sources of experience to solving the issues. Moreover, the critical thinking would also support me to understand the whole lectures by putting question and looking for the answers from tutor, student support, classmates and professors.

References
Anderson, A. & Media, D. What are the benefits of critical thinking in the workplace? The Houston Chronicle: Small Business. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-critical- thinking-workplace-11638.html
Facione, P. A., & Facione, N. C. (2007). Talking critical thinking. Change, 39(2), 38-45. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.
Haskins, G. R. (2006, August 15). A practical guide to critical thinking, 3-4. Columbia Southern University. Unit II study guide: A practical guide to critical thinking, 3-4. Retrieved from http://online.columbiasouthern.edu/csu_content/courses/general_studies/lss/lss5100/14b/articles/LSS5100_UnitII_APracticalGuidetoCriticalThinking.pdf
Kinney, S. (2011, May 27). The Benefits of Critical Thinking [power point slides 3-5]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/sarahjosh143/the-benefits-of-critical-thinking-8118471#
Montopoli, B. (2009, March 10). Obama’s remarks on education. CBS News. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obamas-remarks-on-education/
National Education Association. Preparing 21st century student for a global society. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/A-Guide-to-Four-Cs.pdf