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Running head: CRITICAL THINKING SELF-REFLECTION 1

Critical Thinking Self-Reflection

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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