TƯ DUY PHẢN BIỆN (CRITICAL THINKING) 🧠 | Định nghĩa & 3 cách đặt câu hỏi phản biện

Hello every one! Welcome back to my Youtube channel! I'm Chi Nguyen, a professor of education, currently teaching at a university here in the US. On this Youtube channel, I have taught you guys proactive learning... ...meaning instead of plainly reading books, plainly listening to the lecture, passively write down everything... ...I have guided you to be proactive, to take notes, write down

questions while reading books, as if you're talking to the author. Or to proactively divide your notebooks in order to write down your

questions, feedback, reviews or debate towards the lecturers or the lecture. While making those videos, I have received so many of your questions saying that... ..."I indeed have applied your methods. I have divided my notes in half, I have tried to take my pen with me while reading... ...but I couldn't figure out any questions." Or "I couldn't come up with any association to write down, any

feedback towards the books, the arguments that I'm reading." This make me realize that, there is something that the Vietnamese students are missing... ...which is "critical thinking". This matter has been here for ages. Because during the time I was attending schools in Vietnam,... ...it was appeared that in Vietnam's culture, it was normal to just sit still and listen to the teachers... ...I should only nod at what they say, and I didn't want to or shouldn't be critical about that. Similarly saying, I haven't been taught how to practice critical thinking. This leads to a problem that, when you have an assignment, a project

or a job that demands your own critical, independent thinking... ...to improve your working quality, better your book, or anything like that, you actually couldn't. I can clearly notice this when you ask me

about your problems through your sharings. Therefore, in this video, I want to show you how to practice your critical thinking. So you can apply, not only on your studying

process, but also on your other aspects in life. This is a very crucial skill, especially for youngsters. First, let's define "Critical Thinking". There are many people defining "Critical Thinking" on their own

narratives, which you can search online for better understanding. There are also a lot of researches about "Critical Thinking". But, in my opinion, I use one sentence which I always

say to my students here in the US to define this. Which is "Critical thinking is all about asking questions". Which questions? For example, when listening to

lecture, or watching a Youtube video (such as mine)... ...instead of only nodding of approval, or agreeing with everything the authors say... ...you should have your own questions. For example, why does Chi say this? Why does the teacher say this? Why does this book state this? How can they do this research? How can Chi make this video? With what reason or what knowledge that makes this Youtuber say things like this? Does this saying differ from what I have experienced?

Why didn't I achieve this even though I had done all this? How can I change this? Etc. When you receive a piece of information, you don't just passively receive it, you also question it. You may ask why, what, how, who, by which method that makes this. And whether there is anything differs from your own experiences. By constantly asking questions, you make your

brain work constantly, avoid having nothing to do... ...avoiding it from always being a receiver, relying on others without any independence. Our thinking needs to be independence, sharp and in multiple perspectives. So we will be able to question others, be able to notice something wrong

with something, then be able to give constructive, useful advice for the better. That is the core of "Critical Thinking". But it is also important to know what is NOT "Critical Thinking". Critical thinking is NOT disputing, bickering, especially over-bickering. It is also NOT criticizing others' results, projects,

or ideas without any scientific foundation, or evidence. For instance, let's say you're viewing a scientific research. They only did a research on women. But you try your best to

bicker them and criticize them for not doing the research on men. Even though in the paperwork they have explained

clearly why they only chose women for this study... ..., also have explained why doing this research on women

would make their outcome more useful and in-depth. Maybe you haven't read that particular part, but you still g on to criticize them nonetheless. That is NOT critical thinking. Critical thinking is also NOT being critical about

some irrelevant things other than what they are saying. Such as personal criticism. For example, a teacher uploads their lecture online. A critical thinking person

will give questions about their teaching methods, their lectures' content, etc. But a non-critical thinking will bicker on their

clothing, their postures while teaching. That's personal criticism. Or let's say you're reading a book, you start questioning things like "Well maybe this author have never experience my living condition, he/she just makes these up..." ..."they don't have families, children, they aren't in

this situation, so there is no way they understand this." That's a really vague, non-fundamental argument. You only should focus your critical thinking on the main content, the knowledge of the subject. You shouldn't extent your attention to other irrelevant

matters that have no use for your critical thinking. Also, you shouldn't use personal criticism disorderly (useless, non-constructive). Critical thinking is also NOT digging dirt on the matter. For instance, we have a research having 20 to 30 pages long.

You have no arguments at all about the content, the methods, etc. However, you dig dirt on each and every punctuation, every grammar they use. That is NOT critical thinking, just digging dirt on something. It is true that you can advise or notice these to the author,

but this isn't the main thing we should focus on at all. That's the difference between critical thinking and fighting, bickering,

aggressively criticizing what has nothing to do with the main subject. Back to the first definition of critical thinking. Lots of Vietnamese and American students asked me that... ..., "But how can I ask a good question that truly shows my critical thinking ability?" Like, when they want to ask questions, but then they look at the information, their minds

are blank. They agree with everything the author says, have no problems with it at all.. ...so how can they practice being critical and making arguments. For this problem, I have 3 ways for you to practice and show your critical thinking. The first way to make critical questions is to base them on your knowledge and skills. What is that? For example, you're reading a book about personal finance. The author says that you should make loans so you have a basis to earn more money. But you notice that, in another book, its author states that... ...you should avoid being in debts since debts really limit you,

take away your freedom and your chance to invest in other things. Something like that! So extracting something from other books

to develop critical thinking while reading another book is very useful. Regarding the same subject, different writers give different perspectives. So in conclusion, which one is the best one? Or which one is the best one for you? That's how you use your knowledge and skills for your critical thinking. That knowledge should be acknowledged, meaning it is published as a full

book, as a scientific research, or the author has talked about this for a long time. You can also base on your skills. For example, you're reading a research paper using quantitative

research method, which has so many numbers in there. Let's assume you have studied about research methods, you might establish questions such as

"Why doesn't this study use Mean, Mode, or Median?" (Please look up "mean mode median") What I'm trying to say is you can use your own skills and

knowledge to make questions in different fields, different situations. Making questions is the first step of critical thinking

since it helps your brain to start working and progressing. After that, we can analyze further. Let's get back to the previous example. You can figure out that

maybe they use Mean instead of Mode because (reasons). But you might think that if they actually used Mode, this study

would be more in depth, have more valuable information. Then you can advice the author. You can note down that if

you were the authors, or had this similar project in near future... ..., you would use the Mode method along with the Mean method. Based on your skills, you can make questions, from there, you will be able to explain why... ...your method and your advice is useful, lastly, you will establish solutions. That's the full circle of critical thinking flow, which I think it's extremely necessary. If you have enough knowledge and skills, you 100% can

making constructive arguments with others' content, or ideas. The second way to improve your critical thinking is using your personal experience. For example, there are a lot of you guys told me that you

have just started on this subject, you don't know enough... ...you haven't read that many books, nor had much skills, so there are not enough basis for you to use critical thinking towards your teacher, the author, or that book. Therefore, using your personal experience is also necessary. For example, your lecturer is teaching you about marketing. He says that you should pay lots attention to SEO in order to

maximize the identify process on Google for your website. You're a listener here. You can write down your

questions, or asks the lecturer directly something like... "Sir, I have been an intern in a marketing company." "I worked as a part-timer for a content creator that constantly needed marketing." "By so, I realized that, SEO is important, but improving the

content published to the audience is even more important." "If our content is interesting, it is still viral and wide-spread, people

still share and like our content despite our SEO being imperfect." That's how to use your critical thinking. It isn't criticizing but rather

giving useful, necessary information to improve your lecturer's lesson. Everyone would love that, especially me when I have such students in my class! That's how you use your personal experience. Addition to that, there's one more way that I constantly

used while being an international student here in the US. For example, I took lots of classes about "The US Educational System". Although it is familiar to me now, during the beginning,

I had little idea of how "The US Educational System" was. The way I made a connection with the lecture and stimulated my critical thinking

is that I associated with my experience, my knowledge of this matter in Vietnam. For example, there was a book talked about "Equality in Education in the US". I could see that the advice this book gave

worked really well for the US's educational system. But I wondered how it would have been if I had used these

methods in Vietnam since it was a whole other situation. Very often, I made questions like that to my lecturer in class. I associated myself like so, or in my assignments, I wrote my paper based on that. For example, I stated that, this research, this advice was very well-said. BUT! It wasn't guaranteed to work in another

educational system, situation, culture, or country. It wasn't guaranteed so when using in different circumstances,

this advice should be altered in this or that direction. That's how I practiced my critical thinking while being an international student... ...and that's how I helped improve the lecture plan,

the researchs, which my lecturer really liked. That's an example of how to use your personal experience to associate

yourself with the lecture, the knowledge from books or other sources. The third way to show your critical thinking

is making questions based on your curiosity. Use your curiosity! Why do I have this advice? It's because a lot of people told me that... ..."If I don't have enough skills, knowledge or

personal experience since I'm still at a young age... ..., or I have only been studying, I haven't been

an intern, I rarely have chance to study abroad... ...,my life is quite so how can I use your methods for critical thinking

namely using my skills, knowledge, or my experience?" My advice is to use your own curiosity. Like, if you can't really make questions that are

sharp, you can't really give any useful solutions,... ...you still can make questions based on your curiosity. For example, personally for me, when I give assignments, I always tell my students... ..."This is what you will have to read today, then write a Critical Reading

Response in which you make constructive arguments against this reading." The one that only summarizes the reading, I don't appreciate much.

Because I read the article, everyone, indeed, read it for the assignment. Summarizing only wastes time. The thing I want to know the most is how my students understand the readings. For a lot of students, they don't know how to establish questions. I always advice them to start with what they are curious about. For example, you haven't studied anything about quantitative research method,

so you wonder how can a freshman like you be able to do a project as such. How can you go on this field trip, or how can you have this data to make this study. Meaning you take advantage of your own flaws in skills, knowledge

and experience to establish curiosity from the reader/viewer... ...from your lecturer who is grading you, or the researcher of the project. That curiosity leads to a lot of interesting questions, not just plain interest. For instance, I have received a lot of questions from my students.

They claimed that they were clueless after reading this. So they wrote in their assignments that they had

read this, and only understood about 25% overall. So they are curios about whether the author could rewrite this in a more digestible manner. Maybe in this chapter, instead of writing in this flow,

might he write in a different, more reasonable way? Or instead of this words, might he use another synonym to

make it more easy to understand, or it is just their own opinion. I found this way of approaching very interesting. Because it

shows that my student have tried to understand this reading... ...but he/she thinks that the author hasn't made things clear

enough so he/she makes questions and arguments like so. I really love that! That's the method... instead of digging dirt on where

this book, this writing, or this research makes mistakes... ..., you can make a connection with the subject... ...if not, you can ask questions based on curiosity about

how they did that, or how you can do that yourself. If you don't understand this matter, you can imagine if

the author is here right now, can you ask him about this? Can the author write this in a different way

so the audience can understand this better? That's how you can use your critical thinking to

make polite, respectful and in depth arguments. As I mentioned earlier, critical thinking is very important. If you're lacking critical thinking, it's crucial for you to practice this no matter what type

of profession you're currently in, maybe you're a student, an office worker, or anyone. I really hope Vietnam's educational systems can help,

encourage their students to practice critical thinking. Because if we don't have this skills, it's

really disadvantageous for us in the future. Why? Firstly in education, as I said, in the US, they always

encourage students to have independent, critical thinking. If you don't have independent thinking, you will

always have to rely on others' to decide what to think. For example, relying on writing samples to decide what to write. Relying on the lecture to decide how to

summarize without making any further analysis. It's really limited for your thinking. It limits your opportunity to

become a good learner, a good researcher, or a good worker, etc. Secondly for daily life, not just in education. If you don't have critical thinking, you always find what others say,

especially the seniors, people who is in charge, authorized, are correct. 100% correct without any arguments, or, you get afraid. For example, on your mind, you notice this error, or aren't

happy with this, but you don't have the courage to say it out. This causes a lot of damage, not only to yourself, but

also to the organization, the company you're working for. Because you don't let others know what is wrong with the discussed subject. I find in a lot of organizations, the leaders told the

people under his command to do something. But you, the person who do such work, know that the leader

don't understand fully about the drawbacks of that working plan. If they go with the plan that the leader gives, it will fail. But you are too afraid to tell them. That's how the company goes downwards, or

the organization doesn't make any progress. Besides from working, in everyday life, if you don't

have critical thinking, it's easy for others to fool you. For example, they entice you do to something,

tell you to buy this, sell this, it is highly profitable. They tell you to send them money. There are

a lot of tricks in this world used to scam you. They take advantage of your innocence, your lack

of critical thinking to make profit for themselves. Therefore, if you have critical thinking, as I said, be able to make questions... ...you can ask why they tell me this, why they want me to

send them money, why they want me to do this, do that. It isn't doubting everything everywhere. Once more,

critical thinking has to be based on some fundamentals,... ...based on your knowledge, your skills, experience, and also your curiosity. It isn't doubting right away whenever someone says something. If the person is knowledgeable, has good

reputation, then it maybe helpful to listen to them. But it doesn't mean not asking questions. You must read, asking questions about what

you read, until there are no questions, then sign. That's how you use your critical thinking to protect yourself

and your loved ones from evil, and malpractice in the society. I think that critical thinking is very important. And it's a shame that, even we're in 2021 already,

a lot of Vietnamese students haven't had this skills. Personally, I find myself really lucky when I was born with

my mom being a journalist who has a really sharp critical thinking. As a result, my mom taught me how to make

questions, how to constantly use my critical thinking... ...to come up with better, more interesting, more efficient solutions. Later when I'm older, I was a bit suppressed by my teachers since

they wanted me to be docile, they didn't want to be proved wrong at all. Such old school educational mind set. But because I always had critical thinking skills in my

mind, whenever I had a chance, I could show that. This helped me a lot, later when I studied abroad in

the US, and became a professor. Helped me a lot! So speaking of critical thinking, I really hope the young generation

will learn this skill and understand how important it is. What is and what is not critical thinking. And remember 3 basic

methods to apply critical thinking in different aspects of your life. Thank you for watching! See you next week with a new video! Bye~ [Outro]