The Academic Success Center held a critical-thinking workshop on Wednesday.

The 45-minute workshop was taught by Dr. Wade Thompson, instructor of Developmental English, in the West Library orientation room.

Thompson used a PowerPoint presentation to teach students the six elements of critical thinking; he said critical thinking involves acting learning.

To be a great critical thinker, he said, a person must listen without intending to react to the information being presented to them but to hear and receive the information.

“Listen in a way that is not meant to say something but in a way to register information,” Thompson said during his presentation. “You want to be proactive you never react.”

Freshman finance major Enkhpureu Onon was one of the 10 students that attended the workshop. She said she learned to think about her writing assignments in a new way. Instead of looking at her assignments the same way all the time, she learned to use the different point of views so that she will start to get multiple results.

“When I`m doing my assignments I tend to look at all of them the same way no matter the subject, so learning how to look at different things from different point of views will be helpful when I do my assignments,” Onon said.

Nicholas Oliver, a freshman English major, also attended. He said he appreciates the lesson he received about being proactive in his thinking. Learning to think about a situation before you react can make a person appear smarter and pleasant to be around.

“It was cool to get some lessons on being a proactive thinker,” he said. “I think this is one of those lessons that you can use in your daily life. It helps you control your emotions and learn to use your thinking skills in a situation around your friends and family, and they might even like being around you more when they know you can reason.”

Freshman early childhood major Rin Yellen said critical thinking is an important skill that everyone should try to learn more about, so she attended the workshop to improve her skills.

“We use critical thinking in everything we do; it’s also a good idea to improve your skills when you get the chance to,” said Yellen.