Thinking skillsHow well is Your Mind Developed

Stuart Pedley-Smith

Contents

• Thinking creatively• Traditional view• Creative view• Thinking is a skill• Interested?

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the flight of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing

positive knowledge."

Albert Einstein

Thinking creatively

To pass the TOPCIMA you have to think!!!!!!!!!! Think creatively

Much of the thinking done in formal education emphasizes the skills of

analysis and logic

The traditional view

How many squares?

Traditional thinking

Follow or create a logical argument, figure out the answer, eliminate the incorrect paths and focus on the correct one.

Western thinking is determined by “What is”

Which is determined by:• Analysis• Judgement and • Argument.

Lateral thinking

The man in the Elevator

A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to go down to the ground floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns he takes the elevator to the seventh floor and walks up the stairs to reach his apartment on the tenth floor. He hates walking so why does he do it?

The gang of three

Socrates – Art of critique

Plato – Subjective experience

Aristotle – Put ideas in box’s

The so called gang of three have had a major effect on traditional thinking styles

The creative view

However, there is another kind of thinking, one that focuses on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, looking for many right answers rather than just one.

Designing a way forward.

Consider “what can be?

Both of these kinds of thinking are vital to a successful working life, yet the latter one tends to

be ignored until after college.

There’s profit in these

Profiterole

Don’t read this

Thinking is a skill

“If intelligence is the horsepower of the car then thinking is the skill of the driver”

The performance of the car does not depend upon the horsepower but upon the skill of the driver

Edward de Bono

Thinking is a skill

In an activity like problem solving, both kinds of thinking are important to us.

First, we must:

Analyse the problemGenerate possible solutions

Choose and implement the best solutionEvaluate the effectiveness of the solution

Thinking is a skill

As you can see, this process reveals an alternation between the two kinds of thinking, critical and creative.

In practice, both kinds of thinking operate together much of the time and are not really independent of each

other

How many squares now?