Critical Thinking Skills has taken the seemingly baffling art of analysis and broken it down into easy to understand blocks, with clear explanations, good examples, and plenty of activities to develop understanding at each stage. This easy to follow, step-by step guide to developing reasoning skills even applies the techniques to tasks such as reading, note-taking, and writing.
Train your brain for better decisions, problem solving, and innovation Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills is the comprehensive guide to training your brain to do more for you. Written by a critical thinking trainer and coach, the book presents a pragmatic set of tools to apply critical thinking techniques to everyday business issues. Think Smarter is filled with real world examples that demonstrate how the tools work in action, in addition to dozens of practice exercises applicable across industries and functions, Think Smarter is a versatile resource for individuals, managers, students, and corporate training programs. Thinking is the foundation of everything you do, but we rely largely on automatic thinking to process information, often resulting in misunderstandings and errors. Shifting over to critical thinking means thinking purposefully using a framework and toolset, enabling thought processes that lead to better decisions, faster problem solving, and creative innovation. Think Smarter provides clear, actionable steps toward improving your critical thinking skills, plus exercises that clarify complex concepts by putting theory into practice. Features include: A comprehensive critical thinking framework Over twenty-five "tools" to help you think more critically Critical thinking implementation for functions and activities Examples of the real-world use of each tool Learn what questions to ask, how to uncover the real problem to solve, and mistakes to avoid. Recognize assumptions your can rely on versus those without merit, and train your brain to tick through your mental toolbox to arrive at more innovative solutions. Critical thinking is the top skill on the wish list in the business world, and sharpening your ability can have profound affects throughout all facets of life. Think Smarter: Critical Thinking to Improve Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills provides a roadmap to more effective and productive thought.
"This highly informative book provides a comprehensive guide to the teaching of thinking skills in primary and secondary education." Learning and Teaching Update It is now recognised that thinking skills, such as problem-solving, analysis, synthesis, creativity and evaluation, can be nurtured and developed, and education professionals can play a significant role in shaping the way that children learn and think. As a result, schools are being encouraged to make greater use of thinking skills in lessons and the general emphasis on cognition has developed considerably. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to thinking skills in education and provides detailed guidance on how teachers can support cognitive development in their classrooms. Developing Thinking; Developing Learning discusses how thinking programmes, learning activities and teachers’ pedagogy in the classroom can fundamentally affect the nature of pupils’ thinking, and considers the effects of the learning environment created by peers and teachers. It compares the nature, design and outcomes of established thinking programmes used in schools and also offers practical advice for teachers wishing to develop different kinds of thinking capabilities. This is an indispensable guide to thinking skills in schools today, and is key reading for education studies students, teachers and trainee teachers, and educational psychologists.
The second edition of this leading guide helps students to develop reflective thinking skills, improve their critical analysis and construct arguments more effectively.Written byStella Cottrell, leader in the field with over 1/2 million book sales to date, this text breaks down a complex subject into easily understood blocks, providing easy-to-follow, step-by-step explanations and practiceactivities to develop understanding and practise your skillsat each stage.Essential for students who are mystified by tutor comments such as 'more critical analysis needed', this is an invaluable tool for anyone wishing to develop advanced skills in this area and learn to apply them to tasks such as reading, writing and note-taking. Now in two-colour, this edition has been fully revised and contains a brand new chapter on 'Critical Reflection' along with additional material on essays and referencing.
Based on over fifteen years of groundbreaking research, Developing Creative Thinking Skills helps learners demonstrably increase their own creative thinking skills. Focusing on divergent thinking, twelve inventive chapters build one’s capacity to generate a wide range of ideas, both as an individual and as a collaborator. This innovative textbook outlines a semester-long structure for the development of creative thinking skills and can easily be utilized as a self-directed format for those learning outside of a classroom. Readers are stimulated to maximize their own creativity through active exercises, challenges to personal limits and assumptions, and ideas that can help create powerful habits of variance.
1989 Winner of the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature inAdult Education This award-winning book offers a practical, straightforwardguide to helping adults develop their critical thinking skills infour key arenas of adult life: in their personal relationships, intheir workplaces, in their political involvements, and in theirresponses to the media.
An essential tool for our post-truth world: a witty primer on logic—and the dangers of illogical thinking—by a renowned Notre Dame professor Logic is synonymous with reason, judgment, sense, wisdom, and sanity. Being logical is the ability to create concise and reasoned arguments—arguments that build from given premises, using evidence, to a genuine conclusion. But mastering logical thinking also requires studying and understanding illogical thinking, both to sharpen one’s own skills and to protect against incoherent, or deliberately misleading, reasoning. Elegant, pithy, and precise, Being Logical breaks logic down to its essentials through clear analysis, accessible examples, and focused insights. D. Q. McInerney covers the sources of illogical thinking, from naïve optimism to narrow-mindedness, before dissecting the various tactics—red herrings, diversions, and simplistic reasoning—the illogical use in place of effective reasoning. An indispensable guide to using logic to advantage in everyday life, this is a concise, crisply readable book. Written explicitly for the layperson, McInerny’s Being Logical promises to take its place beside Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style as a classic of lucid, invaluable advice. Praise for Being Logical “Highly readable . . . D. Q. McInerny offers an introduction to symbolic logic in plain English, so you can finally be clear on what is deductive reasoning and what is inductive. And you’ll see how deductive arguments are constructed.”—Detroit Free Press “McInerny’s explanatory outline of sound thinking will be eminently beneficial to expository writers, debaters, and public speakers.”—Booklist “Given the shortage of logical thinking, And the fact that mankind is adrift, if not sinking, It is vital that all of us learn to think straight. And this small book by D.Q. McInerny is great. It follows therefore since we so badly need it, Everybody should not only but it, but read it.” —Charles Osgood
Offers real-life stories, items, and methods that allow for a deeper understanding of any issue, provide the power to use failure as a step toward success, and develop a habit of creating probing questions.