Thinking Skills: Meaning and Types

 Thinking Skills: Meaning and Types

Thinking

1.     Thinking is an inner mental process that leads to generating new ideas out of already acquired knowledge.

2.     Thinking is the action of using one's mind to produce thoughts.

3.     It involves cognitive, emotional, and sensory processes.

Thinking skills

1.     Thinking skills are the mental skills that are used to process information, make connections, make decisions, and create new ideas.

2.     These skills play a fundamental role in various aspects of daily life.

3.     Thinking skills are used to solve problems, decide, ask questions, make plans, organize and create information.

4.     Thinking skills include- Remembering, recalling, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating, etc.

Types of Thinking Skills

To accomplish a variety of objectives, it’s helpful to use different types of thinking

1.     Analytical thinking

Analysis is usually an orderly, step-by-step way of thinking. It enables a person to analyze a given problem step by step and explore all possible way to interpret the situation.

2.     Concrete thinking

Concrete thinking is the ability to understand and apply facts. This type of thinking is usually direct and can form the basis of more complex types of thought that may rely on a solid understanding of facts.

3.     Creative thinking

Creative thinking uses existing knowledge to develop new, original or innovative ideas. This type of thinking can help you approach challenges with a new perspective.

4.     Critical thinking

Critical thinking means using existing understandings to evaluate the usefulness of new information. It covers identification, collection, analyzation, interpretation, establishment, decision and communication. It helps to find out what is important and make good  decision.

5.     Divergent thinking

Divergent thinking occurs when a person  pursues many responses to a problem or challenge. All the responses are compared and  then an individual determines which solution is most appropriate based on this evaluation.

6.     Convergent thinking

Convergent thinking involves combining many ways of thinking about potential solutions into one cohesive idea or plan. An individual identifies the most useful part of each option to combine them most effectively. The goal is to create one effective outcome for a problem or need.

7.     Metacognition

Metacognition is thinking about the way you think. This type of thinking involves careful reflection and analysis of one's own thought patterns. It’s used to better understand a problem or challenge.

8.     Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking involves deep planning and envisioning the future. It is used to prepare long term plans, developing strategies, seeing challenges and finding opportunities to fulfil the goals.