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Generally, the field of thinking skills can be thought of as being divided into two parts, i.e., macro-thinking strategies and micro-thinking strategies. The macro-strategies include critical and creative thinking as well as problem solving, decision making, and information processing. The micro-strategies are used to process information within the macro-strategies, and are usually connected with a cognitive taxonomy or learning hierarchy. One such cognitive taxonomy (that of Benjamin Bloom, 1956) begins with knowledge, comprehension, and application (lower-order skills) and moves to analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (higher-order skills). Another "kind of" taxonomy (which is more of a learning hierarchy) is Robert Gagne's (date) eight conditions of learning. Differing from Bloom, Gagne's approach is behavioral rather than cognitive. Gagne's eight conditions of learning (or learning types) include signal learning, stimulus-response learning, chaining, verbal association (these are lower-level skills), and discrimination learning, concept learning, rule learning, and problem solving (which are higher-level skills). Additionally, Robert Marzano and his colleagues (1988) have identified eight "core" thinking skills. These include focusing skills, information-gathering skills, remembering skills, organizing skills, analyzing skills, generating skills, integrating skills, and evaluating skills. There are also many programs that focus at teaching for higher-leveling thinking. Among these are Instrumental Enrichment, Strategic Reasoning, Philosophy for Children, Structure of the Intellect, Tactics for Thinking, and the Thinking/Learning (T/L) System. Each focuses at a specific purpose and has strengths and weaknesses. The first five (plus other thinking skills programs) are explained briefly in the Thinking Skills Programs section of this web site. The Thinking Skills Programs section also has off-site links to information about these programs. In addition, each of the programs reviewed in the Thinking Skills Programs section are discussed quite thoroughly in the Developing Minds resource book edited by Arthur L. Costa. This reference can be found below and in the Resources folder. The T/L System is explained in The Thinking/Learning (T/L) System section of this web site. It is considered a prerequisite (indeed, mandatory) for anyone interested in teaching for higher-level thinking to select a model or (if not a model) to focus their teaching at one of the taxonomies/ learning hierarchies or the eight core thinking skills. For more information about the macro-thinking strategies (and the T/L System) select that folder. The
Thinking/Learning (T/L) System Some excellent web sites that can provide information on thinking skills are: Arthur
L. Costa:
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC18/Costa.htm References: Beyer, B. K. (1988). Developing a thinking skills program. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, Inc. Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives book 1: Cognitive domain. New York, NY: Longman. Costa, A. L. (Ed.). (1985). Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking, 1st edition. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Gagne, R. Marzano, R. J., Brandt, R. S., Hughes, C. S., Jones, B. F. Pressiesen, B. Z., Rankin, S. C., & Suhor, C. (1988). Dimensions of thinking: A framework for curriculum and instruction. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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