PROBLEM SOLVING

From: Alvino, J. "A Glossary of Thinking-Skills Terms." LEARNING 18/6 (1990): 50

• BLOOM'S TAXONOMY. Popular instructional model developed by the prominent educator Benjamin Bloom. It categorizes thinking skills from the concrete to the abstract--knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. The last three are considered HIGHER-ORDER skills.

• COGNITION. The mental operations involved in thinking; the biological/neurological processes of the brain that facilitate thought.

• CREATIVE THINKING. A novel way of seeing or doing things that is characterized by four components-- FLUENCY (generating many ideas), FLEXIBILITY (shifting perspective easily), ORIGINALITY (conceiving of something new), and ELABORATION (building on other ideas).

• CRITICAL THINKING. The process of determining the authenticity, accuracy, or value of something; characterized by the ability to seek reasons and alternatives, perceive the total situation, and change one's view based on evidence. Also called "logical" thinking and "analytical" thinking.

• INFUSION. Integrating thinking skills instruction into the regular curriculum; infused programs are commonly contrasted to SEPARATE programs, which teach thinking skills as a curriculum in itself.

• METACOGNITION. The process of planning, assessing, and monitoring one's own thinking; the pinnacle of mental functioning.

• THINKING SKILLS. The set of basic and advanced skills and subskills that govern a person's mental processes. These skills consist of knowledge, dispositions, and cognitive and metacognitive operations.

• TRANSFER. The ability to apply thinking skills taught separately to any subject (p. 50).

Other Resources

Teaching Thinking Skills: An Article by Kathleen Cotton

Problems Solving Approach in Chemistry

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