Critical Thinking Skills Definition: skills that help you improve the quality of your thinking through analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and reconstructing information.
Identify problems and develop purposeful questions for investigation
Identify problems and develop goals and objectives in response to those problems
Make inferences and draw conclusions
Identify gaps in knowledge and formulate key questions that help you acquire the missing information
Consider ideas from other points of view
Develop contrary arguments
Break down big ideas and/or large projects into smaller components and attend to smaller parts as appropriate
Plan to achieve goals by identifying targets and outlining steps
Consider the consequences of events
Identify obstacles and challenges
Make logical and reasonable judgements and create arguments to support them
Design improvements to enhance existing ideas
Use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternate solutions
Identify trends to forecast possibilities
Creative Thinking Skills Definition: skills that enable you to:
Generate boundless questions or impossible ideas
Consider all alternatives, even those that are seemingly impossible
Practice flexible thinking -- for instance, exploring all sides of an issue or idea
Practice metaphorical thinking -- for instance, conceptualizing an issue or idea in abstract or figurative ways
Make connections between seemingly random things
Apply the strategies of guesswork
Make intuitive judgements
Challenge convention and/or the status quo
Challenge one's own and others' assumptions
Utilize existing ideas in new ways
Transfer and apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, processes, and products
Recognize when an original idea has value and pursue it
Create novel and innovative solutions to a problem
Consider problems and challenges in a positive light
Transfer Skills Definition: skills that enable you to select the knowledge and competencies developed in one situation in order to use them in another situation
Use knowledge, ideas, and skills across subjects to create products or solutions
Make connections between the learning gained in different subjects
Apply knowledge and skills in unfamiliar situations
Use familiar learning skills with unfamiliar content
Use current knowledge to learn new concepts, skills, and technologies