Readers often become frustrated and waste time on this chapter by forcing themselves to make distinctions that are not worth making. Terms in this chapter look very similar to one another; and so students may spend unnecessary time trying to distinguish them clearly. In many cases, these distinctions are unnecessary. The experts are not clear on some of the distinctions; and in many cases topics overlap because they are largely different ways to explore the same topic. The following clarifications may help prevent confusion and enable you to organize and integrate the information in this chapter more effectively.

Thinking skills is a general term, which can be applied to any thought process. The first section of this chapter subdivides thinking skills into three categories; but there are many other ways in which they could be categorized. Cognitive skills usually means the same thing as thinking skills, although some authors use it to mean any thinking skills that are not metacognitive skills.

Higher order thinking skills (HOTS) is a term that refers to any of the thinking skills described in this chapter except content area thinking skills. Cognitive strategies (a term used by Gagne and introduced in chapter 6) are about the same thing as HOTS. Intellectual skills (another term from chapter 6) are usually not considered HOTS, because they are content area thinking skills.

Metacognitive skills is a label given to the learner's self-awareness and monitoring of cognitive processes. Many of the other higher order thinking skills discussed in this chapter would also be considered metacognitive skills, if the learner would become consciously aware of monitoring their use.

Self-Regulation refers to the metacognitive process of taking charge of our own learning by coordinating the other skills described in this chapter.

Creativity refers to the use of thinking skills to generate original, novel, or abundant ideas. While thinking creatively, a learner uses thinking skills and monitors them through metacognitive processes.

Critical thinking refers to the process of examining a product and determining its quality. Critical thinking is close to evaluation, which is the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy (Chapter 6). The difference is that evaluation usually refers to an outcome in a specific subject area (e.g., language arts or science), whereas critical thinking usually refers to a more generalized skill.

Problem solving refers to the use of thinking skills to solve problems. Problem solving skills can be either very specific or very general. The problem solver often uses metacognitive processes to monitor thinking skills in a creative manner.

Cognitive strategy instruction is one of several labels that can be applied to attempts to teach cognitive skills like those described in the preceding paragraphs.

Scaffolded instruction refers to a range of strategies that integrate direct instruction methods with other techniques such as modeling and prompting to teach skills like those described in the previous paragraphs.

Finally, the topics covered in this chapter overlap considerably with those discussed in other chapters.

• Chapter 4 has discussed Piaget and has related his theories to other constructivist insights. The constructivist idea of active organization of information lies at the basis of many of the concepts discussed in the present chapter.
  
  
• Chapter 6 has discussed memory and information processing. The present chapter builds on those concepts by putting them into a context that relates them to other skills and concepts.
  
  
• Chapter 9 includes a section that discusses intelligence. Modern theorists see a close relationship between intelligence and thinking skills, and so the information presented in this chapter should help you understand and integrate the discussion of intelligence. Chapter 9 also includes a discussion of strategies for helping mainstreamed students learn effectively, and many of the strategies discussed in that section overlap with those discussed here.
  
  
• Chapters 3 and 15 discuss the design and delivery of instruction. Since a major purpose of instruction is to help a person think, those chapters discuss strategies that enable learners to apply many of concepts and skills discussed in this chapter.

Click on a topic from the following list, or use your web browser to go where you want to go:

• Introduction
• Learning-to-Learn Skills
• Content Thinking Skills
• Basic Reasoning Skills
• Summary of Thinking Skills
• Metacognitive Skills
• Development of Thinking Skills
• Cognitive Skills Instruction
• Self-Regulation of Learning
• Notetaking
• Stimulating Creative Thinking
• Stimulating Critical Thinking
• What Teachers and Parents Can Do to Simulate Thinking Skills
• What Students Can Do to Simulate Thinking Skills
• Summary
• Annotated Bibliography