The Thinking Well deck is for the learner who wants to think more purposefully about study and about life: a school learner or student building critical thinking, a study group, and the parent or teacher who helps young people think a problem through step by step.
It gives you practical thinking techniques you can use straight away: weighing pros and cons, deliberately considering other people's viewpoints, thinking through consequences before you act, clarifying your aims and taking all the relevant information into account. The framework was developed by the EquipU4 team at Stellenbosch University, Dr Ludolph Botha, Professor Charl Cilliers and Dr Alten du Plessis, for the LearnWell programme (2002).
Each card holds one question, grouped under nineteen topics. They run from Pros Cons and Alternatives and Take All Information Into Account through Vital Things First, deciding objectively what comes first, second and third, and Determine the Real Problem, to Gestalt Thinking, where you use the whole toolkit over time on a large real-life undertaking. A card might ask how comfortable you are with deliberately looking for flaws in your own ideas. Like every FlourishTalk deck it is made for you, with your name on every card, and arrives by email as a print-ready PDF to print on cardstock and an eBook for a phone, tablet or computer.
I suggest you begin with the first topic, Pros Cons and Alternatives, and talk through one card at a time with a friend or in your journal. The same skills are taught in full in the course ThinkWell4Life, and you can try a quick rep of them in the free ThinkWell Practice Gym.
Dr Alten du PlessisFounder, LearnSmart4Life