This course is for students, adult learners and anyone who has to think something through: a study plan, an assignment due on Friday or a career choice. It also suits a class or a study group, where each technique is tried with one to seven others.
ThinkWell 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). The course is about using the thinking you already have more deliberately: standing back, giving it thinking time and choosing the right technique for the task. You learn nineteen practical skills, each with its own image to remember it by, and each paired with the habit of mind that makes you use it when it matters.
In the first module, Captain of My Own Ship puts you in command of how you approach any thinking task, and My Thinking Habits Check-In gives you a starting point on the sixteen Habits of Mind, which you take again at the end. Slow Down and See It All teaches Pros, Cons and Alternatives and Take All Information Into Account. Find the Real Problem looks beneath the symptoms, and Choose and Decide works towards a provisional decision you test before it is final. A Stretch Log runs through every module, and the course ends with My Gestalt Project, one whole undertaking of your own that uses the full toolkit.
I suggest you begin with Captain of My Own Ship and My Thinking Habits Check-In. The free ThinkWell Practice Gym on LearnSmart4Life gives you a taste; the full gym, with every prompt, is a tool inside this course.
Dr Alten du PlessisFounder, LearnSmart4Life