Differentiate analytical, critical, and creative thinking

- Do you remember your high school days? I remember mine fondly. Staying busy between studies, sports, and most important for me at the time, my friends. When I recall my long days in the classroom, eagerly waiting for that final bell to ring and release us. I can remember the grueling types of thinking exercises our teachers put us through, day in and day out. What about you? Were you challenged to remember to remember specific details from history class that might appear on the test that following week? Were you challenged to understand? To understand the meaning of different terms in biology class and how they connect? Were you challenged to apply? To apply your new knowledge of algebra to solve basic equations? These are called lower order thinking skills. And although they're absolutely necessary, they don't challenge us to use our minds to their full potential. According to Bloom's Taxonomy, a hierarchical model proposed back in 1956 that classifies learning into different levels of complexity, there are six levels of thinking that we can apply to learn and grow. School prepares us quite well in the use of lower order thinking skills, starting at the bottom of the hierarchy and working our way up by remembering information, understanding concepts, and applying our knowledge in new situations. But school tends to lack practice and application of higher order thinking skills, which also happen to be the ones most demanded in the workforce today. Higher order thinking skills challenge you to take your thinking to the next level. Building upon your knowledge already established to analyze, evaluate, and create. You've probably heard references to these types of higher order thinking, known as analytical thinking, critical thinking, and creative thinking. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in reality they build upon each other and have clear differences. You are here today to learn about the first one on the higher order totem pole. Analytical thinking. Analytical thinking encourages you to break down complex chunks of information into more understandable pieces. It's a systematic way of extracting facts from data and using these facts to make valid conclusions. Building upon this, we have critical thinking. Critical thinking involves objectively evaluating a situation or problem. It requires you to ask meaningful questions about what is being presented to you and consider alternative viewpoints. It calls for you to not take everything face value, avoid assumptions, and recognize bias in order to make more sound conclusions. It should be used on top of analytical thinking to verify your ability to reason and judge. And finally, we have creative thinking right at the top of the totem pole. Creative thinking is where the magic really happens. It's a process of bringing something new to life. You'll seek inspiration from a variety of inputs, but it's up to your imagination to bring something new into existence. Different types of personal and professional scenarios require varying levels of thinking. The more you can learn to use your higher order thinking skills, the more of an impact you can have. But with the rise of the digital age and the surge of data that followed, analytical thinking stands out for me as the key to making sense of all the information we have at hand to drive better decisions. Schooling might not have been the best at preparing you for this, but that's okay. It's never too late. Let's dive further into the term and see what it takes to flex your analytical thinking.