December 11, 2023

Introduction to Decision Making and Creative Problem Solving

A series of introductory self-taught training materials to stimulate awareness of critical thinking, decision making and creative problem-solving techniques in an engaging way.

The course components are as follows:

1.1. Life’s Pathways, Routes and Junctions.

Activities: Decisions task.

Aims: An introduction to the importance of the choices we make and how decision-making is a skill that can be refined to create incredibly beneficial outcomes.

1.1.1. Habits of Good Problems Solvers.

Activities: 6 Habits task.

Aims: To introduce and utilize six secret habits of good problem solvers that can be used on any problem in life.

1.2. The Barriers to Making Good Decisions.

Activities: Self-analysis task.

Aims: To study some of the commonest mistakes in the way we think, and how we can overcome these issues with practice.

1.2.1 Intuition, Priming and the Invisible Gorilla.

Activities: Short puzzles and online video attention task.

Aims: To study some key cognitive limitations of the human mind.

1.3. Goals and Targets.

Activities: Case study analysis task.

Aims: To study how to make good decisions based on our goals.

1.3.1 Certainty and Big Data.

Activities: Reading.

Aims: To study about certainty, induction and deduction, and how ‘big data’ can increasingly make accurate predictions.

1.4 and 1.4.1. The Wise One Whispers / Wise Cards

Activities: Wise Cards lateral thinking task.

Aims: To encourage the use of lateral thinking to enhance innovative creative problem-solving.

1.4.2. Using the Wisdom.

Activities: Personal ‘moving forward’ self-analysis task.

Aims: To bring the course to a close with a concluding explanation of what the skills learned can help us achieve.

Extra materials included:

The following materials are included for use in conjunction with the main course materials. They will be useful when completing tasks and also as something to come back again after completing the course or as a way into more specialized study.

Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Brainstorming Basics.

Critical Thinking Quick Reference Guide.

Important Critical Thinkers from Ancient History to the Present Day.

Qualities of a Critical Thinker.

Lessons

1.3 Goals and Targets

Author: Daniel

This unit could be sub-titled ‘how to make good decisions based on our goals’. Whereas the last unit was mainly focussed on mistakes we make and some of the techniques

1.3.1 Certainty and Big Data

Author: Daniel

How sure can you be that 2 plus 2 equals 4? You should be quite certain, given that every time you have put two objects with another two objects you

1.4 The Wise One Whispers

Author: Daniel

We have produced a set of 20 ‘Wise Cards’ which can be used to help all aspects of the decision-making process, from understanding your goals to reaching them by making

1.4.2 Using the Wisdom

Author: Daniel

“Treat others as you would like others to treat you.” This is a very old saying found in slightly different forms in many different cultures and religions from across the