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There are six stages of thinking
Stage One: The Unreflective Thinker
Unreflective thinkers are largely unaware of the defining role that thinking is playing in their lives and of the many ways that problems in thinking are causing problems in their lives. Unreflective thinkers lack the ability to explicitly assess their thinking and improve it thereby.
Stage Two: The Challenged Thinker
Thinkers move to the “challenged” stage when they become initially aware of the determining role that thinking is playing in their lives, and of the fact that problems in their thinking are causing them serious and significant problems.
Stage Three: The Beginning Thinker
Those who move to the beginning thinker stage are actively taking up the challenge to begin to take explicit command of their thinking across multiple domains of their lives. Thinkers at this stage recognize that they have basic problems in their thinking and make initial attempts to have a better understand to how they can take charge of and improve it.
Stage Four: The Practicing Thinker
Thinkers at this stage have a sense of the habits they need to develop to take charge of their thinking. They not only recognize that problems exist in their thinking, but they also recognize the need to attack these problems globally and systematically. Based on their sense of the need to practice regularly, they are actively analysing their thinking in a number of domains..
Stage Five: The Advanced Thinker
Thinkers at this stage have now established good habits of thought which are “paying off.” Based on these habits, advanced thinkers not only actively analyse their thinking in all the significant domains of their lives, but also have a significant insight into problems at deeper levels of thought then other people. While advanced thinkers are able to think well across the important dimensions of their lives, they are not yet able to think at a consistently high level across all of these dimensions.
Stage Six: The Accomplished Thinker
Accomplished thinkers not only have systematically taken charge of their thinking, but are also continually monitoring, revising, and re-thinking strategies for continual improvement of their thinking. They have deeply internalized the basic skills of thought, so that critical thinking is, for them, both conscious and highly intuitive. (Criticalthinking.org, 2014).