ote taking, rapid reading,
scanning for main ideas and keywords, questioning, and reorganizing.

Mature thinking skills include procedures that require specialized
knowledge and basic thinking skills, like applying the sequential
steps of problem solving and following the sequential tests for moral
decision making.

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STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The stream of consciousness technique is a "basic" thinking skill,
along side outlining, note taking, rapid reading. The stream of
consciousness skill is also known as the free-association recall
technique.

Both creative writers, artists and scientific problem solvers use the
stream of consciousness or free-association skill. This skill is also
known as gestation, mulling things over, and getting a handle on
things. The process begins by letting our thoughts flow freely and
then sorting out the ones useful to our problem from the many that
came to mind. Often many of the random thoughts that come to mind have
no apparent connection to the problem; they are merely connected like
circular links in a spider's web to threads that interconnect with
others and run toward the center of the problem. The free association
technique begins by trying to think about nothing in a relaxed,
tension-free environment. Try as we might, something always intrudes
on our consciousness. It may a line running toward the center of the
web or it may be a seemingly meaningless, circular line. Every
thought should be written down as it comes to mind, and the task of
thinking about nothing begun anew. After ten or fifteen minutes, the
train of intrusive thoughts usually begins to slow down, and we can
then take the list of seemingly unrelated thoughts and sort out the
ones that relate to the problem. The next step of brainstorming is to
take the free association / stream of consciousness list and circle
the words that pertain to the problem, and connect them with "web"
lines into "clusters." These crude webs and clusters can then be
reconstructed into a more legible outline. (Several styles of
outlining are illustrated in the Appendix 2.) This outline can then be
used in the subsequent steps of problem solving. The subsequent steps
of the problem solving procedure involve hypothetico-deductive
reasoning and is a part of the scientific method.[4]

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Problem Solving Steps.

1. Identify the problem (state the hypothesis).

2. Gather facts: three ways in the order of most