There are 15 Essential Skills used daily at TFA. The skills listed below are used by teachers and students to promote higher order thinking. Essential skills are a tool for understanding, applying, and communicating knowledge, and developing social and emotional maturity.
HABITS OF THE MIND
Comparing
Examining for likenesses and differences
Abstracting
Breaking up a whole and/or creating a whole from pieces
Analyzing Perspective
Examining the elements and parts of something in its relationship to the way you view it or someone else views it
Philosophizing
To reason. To bring into conformity with a philosophical point of view. A search for general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means
Discriminate
The power to distinguish and select what is true, appropriate, or excellent
Evaluating
Measurement – to determine the significance or worth by carefully appraising or study
Organizing
To form something into a clear structure so that it can be systematically followed
Analyzing
To break down a complex whole to its parts
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Paraphrasing
A restatement giving the meaning in another form
Sequencing
A continuous and connected series united by a theme
Arguing
Showing proof
Listening
To pay attention in order to hear and understand
Questioning
To subject to analysis
Clarifying
To be free of confusion, to make understandable
Storytelling
Uses sequencing analyzing perspective to tell a point of view
