Games are a highly motivational approach to teaching and learning that generate excitement among teachers and students. The use of games is the basis of "ThinkAbility" -- a comprehensive program that integrates the most frequently used thinking skills in a carefully developed sequence of games that enables students to understand, practice and develop their natural thinking potential. Marco Meirovitz, the internationally known educator and inventor who created the popular game Master Mind, is the developer of this program. A specialist in thinking skills, Meirovitz has been teaching thinking skills since 1973. The games and activities he first used in his thinking skills courses were then integrated into school enrichment programs. Through participation in games and other creative and challenging activities, individuals and cooperative groups of students are able to discover, experience and implement the basic principles of thinking. Once they have learned to recognize, understand and improve their own thinking processes, students have the foundation necessary to apply the principles to classroom learning as well as to personal life situations.
"ThinkAbility" teaches students to understand, practice and develop their natural potential to think effectively and to apply the principles of thinking to solve problems in and out of the classroom. Its goals are:
* to stimulate and develop students' natural intellectual potential,
* to help students be independent thinkers and learners,
* to increase learners' self-confidence and eliminate blocks in thinking,
* to help students to be aware of their own thinking processes,
* to teach principles, techniques and tools for better thinking and learning,
* to develop habits of efficient, systematic and productive thinking,
* to promote better teaching and learning, and to prepare students to cope with school, home and work situations.
Applicable to all subject areas, this program can be integrated into regular subject area instruction, taught as a separate course, or used for enrichment activities. Moreover, it is interdisciplinary and requires no special previous knowledge, allowing for students and their families to use the program for self-improvement outside of the school.