THINKING SKILLS Robert Fisher Unit 7.4 Pages, 374 - 387
Jan 24, 2016
THINKING SKILLS
Robert FisherUnit 7.4
Pages, 374 - 387
Lecture’s Objectives
• Inform your understanding of “thinking
skills” and their role in learning;
• Understand some key principles that emerge
from research into teaching thinking;
• Identify the main approaches to developing
children’s thinking;
• See how you might integrate a “thinking
skills” approach into classroom teaching and
research.
Discussion
What are ‘thinking skills’?
Why is it important to develop your thinking
skills?
Can we apply it in our teaching approach, how?
What are thinking skills?
“Thinking skills is a term that refers to the human
capacity to think in conscious ways to achieve
certain purposes. Such processes include
remembering, questioning, forming concepts,
planning, reasoning, imagining, solving problems,
making decisions and judgments, translating
thoughts into words and so on. Thinking skills are
the habits of intelligent behaviour learned through
practice.” ~ Robert Fisher
Bloom’s TaxonomyThe Cognitive Goals of Education
Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking skills has been widely used by
teachers in planning their teaching. He identifies a number
of basic or ‘lower-order’ cognitive skills – knowledge,
comprehension and application, and a number of ‘higher-
order’ skills – analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
You can plan or analyze many learning activities in term of
the above categories (read example p, 375).
Why Are Thinking Skills Important?
❇ The complexity of modern jobs requires people who can
comprehend, judge and participate in generating new
knowledge and processes.
❇ Modern democratic societies require its citizens to
assimilate information from multiple sources,
determine its truth and use it to make sound judgments.
So, the challenge is to develop educational programs
that enable all individuals, not just an elite, to become
effective thinkers because these competencies are now
required of everyone.
What does research tell us about thinking?
Research key principles include the need for teachers and carers to provide:
1. Cognitive challenge:Most of the growth in the human brain occurs in early childhood: by the age of six, the brain in most children is approximately 90% of its adult size. This implies that intervention, while the brain is still growing, may be more effective than waiting until the brain is fully developed.
2. Metacognitive discussion:We need to develop the higher ‘metacognitive’ functions involved in metacognition. This involves making learners aware of themselves as thinkers and how they process/create knowledge by ‘learning how to learn’.
3. Collaborating learning:
It is through dialogue that children develop consciousness, learn
control over their internal mental process and develop the
conceptual tools for thinking. No wonder recent research
emphasizes that teacher-pupil interaction is the key to improving
standards of teaching and learning.
Our understanding of the term ‘thinking’ has extended including
the importance of dispositions, such as attention and motivation.
This has prompted a move away from a simple model of ‘thinking
skills’ as isolated cognitive capacities to a view of thinking as
inextricably connected to emotions and dispositions, including
‘emotional intelligence’, which is our ability to understand our
own emotions and the emotions of others.
Should thinking be taught in separate lessons or across the curriculum? Research suggests that one-off ‘thinking’ lessons are
less effective than teaching thinking and learning
strategies that can be applied in subjects or as
dialogic strategies across the curriculum.
So, teachers are developing ‘teaching for thinking’
approaches in new directions, integrating them into
everyday teaching to create ‘thinking classrooms’ and
developing whole-school policies to create ‘thinking
schools’.
The most common types of thinking skills:
Critical Thinking
Creative Thinking
A way of thinking that generates something new or different.
Creative ThinkingCritical Thinking
A way of thinking that assesses the worth and validity of something.
Critical thinkers are able to do the following things:
Ask questions. Base their judgments on
evidence. Look for connections between
subjects. Analyze and understand
concepts, information, and behavior.
Break things down and separate fact from opinion.
Try to avoid common mistakes in reasoning.
These are some creativity tips to help you to develop your creative-thinking skills:
Don’t be into finding the right answer. There can be many right answers in a creative process.
Don’t always be logical and practical.
Break the rules of thinking. Let yourself fail. You get
better with practice.
ActivityI want you to connect all nine dots by drawing only four straight lines with your pen or pencil never leaving the paper.
Cognitive acceleration;
Brain-based techniques;
Philosophy for children;
Teaching strategies across the
curriculum.
How Do We Teach Thinking In The Classroom?
Cognitive acceleration
Cognitive Acceleration through Since Education “CASE” was developed by Philip Adey and Michael Shayer.
The following is a typical format of a CASE lesson for thinking format that builds in time for cognitive and metacognitive discussion:
1. Concrete preparation stimulus to thinking, introducing the terms of the problem.
2. Cognitive conflict creates a challenge for the mind.
3. Social construction dialogue with others, discussion that extends thinking.
4. Metacognition reflection on how we tackled the problem.
5. Bridging Reviewing where else we can use this thinking and learning.
‘Let’s Think!’ lessons for young children. (read example p, 380)
Brain-based Techniques
Accelerated
Learning
Thinking Hats
Accelerated Learning
Accelerated learning approaches include applying VAK learning styles to teaching. VAK stands for:
visual – learning best through pictures, charts, diagrams, video, ICT, etc.
auditory – learning best through listening. kinaesthetic – learning best through being
physically engaged in a task.
Thinking Hats
Edward de Bono's teaching strategy helps learners try different approaches to thinking. Each ‘thinking hat’ represents a different way to think about a problem.
InformationWhat do we know?
FeelingsWhat do we feel?
ProblemsWhat are the drawbacks?
PositivesWhat are the benefits?
CreativityWhat ideas have we got?
ControlWhat are our aims?
Philosophy for children
Matthew Lipman believes that children are
natural philosophers because they view the
world with curiosity and wonder. Thus, he
developed a program called Philosophy for
Children. It is children’s own questions
stimulated by specially written philosophical
stories that form the starting point for
enquiry or discussion.
Teaching strategies across the curriculum
Odd One Out
Mind Mapping
Computers and thinking
References
• Learning to Teach in the Primary School. Arthur & Cremin,2010. 2nd edition. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, London.
• Center for Literacy, Education and Employment at UTK: http://clee.utk.edu/