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THINKING SKILLS Robert Fisher Unit 7.4 Pages, 374 - 387
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THINKING SKILLS

Jan 24, 2016

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THINKING SKILLS. Robert Fisher Unit 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; - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Page 1: THINKING SKILLS

THINKING SKILLS

Robert FisherUnit 7.4

Pages, 374 - 387

Page 2: THINKING SKILLS

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.

Page 3: THINKING SKILLS

Discussion

What are ‘thinking skills’?

Why is it important to develop your thinking

skills?

Can we apply it in our teaching approach, how?

Page 4: THINKING SKILLS

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

Page 5: THINKING SKILLS

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).

Page 6: THINKING SKILLS
Page 7: THINKING SKILLS

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.

Page 8: THINKING SKILLS

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’.

Page 9: THINKING SKILLS

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.

Page 10: THINKING SKILLS

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’.

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The most common types of thinking skills:

Critical Thinking

Creative Thinking

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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.

Page 13: THINKING SKILLS

ActivityI want you to connect all nine dots by drawing only four straight lines with your pen or pencil never leaving the paper.

Page 14: THINKING SKILLS

Cognitive acceleration;

Brain-based techniques;

Philosophy for children;

Teaching strategies across the

curriculum.

How Do We Teach Thinking In The Classroom?

Page 15: THINKING SKILLS

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)

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Brain-based Techniques

Accelerated

Learning

Thinking Hats

Page 17: THINKING SKILLS

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.

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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?

Page 19: THINKING SKILLS

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.

Page 20: THINKING SKILLS

Teaching strategies across the curriculum

Odd One Out

Mind Mapping

Computers and thinking

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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/