THINKING SKILLS Robert Fisher Unit 7.4 Pages,

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 Taxonomy The 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.

Activity I 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 preparationstimulus to thinking, introducing the terms of the problem. 2. Cognitive conflictcreates a challenge for the mind. 3. Social constructiondialogue with others, discussion that extends thinking. 4. Metacognitionreflection on how we tackled the problem. 5. BridgingReviewing 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. Information What do we know? Feelings What do we feel? Problems What are the drawbacks? Positives What are the benefits? Creativity What ideas have we got? Control What 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, nd edition. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, London. Center for Literacy, Education and Employment at UTK: