Developing a thinking curriculum

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Developing a thinking curriculum
Apply knowledge of thinking theories/skills
Write lesson objectives (content)
Select/design teaching strategies Integration
Assess pupils thinking Reflection Revision
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1. The
Rational Mind
attributes
standards of
knowledge
2. Thinking Models
Thinking Dispositions
Teaching Approaches Thinking
Environment/Culture 3. Some Common Types
of Thinking
Developing a Thinking Curriculum (I)
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Q1 Mind or Brain? Do animals
think like human beings? Do computers
think like us? Q2 How do we know if we
have it?
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• Q3a How do we KNOW?
• Through ...
• Senses
• Tradition / History/ Books
• Logical reasoning
• Intuition
• ..
• Q3b Are these perfect channels of
  obtaining knowledge? Why?

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Q4 How do we check out the TRUTH?
senses
TRUTH
logic
intuition
TRIANGULATION
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Thinking Dispositions

• Inclinations and habits of mind that benefit
  productive thinking
• ongoing, abiding tendencies in thinking behaviour
  exhibited over time across diverse thinking
  situations
• (Tishman, Perkins Jay, 1995, p.37)

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4 thinking traps ..

• Thinking which is
• 1. Hasty be reflective
  
• 2. Narrow be broad,
  
• deep and
• adventurous
  
• 3. Fuzzy/messy be clear
• careful
• 4. Sprawling focussed,
  
• systematic
• organized
• 5. Lazy be curious
• Q What other factors hinders T?

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2 Thinking Models

• (I) Blooms Taxonomy
• Evaluation
• Synthesis
• Analysis
• Application
• Comprehension
• Knowledge
• (Bloom, 1956)

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• Davis, G. A., Rimm, S. B. (1998). Education of
  the gifted and talented (4th ed.). Boston Allyn
  and Bacon, p. 230.

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• (II) Dimensions of Thinking
• (Marzano et al., 1988)
• The five dimensions
• Metacognition
• Critical and creative thinking
• Thinking processes
• Core thinking skills
• Relationship of content-area knowledge to
  thinking

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Metacognition

• Metacognition refers to ones knowledge
  concerning ones cognitive processes and related
  products. It is the process of being aware of
  ones own thinking as one performs specific tasks
  and then using this awareness to control what he
  or she is doing.
• (Flavell, 1979)

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Critical and Creative Thinking

• Critical thinking is often viewed as evaluative
  or convergent thinking, while creative thinking
  is seen as generative or divergent thinking.
• They are not opposites in fact, they compliment
  each other.

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Critical Thinking

• Ennis (1985) has defined it as resonable,
  reflective thinking that is focused on deciding
  what to believe or what to do.
• Fisher and Scriven (1997) define it as skilled
  and active interpretation and evaluation
• of
• observations and communications, information and
  argumentation.

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Examples of Critical Thinking

• Whenever pupils are
• formulating a question
• analyzing a text
• defining a term with clarity, accuracy and
  fairmindedness
• ..

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Creative Thinking

• It is the ability to form new cominations of
  ideas to fulfill a need (Halpern, 1984, p.324)
• It is the process of bringing a problem before
  ones mind (as by imagining, visualizing,
  supposing, contemplating, etc.) and then
  originating or inventing an idea, concept,
  realization, or picture along new or
  unconventional lines Creativity is obtaining
  of a combination of processes or attributes that
  are new to the creator. (Vervalin, 1971, p. 59)
  

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Creative Thinking

• Wallas (1926) defined four major stages in the
  creative process
• preparation (detecting a problem and gathering
  data),
• incubation (stepping away from the problem for a
  period of time)
• illumination (a new idea or solution emerges,
  often unexpectedly), and
• verification (the new idea or solution is
  examined or tested).

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Creative Thinking

• Williams (1979) defined creativity in relation to
  four cognitive-intellective processes (fluency,
  flexibility, originality and elaboration) and
  four affective-temperament dimensions
  (risk-taking, complexity, curiosity and
  imagination).

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Thinking Processes

• These are mental operations like
• concept formation
• principle formation
• comprehension
• problem solving
• decision making
• research
• composition
• oral discourse
• (Marzano et al., 1988)

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Core Thinking Skills

• Focusing
• Information gathering
• Remembering
• Organizing
• Analyzing
• Generating
• Integrating
• Evaluating
• (Marzano et al., 1988)

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Relationship between content-area knowledge to
thinking

• This refers to the integration of thinking skills
  with content-area knowledge instruction (where
  specific schemata, models and metaphors, and
  modes of investigation in the respective subject
  domain have been used).
• Teachers help pupils integrate new knowledge into
  existing net of ideas through thinking.
• (Marzano et al., 1988)

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Costa, Bellanca Fogarty, 1992, p.56.
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Thinking culture in class

• Open, accepting and non-judgmental environment
• encourage curiosity, promote the inquiry spirit
  and the quest for truth and accuracy
• model and fashion thinking dispositions/habits of
  the mind
• (avoid thinking traps)

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Higher-Order thinking

• Blooms application, analysis, synthesis and
  evaluation
• abstract thinking
• with missing elements, multiple solutions /
  interpretations
• complex thinking
• involves finding meaning in apparent disorder
• involves the making of mental leaps and intuition
• insights and visions
• systems / holistic thinking
• group / collaborative thinking

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Group thinking

• unity of thoughts powerful as two heads are
  better than one summation effect of IQs
• group focused on common goal
• chairperson regulates participation and highlight
  or sum up the trend of thoughts
• respecting and listening to the individual
  empathy
• Clashing of ideas, and not egos or personalities,
  sparks off the truth and illuminates the reality

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Holistic / systems thinking

• Seeing the forest and the trees
• (Senge, 1990)
• opposite of the reductionist
• see the system as a whole
• putting the parts together, and relating the
  parts to the whole
• (Costa, 1997)

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Moral thinking

• Inducing logical relations between deeds and
  moral concepts
• (Bierman Assali, 1996, p. 495)