Chapter 10:Teaching Thinking Skills July 12, 2010 Amanda Easton

Warm Up Get in groups of two and answer one of the following questions: If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?

Three Basic Approaches 1. Indirect Approach: teaching thinking through practice and exercise 2. Direct Approach: helping students learn conscious and deliberate strategies for reasoning, problem solving, and critical thinking 3. Metacognition: increasing students’ understanding of their own and others’ thinking. Break into three groups and each discuss an example of an approach. Back in large group discuss what influences our choice of which method to apply.

Should thinking-skills instruction be infused or separate subject (or both)? Authors recommend both integration into existing subjects and teaching as separate topic or course. Questions for discussion: What is your schools method for teaching thinking skills? Reis recommended specific thinking skills in sequence (table 10.1 page 243).

Critical Thinking as Evaluation Ronald Allen’s principles emphasize: Evaluating inferences Evaluating reasons for a claim Detecting missing parts of an argument Discerning the relevance of objections Robert Ennis’ aspects of evaluation stress judgement of: Ambiguity or contradiction Whether something is an assumption If an observation statement is reliable

Critical Thinking as Problem Solving Budmen emphasized that critical thinking PS differs from objective scientific PS in that it involves values, emotions, and judgments. His four step process on page 251. Dressel and Mayhew focused on five central abilities: Define problem Select information for solution Recognize assumptions (stated/non) Relevent hyphothesis Draw valid conclusions

Indirect Teaching of Thinking Skills: Practice and Exercise Asking: Why? What if How Compare, classify and evaluate. logical reasoning

Direct Teaching of complex thinking skills CoRt Program by Edward de Bono pg 257 PMI technique-Pluses, Minuses, Interesting. Lets use the PMI technique on “having a pull out program for gifted students” pg 255 CoRT Thinking Skills: Considering all factors Thinking of consequences Thinking of alternatives, possibilities Recognizing opinions vs. facts as two types of evidence

Metacognition: thinking about thinking Self monitoring (Hong)Students being aware of their own thinking and how it differs from others. Self-reflection (Leader) what did I learn? How? Costa describes three components of thinking about thinking: Metacognition Epistemic cognition: the study of how knowledge is produced. Brain functions: styles, right brain/left brain

Creative Pause (de Bono) the shift from being fully engaged in a creative activity to being passively engaged, or the shift to being disengaged altogether. a deliberate, self-imposed pause to consider alternative solutions to a problem. How does the concept of the creative pause influence how we teach thinking skills to gifted learners? Discussion. Critical thinking vs creative thinking?

Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives Distinguishes between “lower level” academic knowledge and “higher level” thinking skills. Was developed as a guide for writing instructional objectives. Pages 252, 253, 254 Where is the instructional focus for gifted learners? Get in three groups and discuss the challenges of providing opportunity for higher level thinking in your classrooms. Is there a way to allow gifted students to use their abilities in higher level thinking skills to assist teaching the lower level skills?

Extentions/connections What assumptions do we make based on our knowledge of gifted learners in relation to teaching critical thinking? How does the habit of critical thinking relate to “good decision” making?

Closing activity Pg 266 following directions activity