Understanding Thinking as the Key to Content

Think For Yourself (8-1): Understanding content as something to be thought through. Selecting a subject which is the focus of a class you are now teaching, make a list of the questions that professionals within the discipline would pursue, questions they would try to think through in order to figure out important matters in the field. You may want to look through the first chapter of the class textbook, which should provide an overview of the purpose of the discipline, and key questions thinkers within the discipline traditionally ask. You might also read through the relevant entry in an encyclopedia to identify these key questions.

Think For Yourself (8-2): Identifying the meaning of key concepts Take the most basic concept that is the focus of one of your classes. Write out your understanding of the concept. Write it out in such a way that you can readily see the significance of the concept to some aspect of life. For example, if you teach history, you should highlight the role that historical thinking plays in human life. Every human lives within a self-constructed inner history. That history is used everyday to make decisions. For example, if in your “reading” of your past, you were always poor in writing or math, you would probably now seek to avoid writing or math. Or again, all of your plans for the future are a result of what seems possible and probable to you--given your understanding of your past. Understood in this way, there could be no more important study than that which enables us to do better historical thinking. Now write out your understanding of the most fundamental concept in one or more courses.

Focusing on a subject you currently teach draw a diagram which shows links between the most basic concepts within the subject. Then state words how each idea is linked to every other idea. In other words, your thinking will be something like this: In order to understand "a," you must understand "b," and in order to understand "b," you must understand "c," and in order to understand "c," you must understand "d," etc. Elaborate each idea as you go so that you can see the connections between them. Think for yourself (8-3): Seeing connections between concepts within a subject

Choose a subject in a class you now teach. Complete the following sentences and elaborate your answer as much as possible (give details). 1) The purpose of this subject is ) The main types of information that professionals in this field of study use are..... (this might be research studies-in Psychology for example, events from the past- in History for example, information about the universe - in Astronomy for example) 3) Some of the main questions that professionals within this discipline ask are... Think for yourself (8-4): Focusing on questions implied by the structures of thought