TEACHING THINKING

Macgregor SHS

Overview
Why bother to try to teach thinking? What is a thinking skill? Which thinking skills will we teach? Basic Thinking Skills Higher Order Thinking Skills Teaching Thinking Thinking and Literacy

Why bother?
Thinking skills unlock the keys for learning

MacGregors Strategic Directions

Since 1995 placed increasing emphasis on the skills/attitudes/processes underlying subject disciplines
Thinking Skills Literacy and Numeracy Communication skills Accessing, processing and presenting information

Premises
All subjects require students to think There are some generic strategies that guide thinking no matter what the subject There are some specific strategies in all subjects to implement thinking skills All students will benefit from explicit help in the application of generic strategies and specific tasks requiring structured thought

Premises
There is a need for students to explicitly develop the capacity to transfer their ability to think to other subjects,to employment, to leisure and to non subject specific tasks The identification and explicit practice of generic thinking strategies and specific thinking skills will help students develop their ability to think in a structured way in unfamiliar situations

ED QLD 2010 Directions

Framework project
New Basics Productive Pedagogies

Literate Futures Information, communication technologies (ICT)

Why bother?
Research Mayer ROSBA, CCEs and KLAs 2010 Directions
New Basics Productive Pedagogies ICTs Literate Futures

Research
Several large scale classroom evaluation studies have successfully linked teaching thinking methodologies with learning outcomes both in the short term and in the longer term, although not all are equally successful McGuiness 1999

Research
Can thinking skills be taught? A paper for discussion. Valerie Wilson http://www.scre.ac.uk/scotresearch/thinking/index.html Scottish Council for Research in Education (May 2000)

Research
Towards Developing and Implementing A Thinking Curriculum. Robert J. Swartz (June 2003) http://www.nctt.net/hongkongaddress.html

Mayer

FROM ROSBA TO KLAs

ROSBA 1978, Content, Process, Skill and Affective Directives Viviani Report - CCEs are processed based KLAs Outcomes based

Common Curriculum Elements

Identification of processes Definitions of thinking skills
For Example: Classifying is systemically distributing information/data into categories which may be presented to, or created by, the student.

KLAs
Outcomes Based
HPE Select and use information and apply problem solving and decision making strategies to: make informed decisions evaluate their own actions Science Working scientifically
Analysing Applying ideas and concepts Assessing and reassessing Creating analogies Inferring from data Interpreting data Judging credibility Synthesising

KLAs
SOSE
Students evaluate evidence Students develop criteria based judgements Students analyse patterns of spatial variations

Technology
Analyse alternate structures, logic methods of control Students process, transform, present and transmit information using appropriate forms, Students devise detailed production proposals Students develop suitable alternatives

New Basics
Productive Pedagogies
Higher order thinking Critical Analysis Problem based curriculum

Valued Performance under the New Basics

Researching and consulting Analysing, synthesising, relating and selecting Negotiating and personalizing Planning, designing and creating Judging and deciding Operating and making and acting Evaluating and revising Presenting, performing, explaining and communicating

Literate Futures
4 Resource Model
Code breaker Meaning maker Text User Text Analyst

Conclusion
Underpinning all initiatives is the need for students to be able to think effectively and reflect upon their learning In 21st Century students must be smart thinkers Need to explicitly teach students how to think

What is a thinking skill? Which will we teach?

Taxonomy
Foundation Skills- Recall & Perception Basic Thinking Skills -Analysis, Comparison,
Classification, Evaluation, Prediction, Interpretation and Inference.

Synthesis Higher Order Thinking Skills - Problem

Solving, Decision Making, Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking.

Which thinking skill have we been predominantly using in this session?

Analysis
What are we analysing and why? Activate prior knowledge and find more information Identify components Examine components and their relationship to one another State results

Analysis: Components of a Sport

Rules Equipment Players Procedures Pitch etc

Identifying the components of a thinking skill (Beyer)

Thinking Skill

Definition and Label

Attributes

Relationship to others

Knowledge

Rules

Procedure Superordinate Subordinate

State Results
What is a thinking skill?

Our use of analysis ..

What parts were difficult? Who controlled the learning? Have you learned anything about analysis?

Metacognition
Talking about the thinking Transferring to another context

What is Higher Order Thinking

Synthesis Problem Solving Decision Making Creative thinking Critical Thinking

Higher Order Thinking

The students success in using the higher order thinking skills of critical and creative thinking, problem solving and decision making is dependent on their mastery of the more basic information processing skills
Beyer

Teaching Thinking
The danger inherent in the teaching of thinking is that the discrete skills remain single and isolated. There is little value in this approach if students are not given the opportunities to practise and transfer the thinking skills into course content. Beyer

Premise
Thinking Skills needed to be taught explicitly Need for a shift in Pedagogy to create the thinking classroom and the thinking student.

Target
Explicit, Active and Transferable

EAT

Teaching thinking
Teaching for thinking Teaching of thinking Teaching about thinking

The Thinking Classroom

Explicit teaching of thinking skills Active use of the thinking skill (e.g. co-operative learning, hands-on exploratory activities, problems to be solved, risk taking, discussion) Reflection upon the nature of the thinking undertaken Transference of thinking skills across curriculum areas Thinking skills applied independently by students

Designing an Infusion Lesson

What thinking skill should be the focus? Plan the lesson Remember:
Introduction to the content and the thinking process (E) Thinking actively involving verbal prompts and graphic outlines (A) Thinking about thinking (E) Applying thinking to other situations (T)
Robert J. Swartz Teaching Thinking: Issues and Approaches

Where is the thinking in literacy?

Literacy is the flexible and sustainable mastery of a repertoire of practices with the texts of traditional and new communications technologies via spoken language, print and multimedia. By flexible, we mean that students are able to adjust and modify their performance to better meet contextual demands and varying situations. By sustainable, we emphasise maintenance and achievement over time. Mastery involves performance characterised by high achievement. A repertoire involves sets of options for complex performance of literacy practices.
Literate Futures Report of the Literacy Review for Queensland State Schools 2000

Inference and Interpretation

Inference and Interpretation hard to disentangle. Both are integral to reading and comprehension Both are crucial thinking skills in student engagement with the multiple literacies (including numeracy)

Rationale
Current QCS test requires complex literacy/numeracy skills Student understanding and application of the thinking skills Inference and Interpretation are keys to success in the QCS test.

Rationale
To understand and apply the thinking skills of Inference and Interpretation students
Need explicit instruction Need active involvement in the thinking Need to recognise the transference from one subject area to another Need to reflect upon their use of these thinking skills

Interpretation

Inference
State what you want to guess/know Make observations & use prior knowledge Make guesses Examine evidence supporting each guess

State what you want to know the meaning of

Make observations and use prior knowledge

If necessary, make inferences

Choose the best guess

Sort information / inferences and identify relationships State meaning

The Teaching Learning Cycle

Building the context Modelling the text Joint construction of the text Independent construction of the text Linking related texts

Synthesis and the teaching learning cycle

Synthesis Literacy Profile Teaching learning cycle LOTE Thinking skills

Matching the thinking to the literacy outcome

Synthesis model one size fits all Understand topic and product
Content:(Develop focus question, search terms, etc) Genre:

Locate information Evaluate information Select and sort information Create final product

Unit Planning
MacGregor SHS - Unit cover sheet H:\Thinking WEB site\Unit Cover Sheet Feb 2002.rtf Explanatory notes T:\Thinking Skills\Lesson Planning Templates\Cover sheet notes 2.doc

Lesson Planning
Infusing the Teaching of Thinking: Robert J. Swartz
http://www.nctt.net/lessonsarticles.html#LESSONS

Template adapted from Swartz & Perkins