Thinking Skills

Submitted by Jan-Marie on Thu, 19/10/2006 - 7:36pm.
I went to a workshop today on thinking skills led by Dr Robert Swartz, director of the National Centre for Teaching Thinking in the USA. There was a lot of food for thought. He talked about how we should explicitly teach thinking skills. One aspect that especially seemed applicable to inquiry was 'Assessing the Reliability of Ideas' including accuracy of observation, reliability of sources, inference and deduction. An interesting example of introducing the idea of checking the reliability of sources to younger children was using the story 'Henny Penny'.

One useful idea could be for students to have a 'Thinking Journal' where they record strategies they develop, lists of criteria eg criteria to judge the accuracy of an account, and any useful thinking tools.

Strategies for the ways thinking skills can be taught were:
  • Modelling
  • Collaborative thinking
  • Asking sequenced prompting questions
  • Use of graphic organisers to guide thinking
  • Using thinking strategy maps/guides to guide the teacher who guides the students
  • Infusing thinking into content learning
  • Working with students at the start of the lesson to help them develop the thinking strategies they will use
  • Scaffolding
  • Making strategies explicit
  • Reviewing strategies used at the end of the session
  • Getting students to put strategies into their own words
  • Naming strategies used

Key Competencies

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 31/10/2006 - 6:43pm.

These thinking strategies fit in well with the 'thinking' key competency and how it might be developed in students. Are some thinking strategies more effective that others or are different strategies better for some individuals?

David Goodwin

Thinking skills

Submitted by Jan-Marie on Sun, 05/11/2006 - 8:31pm.

Some students may have a preference for certain strategies but I think the skill that is used depends on the purpose. Swartz's book 'Infusing the Teaching of Critical and Creative Thinking into the Curriculum which he co-authored with Sandra Parks outlines a number of thinking types and strategies. The thinking types include Generating Ideas, Clarifying Ideas, Assessing the Reasonableness of Ideas and Complex Thinking Tasks. Each of these types of thinking includes a number of strategies eg. complare and contrast, parts/whole thinking etc. The complex Thinking Tasks category includes Decision-making and Problem-solving.

Swartz & Parks also divide the thinking strategies into those used for Clarification & Understanding, Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking.

The main point I got from the seminar was the need to make these strategies explicit to students so they would develop a  range of strategies they can use when needed.