Thinking Skills Q and A
Development of thinking skills should be one of the prime instructional stragegies for gifted students. For teachers, I would recommend the following:
Why stress thinking?
Schools exist to teach students the knowledge and skills needed to live competent and confident lives in our society. The most important skill in a democratic society, such as ours, is decision making.
Types of thinking skills
Many thinking skills can be categorized under two labels: Individual thinking skills, such as memorizing and thinking processes such as decision making or conceptualizing.
Ultimate goal
Students will become proficient in those thinking skills and processes leading to decision making.
How are thinking skills taught?
It is useful to teach students about thinking (how the mind works, different types of thinking, etc), and to involve them in activities that cause particular types of thinking. The catalyst for thinking seems to come from cues, either oral or written. Students can create their own cues via introspection.
How important are questions?
The ability of a teacher to become expert in question asking is a vital
characteristic differentiating average teachers from the best teachers.
Take a look at the following sites:
http://www.utexas.edu/academic/cte/sourcebook/questioning.pdf
or
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/online_questions/types.html
Resources of Special Merit
A great book on thinking: "Developing Minds," Costa
Another great book: "Instructional Strategies that Work," Marzano
Best old book: "How we Think," Dewey
Most used thinking skill strategy: Venn diagram to help students think about similarities and differences.
Thinking skill used some but should be used much more: Mnemonic strategies to help students memorize. http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html
Oldest formal thinking process: Scientific method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method
Interesting writers regarding thinking: John Barell, Ron Brandt, Berry Byers, Art Costa, Edward, De Bono, Robert Ennis, Richard Paul, David Perkins (to list just a few).Great website devoted to thinking: Iowa Area Education Agency 267
Terrific online interactive thinking activities: Intel Teach to the Future (Visual Ranking Tool, Seeing Reason Tool, Showing Evidence Tool) http://www.intel.com/education/tools/index.htm
Best overall teaching strategies site: Iowa Area Agency 267 http://www.aea267.k12.ia.us/framework/
Great site for defining terms related to thinking: Dr. Bob Kizlik, Adprima http://www.adprima.com/thinkskl.htm
Also: Dr. Ervin F. Sparapani, Professor of Middle School & Secondary Education, 227 Education North, Saginaw Valley State University http://www.svsu.edu/~efs/thinking.html
Terms used to describe a particular type of thinking: Critical, rational, logical, analytical, abstract, reasoning, higher or lower-order, left/right, concrete, inductive/deductive, Western, Eastern, metaphoric, common sense, memory, mind, metacognition, lateral, creative.