Thinking Well
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Learning to think well
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Four questions about thinking well 1. How important are facts to thinking well? 2. How can we get students to think like experts? 3. What do we do with students who just cannot think well? 4. How can we cater for the different abilities and learning styles of our students?
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1 How important are facts to thinking well? Imagination is more important than knowledge Albert Einstein
Which of these immigrant groups arrived in America late in the 19th century and helped build the railroad? a) Germans b) Chinese c) Polish d) Haitians
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Factual knowledge precedes thinking skills. You need to know a lot of facts to think well.
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“I’m not trying out my new barbecue when the boss comes to dinner!” Mark yelled. Discuss: What facts do you need to know to understand the meaning here?
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“Let me make clear that by ‘boss’ I mean our immediate supervisor. Not the president of the company, nor any of the other supervisors intervening. And I’m using dinner in the local vernacular, not to mean ‘noontime meal,’ as it is used in some places. Anyway, my concern of course is that I am worried that my inexperience with the barbecue may lead to inferior food, and I will be embarrassed and more importantly, disappointed because I am keen to impress by boss who controls my future career success and financial earnings. As we are in difficult economic times when employment is not secure, I am in a state of anxiety over this matter and feeling emotionally edgy about it. 10 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
I believed him when he said he had a lake house, until he said it was only 40 feet from the water at high tide.
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A 2 B 3 These cards all have a number on one side and a letter on the other. Rule: if there is a vowel on one side there is a an even number on the other. Which cards do we need to turn over to test this rule? 12 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
Coke
31
Beer
17
These cards represent the age and drink of people in a bar; age on one side, drink on the other. The rule is – to drink beer, you must be 18 years old. Which cards do you need to turn over to test this rule?
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Factual knowledge precedes thinking skills. You need to know a lot of facts to think well. Implications • Frontload with facts before inquiry! • Get kids reading • Ground skills in facts worth knowing • Which knowledge do we need to impart?
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….how to provide students with appropriate mental frameworks so they will be able to construct meaning for themselves when they come across new facts. These frameworks constitute what it is to be able to deal with knowledge; they are what it means to be a good mathematician, or artist, or historian. We need to explicitly identify these frameworks for each area – the ones that define it, that makes maths maths, that make art art….
….and then we need to address them in developmentally appropriate ways. These ideas are the Standards of each subject; the things that make the subjects what they are. And so it’s no accident that these appear in our College Planner as the Standards there. 15 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
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2 How can we get students to think like experts? We can distinguish between • the intuitive learner • the traditional learner • the disciplinary expert Howard Gardner
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Cognition of experts is fundamentally different to that of non-experts Implications • Identify important topics or concepts at a developmentally appropriate level
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Standards, Enduring Understandings: Example 1 K1 – 12 UWCSEA College Standard Learners understand that probability can be used to make predictions. Enduring Understandings Learners understand that‌. 1. the likelihood of events varies between impossible and certain 2. the probability scale is based on relative frequency 3. the probability of compound events can be calculated from the probabilities of single events 4. complex population inferences can be derived from a sample 20 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
Standards, Enduring Understandings: Example 2 K1 – 12 UWCSEA College Standard Learners understand that Art can be a means of creative and intellectual interpretation. Enduring Understandings Learners understand that‌. 1. artists express ideas in their artwork. 2. artistic expression is a relationship between form and meaning 3. artistic expression can be identified through analysing the component parts of art 4. artistic expression can be interpreted through evaluating form and meaning in light of the artists intentions. 21 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
eu eu4312 eu standard eu
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Cognition of experts is fundamentally different to that of non-experts Implications • Identify important topics or concepts at a developmentally appropriate level • Identify and confront intuitive misunderstandings
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Confronting Misconceptions Here's a puzzle that reveals misconceptions Here is the answer A search for ‘physics misconceptions’ reveals a whole range of entertaining and educational resources.
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Cognition of experts is fundamentally different to that of non-experts Implications • Identify important topics or concepts at a developmentally appropriate level • Identify and confront intuitive misunderstandings • Authentic activities? 26 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
3 What do we do with students who just cannot think well? Everything we can! But some kids just aren’t up to it‌?
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When we measure the intelligence of adult identical twins, separated at birth, we find‌.
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When we measure the intelligence of adult identical twins, separated at birth, we find the twins have almost the same IQ.
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When we measure the intelligence of adult identical twins, separated at birth, we find the twins have almost the same IQ. When we measure the intelligence of adult adoptive siblings, raised together, we find‌ 30 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
When we measure the intelligence of adult identical twins, separated at birth, we find the twins have almost the same IQ. When we measure the intelligence of adult adoptive siblings, raised together, we find their IQs are unrelated. 31 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
120
Average I.Q. score
115
110
105
100
95
90 1932
1947
1953
1964
1971
1972
1978
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Children do differ in intelligence but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work
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I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men [do] not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work. Charles Darwin
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Children do differ in intelligence but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work Implications • Explicitly instill a growth mindset in ourselves and in our students (‘the mind is like a muscle’) • Praise effort, not ability • Value failure as a step to success 35 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
Expectations What do we know about expectations?
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Children do differ in intelligence but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work Implications • Explicitly instill a growth mindset in ourselves and in our students (‘the mind is like a muscle’) • Praise effort, not ability • Value failure as a step to success • Climate, input, response, feedback (praise!) 37 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
4 How can we cater for different abilities and learning styles among our students? • Cognitive style – tendencies to think in a particular way • Cognitive ability – capacity to succeed in a particular area
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Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn
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Cognitive Styles • • • • • •
Broad / Narrow Analytical / Descriptive Leveling / Sharpening Field Dependent / Independent Impulsivity / Reflectiveness Automatisation / restructuring
• • • • • •
Serialist / holist Adaptor / Innovator Reasoner / Intuitor Visualiser / verbaliser Visual / auditory / kinesthetic Convergent / Divergent
• Stable within individuals? • Style affects learning? • Independent to ability? 40 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
STYLES: V A K • Auditory Anne and Visual Victor • It is true that people differ in their visual and auditory memories, but learning is generally about meaning, which is not stored in either representation. We have enduring understandings, not enduring images or sounds as the basis for our units.
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ABILITIES: Multiple Intelligences • Why is Howard Gardner like Karl Marx? Gardner has the (modest) claim that there are 8 independent intelligences (mathematical, linguistic, interpersonal‌). Others, on his behalf, have argued that we should use these intelligences as a basis for teaching. Gardner disagrees. 42 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn Implications • Think in terms of content, not in terms of students
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Cognitive Styles
lessons individuals • • • • • •
Broad / Narrow Analytical / Descriptive Leveling / Sharpening Field Dependent / Independent Impulsivity / Reflectiveness Automatisation / restructuring
• • • • • •
Serialist / holist Adaptor / Innovator Reasoner / Intuitor Visualiser / verbaliser Visual / auditory / kinesthetic Convergent / Divergent
• Stable within individuals? • Style affects learning? • Independent to ability? 44 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn Implications • Think in terms of content, not in terms of students • Change promotes attention • Every child is unique, yes. But not in terms of their cognition. 45 www.uwcsea.edu.sg
Four questions about thinking well 1. How important are facts to thinking well? 2. How can we get students to think like experts? 3. What do we do with students who just cannot think well? 4. How can we cater for the different abilities and learning styles of our students?
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Four findings about learning 1. Factual knowledge precedes thinking skills. You need to know a lot of facts to learn well 2. Cognition early in education is different to cognition later on 3. Intelligence is malleable, and depends on our beliefs about it 4. Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn
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