Creative Teaching & Learning

Linking thinking

To succeed in an increasingly competitive jobs market, students need to develop strong critical thinking skills and the ability to work collaboratively with others – how can they do that? Steve Padget shares a powerful, visual thinking approach and describes the benefits of using it regularly in the classroom.

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      string(413) "... methods CoRT Tools (Edward de Bono)Problem-solving and teamwork Business, quality improvement, interview and analytical toolsCommunications skills Individual and group communications activitiesFour themes for thinking and communicatingThe explicit linking of thinking skills with communicationsskills is at the heart of this approach, and both are vital forachievement in RE. An ..."
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      string(5768) "26 Teaching Thinking  Summer 2003www.teachthinking.comFocus on: REFocus on: REFocus on: REFocus on: REFocus on: REThinking effectively is not a skill that is as wellrecognised or as highly valued in British businessesor schools as it is in other European countries likeFrance. Few teachers have been trained to incorporatedevelopment of thinking into their already crowdedcurriculum. Whole-school approaches are rare.Religious education lends itself to the development ofhigh-level conceptual and abstract thinking skills. Thesehave an important place in RE’s contribution to buildingthinking skills across the curriculum for all pupils, with high-achieving students stretching themselves fully.Nonetheless, in a highly materialist and secular society, REhas an image and motivation challenge to overcome inorder to establish its practicality and build student andparent interest. As in other subjects, RE-based thinking skillsdevelopments also can be perceived as suffering from‘pitfalls’ like those shown in Figure 1. To overcome these,we can aim for the ‘target’ descriptions as standards orguidelines for designing our thinking skills curriculumcontent. RE can become a powerhouse of practicality inthinking and communication skills development.Skills forlife(startingwith RE)Jason Cauchi argues that tools for thinking first developedfor businesses can enhance students’ thinking skills in REPerceived pitfall TargetThinking ‘in your head’ Thinking ‘out loud’Mainly alone Mainly in teamsHighly abstract Highly practicalQuite unstructured Quite structuredGoals rare Goal-focusedQuite teacher led Quite student/team ledFew leadership opportunities Many leadership opportunitiesVariable quality of discussion Generally high quality of discussionHigh confidence required to take part Low confidence is not a barrier to having a goLower communications skills development Higher communication skills developmentLow participation rate, by few students High participation rate, by many studentsLow student activity rate High student activity rateGenerally single activity Multiple activitiesLower perceived earning potential Higher perceived earning potentialLower potential to transfer to other subjects, school Higher potential to transfer to other subjects, schoolprojects, job interviews and assessment centres etc projects, job interviews and assessment centres etcLower SEN access Higher SEN accessSlower pace Rapid paceLower potential for development of numeracy, Higher potential for development of numeracy, literacyliteracy and ICT skills and ICT skillsFigure 1: Avoiding perceived thinking skills ‘pitfalls’27Teaching Thinking  Summer 2003www.teachthinking.com Focus on: REFocus on: REFocus on: REFocus on: REFocus on: REFigure 3: Critical thinking activities and toolsLogical planning and reasoning activities and tools● Planning and checking written work andcommunications● Writing frames● What is critical thinking?● ICT and RE● Identifying reasons and conclusions● Understanding reasoning – different patterns ofreasoning, assumptions, context● Clarifying and interpreting expressions and ideas● The acceptability of reasons, including theircredibility● Judging the credibility of sources skilfully (link tofuture GCSE project work)● Evaluating inferences: deductive validity and othergrounds, assumptions and other relevant arguments● Reasoning about causal explanations● Hypothesising● Speculating● TheorisingCritical thinking themeMany RE teachers are comfortable taking a critical thinkingapproach to their subject teaching, often blending this withother mainstream methodologies, eg. experiential,phenomological RE or ethnographic approaches. Some aimto promote a critical spiritual education approach generally,helping their whole school to meet national requirementson spiritual development in all curriculum areas. In suchan environment, critical thinking activities and tools areespecially effective, promoting really effective processingof information and argument. Whatever a teacher’sfavoured approach to RE, however, it is possible to includecritical thinking in the curriculum specifically or as part ofinvestigation of a topic. For example, a programme mightcover the material described in Figure 3, taking a topic ortwo per term over Key Stage 3 and building on this in KeyStage 4.Core theme Core activities and toolsCritical thinking Logical, planning and reasoning activities and toolsCreative thinking and perception direction Creative thinking methods CoRT Tools (Edward de Bono)Problem-solving and teamwork Business, quality improvement, interview and analytical toolsCommunications skills Individual and group communications activitiesFour themes for thinking and communicatingThe explicit linking of thinking skills with communicationsskills is at the heart of this approach, and both are vital forachievement in RE. An integrated programme of activitiesand tools can be built, from Year 7 onwards, capturing fourcore themes, summarised in Figure 2. This kind ofprogramme can be all the more effective if integrated withPHSE and citizenship work, school leadership and serviceprojects and a range of other subjects. From thedescriptions given below, a range of tools and activities canbe selected to suit individual teachers and schools, for usein the design or revision of schemes of work and individuallessons over time. Inclusion of even a few could add varietyand motivation to RE work in the classrooom.Figure 2: Core themes, activities and tools28 Teaching Thinking  Summer"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Skills for Life (starting with RE)

24 Feb 2011

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      string(351) "... scrutiny of student work that theThinking Hats are frequently being employed in lessons across the school. Goingbeyond this, we have also looked to employ the Thinking Hats in our whole schoolapproach to marking. All teachers use a yellow highlighter (linking to the YellowThinking Hat that is associated with the ‘benefits ..."
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      string(5717) "with greater independence.Rather than each idea being the next ‘big thing’ and other approaches being lostas the next initiative comes along, the link that we have established betweenall of our developments is crucial.Greater challenge, greater understandingIf there is one tool in The Sedgefield Learning Box that is more important thanthe others, it would have to be the Three Storey Intellect. For us, it occupies aposition of prime importance.For anyone unfamiliar with the Three Storey Intellect, it is a way of organisinglearning words. Its design is that of a building with three floors – these are asfollows:1st Storey – Gathering. Learning words associated with the moststraightforward thinking processes which involve students gatheringinformation about whatever it is that they are studying.2nd Storey – Processing. Learning words associated with processes that willhelp students begin to develop a deeper understanding of the informationthey have already gathered.3rd Storey – Applying. Learning words that relate to the most complex thoughtprocesses. When students are workingon the 3rd storey, they are taking theunderstanding that they have developedand are considering how this could beapplied in new and more challengingcontexts.In the summer of 2010, we realisedwe were spending far too much timeon the most straightforward ‘gathering’tasks, and not enough time on theupper storeys where a greater depthof understanding could be developed.Obviously, there is a need for tasks inwhich students ‘gather’ informationtogether and if they don’t this, they havenothing to then ‘process’! However,the challenge has been to minimise theamount of time spent on the 1st StoreynnnnnnFigure 145Volume4.1nCreativeTeaching&LearningThinkingSkillsand to move on to more challenging learning as soon as we possibly can.The Three Storey Intellect is right at the heart of all of the learning that takesplace right across the school. For instance, the learning objectives for everylesson in every subject are taken from the words contained within it. Using aconsistent language to discuss learning right across the curriculum has enabledour students to become familiar with this language and to be better able tomake links between their learning in one subject and another. While the taskof ‘comparing’ two different football formations in PE might be different to‘comparing’ two different poems in English, the thought processes that thestudents need to use is the same. To help to ensure that this approach to sharinglearning objectives is applied consistently across the school, we use a standardlearning objectives slide across all curriculum areas and an example of one ofthese slides – in this case, used for a controlled assessment in geography – isshown in figure 1.Through the Three Storey Intellect, all of the tools in our Learning Box arelinked together. We deliberately use the word ‘tools’ to drive home the pointthat it is the learning that comes first and we should only ever use a LearningBox approach if it will help us to build better learning. Clear links can be seenbetween these tools and the different learning words within the Three StoreyIntellect, and we use the version of it shown in figure 2 as a planning documentto help all of our teachers to remember this. The variety of approaches – includingThinking Maps, Thinking Hats and consistent approaches to group-work – ensureour students are able to think effectively at the higher storeys.A school-wide thinking ethosAs we embarked on the ‘Learning Box’ approach, we did have in mind that weFigure 2ThinkingSkills46Volume4.1nCreativeTeaching&Learningintended to seek accreditation as a Thinking School from the University of Exeter.In June 2012, we successfully achieved this award and actually found out duringour accreditation visit that we were already well on the way to meeting thecriteria of an Advanced Thinking School. Achieving this award was important tous as it underlined our commitment to an approach to teaching and learning thatis designed to encourage our students to think more for themselves. Perhapsour greatest achievement has been the way that we have been able to embedthe Thinking School ethos into virtually every aspect of our school life.The influence of this Thinking School ethos is wide-ranging. To illustrate, wehave extensive evidence from the various school monitoring processes that takeplace including lesson observations and the scrutiny of student work that theThinking Hats are frequently being employed in lessons across the school. Goingbeyond this, we have also looked to employ the Thinking Hats in our whole schoolapproach to marking. All teachers use a yellow highlighter (linking to the YellowThinking Hat that is associated with the ‘benefits’ of something) to pinpoint anarea of strength in the students work and then to write a linked comment. Allteachers then use a green highlighter (linking to the Green Thinking Hat thatis associated with ‘new ideas’) to suggest a possible way in which the workmight be addressed further. At this point, students then need to respond to theidea that they have been given and they do so in a green ‘response box’. Theapproach is a simple one, but it has been remarkably successful in transferringto all curriculum areas.Practising what we preach, we don’t just limit the use of Thinking Hats to thestudents, and as teachers, we employ them in a wide range of ways in our day-to-day work. For example, a number of the systems that we have in school employthe Thinking"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Strategies for thinking

18 Jul 2013

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      string(342) "... TV challenge game calledThe Crystal Maze) The group quickly picks up the idea andshout out: ‘Physical, Physical’ and so the game goes on.Paul Dearlove is a consultant for N-RAIS(Northumberland Raising Aspirations in Society:www.nrais.org). He runs a programme, Outsmart,linking outdoor education and thinking skills."
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      string(3723) "the groupabout, what ‘efficiency’ is and what might make up a moreefficient performance. The group often comes up with ideaslike ‘time’, ‘use of people’, ‘doing it better’ as being the kindof things that make up a better performance. Another short57Teaching Thinking  Spring 2004www.teachthinking.com Thinking outdoorsThinking outdoorsThinking outdoorsThinking outdoorsThinking outdoorsdiscussion follows about the different ways that areavailable to us about achieving this increase in efficiency.Quite often someone will come up with an idea abouttrying to put more than one person over the wall at once.This is discussed and the group decide that the strategycould give them a good chance to achieve their objective.They discuss their new plan, and gather around the baseof the wall to make another attempt.‘Okay, is everyone ready? Shall I time it?’ (You have alreadytimed the first go just to get some baseline for your review).The group set off on their new challenge. The task isoften performed more efficiently (sometimes not), butalways it provides material for your review. The taskfinishes and the group clatter down the ramp in goodspirits. The tutor leads a discussion in a ‘round’ so everyoneshares their impressions about the new performance. Thegroup is reminded about the measures of efficiency anda comparison is made between the two performances.The group has decided that it was ‘better’. Okay, so whatmade it better? Did we use the group better? How abouttime? Did people feel safe? Why did we improve? Thegroup decide that putting two people over helped a bit.‘We’d done it once and so we knew what to expect’. ‘Weknew better what to do’. ‘Less fear’. ’Talked better’. ‘Made abetter plan’.So now the tutor makes a leap into carrying the lessonslearned at the wall into other situations in the future. ‘Welldone team. Does anyone think that thinking, talking,making a plan, doing it, and looking back, and changinghelped us to make some progress?’ The group decides thatit has helped in the process. The tutor now asks the group:‘can anyone think of an example, outside this place, wherethis strategy of think, do, review and change might work?For instance, at home or at school?The team can often see sporting examples or a practicalskill, and quotes such as ‘practice makes perfect’ are oftenoffered as answers. ‘Does practice make perfect work?’‘What about taking 100 penalty shots and every onemissing the goal. Is that good practice? No? Well whatshould the kicker have done then?’ ‘They should havestopped after a few kicks and thought about why the shotswere missing and altered the shot accordingly!’ ‘Well done!That’s a good example, any others?’So a picture comes together where the group decidesthat it might be possible to have a positive influence onactivities by adopting a think, do, review and changestrategy. There are plenty of opportunities to use thestrategy in everyday life. The group commits to trying thestrategy away from the wall. They’ve nothing to lose bytrying, and perhaps a lot to gain. ‘Let me know if it works.’The whole exercise has lasted about thirty minutes. Sowe move on!‘Well done everyone, that was really good. Okay, whatdo you want now as the challenge? Should it be mental orphysical? (The reference is to a TV challenge game calledThe Crystal Maze) The group quickly picks up the idea andshout out: ‘Physical, Physical’ and so the game goes on.Paul Dearlove is a consultant for N-RAIS(Northumberland Raising Aspirations in Society:www.nrais.org). He runs a programme, Outsmart,linking outdoor education and thinking skills."
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Creative Teaching & Learning

The Wall

25 Feb 2011

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      string(426) "... powerfultools for teaching andlearning. Steve Williamsexplains whyI17Teaching Thinking  Spring 2002www.teachthinking.com Focus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageWhat is metaphorical thinking?In 1936, I. A. Richards provided us with a useful descriptionof metaphorical thinking as the linking of a topic and avehicle through a common ..."
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      string(5671) "16 Teaching Thinking  Spring 2002www.teachthinking.comFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageused to be an English teacher. I also have long-standinginterest in metaphors. So, when my own children reached acertain age, I asked them if they had been given ‘the talk’yet. That is the lesson when their English teacher tells themwhere metaphors come from. I guess all children are givena similar talk when their teacher thinks they are ready.The talk usually starts off with the story of the squashedsimile. The teacher says: ‘if we write Juliet is like the sun weare using a simile; when Shakespeare writes Juliet is the sunhe is using a metaphor.’ It’s a useful starting point but,obviously, it is not the end of the story. With luck and goodteaching, children will go on to recognise metaphor as atool of great subtlety and variety, used by writers to infusetheir work with wit, originality and imaginative power.I don’t expect that teachers and children will pay muchattention to metaphor other than in English lessons. Yetmaybe they should. For metaphorical thinking in its widestsense, including the use of analogies, has a huge influenceon the way we understand, learn and remember everything.MetaphoricalthinkingMetaphors andanalogies are powerfultools for teaching andlearning. Steve Williamsexplains whyI17Teaching Thinking  Spring 2002www.teachthinking.com Focus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageFocus on: languageWhat is metaphorical thinking?In 1936, I. A. Richards provided us with a useful descriptionof metaphorical thinking as the linking of a topic and avehicle through a common ground (Richards 1936). The topicis what the metaphor is about. In Romeo’s statement thatJuliet is the sun, for example, the topic is Juliet. The vehicle isthe means by which the speaker refers to the topic. So inthis example, the sun is the vehicle. The ground is the sumof possible attributes shared by the topic and vehicle. Theynever share all attributes and the metaphor is never merelya comparison by another name. As Ellen Winner (1997)points out, ‘Romeo’s statement might mean that Juliet is thesun because she is beneficent, because she is central toRomeo’s life, because she is necessary for his existence andso on.’The success of a metaphor depends on the way it invites usto see the topic using some properties of the vehicle as a lens.The same can be said of similes and analogies, which both sharethis topic-vehicle structure. Metaphorical thinking transformsthe way we perceive topics. This has great significance fordiscovery and learning because we are able, through the useof metaphors and analogies, to perceive things we do notunderstand through the lens of things we do.Learning through metaphorMetaphors and analogies illuminate all kinds of concepts.Williams Harvey described the heart as a pump and, asJonathen Miller pointed out, we couldn’t know much abouthow the heart worked until the water pump was invented(Millar 2000). Niels Bohr described the atom as a tiny solarsystem with the nucleus in the centre and the electronsorbiting like planets around it. The concept of weather frontswas introduced by Vilhelm Bjerknes, who likened theconflicting interactions between warm and cold air massesto the European battlefronts of World War One. As well ashelping us to understand new topics by framing them interms of familiar ones, metaphors also help us memoriseconcepts because they provide strong, often visual,associations between the topic and the vehicle. Memory, asTony Buzan (1995) writes, is substantially improved by actsof association.Metaphorical thinking helps children as much as it doesadults. This has been demonstrated in several researchstudies. For example, Vosniadou and Ortony (1983) gave sixand eight-year-olds two kinds of text to read. One groupreceived texts in which the functioning of white blood cellswas described by an explicit analogy to soldiers. The othergroup received the same subject but without the analogies.The researchers tested the children’s understanding andrecall of the blood cell topic and found that the group whohave been given the analogies performed much better.Interestingly, the children were also able to infer groundsthat were appropriate to the topic. They realised that if whiteblood cells are like soldiers, they function to protect; theydid not infer that the cells wear uniforms or that they carryguns. Other research confirms that children’s learning canbenefit from appropriate analogies, yet one survey foundthat very few analogies are used in school textbooks (Dixon,Ortony and Pearson 1980).Children are able to create their own analogies from anearly age – first through play and then as a tool for clarifyingconcepts. Ellen Winner (1997) cites the example of a six-year-old who was ‘trying to understand the concept of medicalside effects and asked her mother if the side effects werelike using a pair of scissors to open a can and bending thescissors in the process.’Children’s understanding of analogies seems limited onlywhen they don’t understand the vehicle and hence thegrounds on which the analogy is based. So, for example,children would not benefit from the blood cells analogy if theyknew nothing about soldiers. Also, their understanding ofmetaphors further depends on them being able to infer that agiven metaphorical phrase is not meant to be taken literally. Ifthese conditions are met, children seem to have no problemsunderstanding and creating analogies and metaphors.In fact,"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Metaphorical Thinking

24 Feb 2011