Maximise Learning and Engagement
In a world that is flooded with information, it is important that we teach our students how to think. In Dr Derek Cabrera’s TEDx, “How Thinking Works,” he refers to, “Four universal thinking skills,” that research shows are happening, and that we can use to teach kids how to think. These skills will lead to multiple types of thinking, including: critical thinking, creative thinking, inner-disciplinary thinking, scientific thinking and even pro-social and emotional development.
1. DISTINCTIONS
The first thing that we can do to get kids thinking again is to teach them to make distinctions between ideas, objects and things. Being able to define terms and create (over time) more sophisticated thought processes, students are able to create a deeper understanding of things, more clarity of thought and clarity in communication.
2. SYSTEMS
The second avenue to get kids thinking again is to teach them to look at the parts and the wholes that make up systems. Every part is a whole and every whole is a part. That is universal. We need to create a generation of students who can create new ideas and deconstruct old or existing ideas.
3. RELATIONSHIPS
Thirdly, we must help guide students to recognise relationships between and among ideas. Once they possess a deeper understanding of any and all of these relationships, we will see the deepening of thinking.
4. PERSPECTIVES
Students able to consider and analyse multiple perspectives is the fourth path to critically thinking children. Everything looks different when taking a new perspective. We get a lot more of what we all want when we expand on perspectives; increased empathy, compassion, pro-social thinking and emotional development. Also, increased skills of negotiation, conflict resolution and spatial reasoning. Perspectives are wildly important.
These four skills will get kids thinking again and these skills combine in a variety of ways to create an ecology of thoughts that are very complex. They are universal to the process of thinking and they are universal to that process of taking information, structuring it and turning it into some kind of knowledge that is usable.
We are all flooded with information in this day and age. The number one thing that we can do for our children is to give them tools that enable them to structure information in meaningful ways so that they can do something with it.
As John Dewey once said, “Critical Thinking is a ‘reflective thought.’ It suspends judgment, maintains a healthy skeptisim and exercises an open mind.”
Teaching students how to learn is as valuable as teaching them about content.
Slowing down will enable students the advantage of thinking critically and learning to be more creative and explorative as a result. Students need to be in the zone to contemplate how they will use information, when they will use it and decide what it is actually for. Being in the zone for optimal thinking enables students to activate prior knowledge. Our students’ thinking is impaired when they are in the fight or flight response and they are then not accessing the thinking centres for innovation, strategising, reasoning and reflection.
Teaching students to slow down, shift out of the flight or flight response and access their higher brain centres and awareness is a vital skill and ability that will foster effective and efficient thinking processes.