Thinking about thinking

A current, but largely unrealized objective of school education is for learners to acquire thinking skills so they develop a helicopter view of themselves as learners and begin to recognize thinking methods and mental models as useful tools.

Self regulation and "thinking process" knowledge are critical not only to academic success, but are necessary for the new kinds of Knowledge Age jobs and Wisdom Age (wise application of knowledge) jobs that help us survive a world of ever-accelerating change.

Student access to higher level thinking skills depends on the ability of teachers to be role models, to frame rich questions, or to model the framing of questions, so students can learn to evolve or expand upon ideas, rather than simply reproduce what they have been taught.

But "thinking about thinking", otherwise known as metacognition, is hard for many teachers to understand or explain to their students. It is a fuzzy concept.

Although most teacher have declarative knowledge about thinking, they know what it is, and can use a thinking process themselves, they are often unable to identify the steps in a process, name the parts or explain or derive the rules.

Opportunities for students to practice higher order thinking skills are rare because teachers continue to ask mostly closed questions with a restricted range of solutions. To test for understanding. To keep control of the class. Or teach to a standardized test, which is all about short-term memorization.

Metacognition helps children organize complex sequences of thought or action and is effective for both high and low achieving students. Scaffolds are used by teachers to reduce the processing complexity to help the student develop new patterns of thinking, what steps to follow and in what order. The scaffolds are removed as the learner develops the skills to regulate their own activity.

Most programs to introduce thinking skills into schools fail because teachers also have difficulty arranging and facilitating classroom discussions as part of their teaching practice. Time is wasted completing routine administration tasks and maintaining order. Many teachers struggle to frame open-ended questions (for discussion) instead of the usual closed question (to test for understanding). As a result, students do not engage in dialogue or discussion, which defeats the purpose of the activity. Many teachers find they are unable to complete a round of activities in a 60-minute timetabled period.

But there is some good news. There is now an expanding range of tools to support thinking, question asking, and conversation in the classroom. One new method is Six Thinking Hats developed by Dr. Edward de Bono. He associates colors with different kinds of thinking. Red for feelings. Blue for what next. Black for problems or difficulties. Yellow for the benefits. Green for Creative thinking. White for facts. And to make sure that thinking is not a giant muddle, everyone in the group does the same kind of thinking at the same time, which he calls parallel thinking. For example:

White Hat: What do we know about human cloning?

Yellow Hat: What are the benefits of human cloning?

Black Hat: What are the dangers or disadvantages of human cloning?

Red Hat: How do we feel about human cloning?

Green Hat: What could we do creatively with human cloning?

Blue Hat: What should we do next about human cloning?

Another new approach is the Zing team meeting technology which helps teachers learn how to craft sequences of rich, open-ended questions, to conduct a conversation with a peer, and to share all the ideas with others on the other side of the classroom, before moving on to the next question. Students quickly learn how to craft their own question sequences, and with enough practice, develop metacognitive thinking skills by doing. The tool scaffolds not only the thinking process, but also different discourse models, for example, discussion, dialog and dialectical discourse. An example of a thinking process is this activity from Relating Well, 100 self-facilitated workshops for personal development, to develop an understanding of why society has Rules and Laws:

Make a list of all the rules in your school classroom. What are you expected to do/not do?

Make a list of all the rules at home. What are you expected to do/not do?

What happens if you break the rules at home?

What happens if you break the rules at school?

What could happen if you break community rules or laws?

Under what circumstances is it OK to break the rules? eg. To save someone's life. Give some examples.

If there was only one rule in the world what should it be and why?

Describe a bad rule you think we should change because it is unfair to some people.

Make a list of all the rules that help ensure people can live, safe, happy lives.

If you wanted to get support to change an unfair rule or law, what could you do?

Give an example of what can go wrong when people break the law?

Why do we need rules?

So here is a short workshop to "think about thinking":

1. Yes-no questions - Craft several questions which result in a yes or no answer. e.g. Should we go home now? Do you like sponge cake?

2. Closed questions - Craft several questions which have only one response/answer e.g. What is 1 + 1? Who is the president of the United States?

3. Open ended question - Craft several questions that can be discussed by a group and have more than one possible answer. e.g. What makes you feel sad?

4. When might it be appropriate to ask a closed question? Give examples.

5. When might it be appropriate to ask open-ended questions? Give examples.

6. Concepts catalyze/stimulate other concepts in memory. What do you immediately think about when you hear these words: animals, house, party, game, clothes, water?

7. Rich concepts are very powerful catalysts. What comes to mind when you hear these word combinations? Happy days, famous people, sensitive touch, glorious colors. 

8. Brainstorm a series of rich open-ended questions/activities to explore the topic: Body Image - how we look and feel about ourselves. e.g. What do you feel about magazines presenting "thin" as the normal body shape?

9. Here is a list of different kinds of thinking activities. Feel, Choose, Decide, Plan, Consider benefits, Consider disadvantages. Compare alternatives, Make sense of information, Recall facts, Understand something.  Choose a kind of thinking and ask a question to ask others what they are thinking e.g. What do you feel about the issue?

10. Create a three-question feedback method to find out what people like or dislike about something, using these three kinds of thinking as a starting point. Like. Dislike. Learn from this e.g. What did we like about the meal we just ate?

11. Most thinking processes start with a focus on the problem or the issue. Brainstorm a list of problems or issues as a concept to be understood: e.g. World peace. The distance from earth to the moon.

12. A great place to start is with what we know, the data, "facts" or prior knowledge. Craft a question/instruction which asks participants to recall what they know. e.g. Make a list of at least five small animals. What do you like about small animals like dogs and cats?

13. The logical order in which thinking steps should be undertaken is like a "thinking journey". Convert this planning process to questions and assemble them in the best order. First five steps. Team members. Success measures. Cost estimate. Main tasks. Technology/tools to be used. Description of the project. Milestones (dates). Project Title. Theory to inform the project. Resources required.

14. Undertake one kind of "opposites" thinking at a time. Split this question into two questions. "What are the benefits and disadvantages of immunization?" Or this one: What did you like or dislike about your holiday?

15. Here is a closed question. What color is the sky? Rewrite this question so that people will share their unique experiences of the sky and what was happening at the time.