Educational Leadership:Teaching Students to Think Abstract

publications

February 2008 | Volume 65 | Number 5

Teaching Students to Think

The Thinking Teacher

Marge Scherer

Table of Contents

All Our Students Thinking

Nel Noddings

Critical thinking is the sort of mental activity that uses facts to plan, order, and work toward an end; seeks meaning or an explanation; is self-reflective; and uses reason to question claims and make judgments. Any subject—be it physics, algebra, or auto repair—can promote critical thinking as long as teachers teach the subject matter in intellectually challenging ways. For those students who are not interested in traditional academic programs, schools should offer high-quality, rigorous courses in technical and vocational education. A vast majority of students will go to work in the service world, where high-level thinking is increasingly required. Teachers can motivate students as thinkers through inquiry learning and by modeling for students their own thinking processes. Rather than focus on covering large amounts of material that students will soon forget, schools should help students acquire the intellectual habits of mind associated with thinking, thereby creating lifelong learners.

Table of Contents

Disciplining the Mind

Veronica Boix Mansilla and Howard Gardner

Most students in most schools today study subject matter. They and their teachers conceive of the educational task as committing to memory large numbers of facts, formulas, and figures. A far more sophisticated perspective emphasizes teaching disciplines and disciplinary thinking. The goal of this approach is to instill in students the disposition to interpret the world through the distinctive ways of thinking that characterize the work of experienced disciplinarians—historians, scientists, mathematicians, and artists. Teachers can nurture the disciplined mind by helping students develop key capacities. These involve understanding the purpose of disciplinary expertise, the essential knowledge base, inquiry methods, and the preferred forms of communication. Successful strategies include identifying important topics or concepts within the discipline, studying the topic deeply, approaching the topic in a number of ways, and setting up performances of understanding.

Table of Contents

The Thought-Filled Curriculum

Arthur L. Costa

Costa proposes five themes about thinking and learning that educators should consult in choosing curriculums that encourage deep, skillful thought: 1.) learning to think; 2.) thinking to learn; 3.) thinking together; 4.) thinking about our own cognition; and 5.) thinking big. Teachers, he argues, need to continually examine and evaluate their curricular choices to be certain they are giving students practice in thinking with depth; engaging students in authentic, relevant activities that will stimulate deep thinking about content; showing students how to study their own thinking; guiding learners in thinking within groups; and promoting "thinking big" in terms of applying deep, creative thinking to world situations and problems.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

Energizing Learning

Robert J. Swartz

During the last few decades, the author and his colleagues have developed an instructional framework for infusing thinking into content instruction in every subject and at every grade level. In thinking-based learning, teachers explicitly teach students thinking strategies and important habits of mind and then give students opportunities to apply these skills to curricular content. This article shows the framework in action in the classroom of a 7th grade science teacher who guides her students through a one-week lesson on energy sources.

Table of Contents

Thinking Is Literacy, Literacy Thinking

Terry Roberts and Laura Billings

Recognizing the profound relationship between thinking and language, the authors have developed the traditional Paideia seminar into a literacy cycle of instruction that involves students in reading, speaking, listening, writing, and thinking. As staff members of the National Paideia Center, they have observed that learning to think requires frequent, deliberate practice. This article provides examples of literacy cycle seminars providing such practice in the content areas of English, mathematics, and history.

Table of Contents

An Early Start on Thinking

Ann S. Epstein

In the most stimulating prekindergarten classrooms, both students and teachers are critical thinkers. Teachers use their critical-thinking skills as they observe their students and develop lessons that are based on students' current interests and developmental levels. Lessons that are rich in hands-on learning experiences and opportunities for children to plan and reflect will stimulate critical thinking in children. Epstein shares specific strategies for building children's thinking skills and provides examples of children engaging in critical thinking.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Object of Their Attention

Shari Tishman

Tishman argues that directing students to closely examine physical objects is an excellent way to motivate and strengthen thinking. Even simple objects reflect the social and physical contexts in which they were created and can spur deeper observations and questions. Teaching thinking through objects appeals to many different kinds of learners and aligns well with a constructivist approach. Tishman describes the increasingly complex observations, questions, and inferences that a group of adolescent students made as they examined a simple sock darner egg (a wooden tool used in mending socks). She discusses two guidelines for effectively tapping the power of objects to increase student thinking—start with learners' observations and encourage expansive thinking—and gives suggestions for choosing an object and guiding student discussion.

Table of Contents

Thinking About Patriotism

Joel Westheimer

Although most people overwhelmingly describe themselves as patriotic, they differ greatly in their definition of what patriotism means and their views on what kind of patriotism should be taught in schools. The author differentiates between authoritarian and democratic patriotism, and asserts that the latter entails commitment not to government institutions but rather to the people, principles, and values that underlie democracy. Recent trends in education policy, he writes, are at odds with teaching students the thinking skills and dispositions they need to participate in civic life. He urges teachers to resist these trends and provides suggestions and resources for teaching democratic patriotism.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

Making Thinking Visible

Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins

Ritchhart and Perkins explain visible thinking, the approach to fostering thinking skills that they have developed as leaders in Harvard University's Project Zero. Visible thinking is based on the principles that learning is a consequence of thinking; thinking involves personal dispositions as well as abilities; thinking must be made visible; and thoughtful learning should pervade students' and teachers' school experience. The authors look in on a 1st grade classroom project at Bialik College, an Australian school that participates in Project Zero's Cultures of Learning initiative. Teacher Roz Marks uses the Think-Puzzle-Explore routine to launch student inquiry into the Beaconsfield Mine Collapse, a topic suggested by students. She uses key language and actions to bring out her young students' ideas, help them attend to and strengthen their own thinking process, and support them in exploring questions that they uncover about the mining disaster. Ritchhart and Perkins also discuss how teacher learning groups at Bialik promote schoolwide learning and give evidence that the visible thinking approach enhances learning.

Table of Contents

Cover the Material—Or Teach Students to Think?

Marion Brady

For many educators, the main purpose of educating isn't to improve students' thinking skills but to "cover the material" in math, science, language arts, social studies, and other school subjects. Covering the material contributes to social stability and enables the transmission of useful information, but general education can no longer afford to focus solely on these aims. The most important task is sending students into the future fully able to think clearly and creatively. Current education tools, such as textbooks, favor secondhand knowledge; tests favor recall. Neither focuses on developing the full range of thinking skills. Education leaders can take one crucial step in getting students to think by drawing a sharp line between firsthand and secondhand knowledge. Schools should look to the real world for their subject matter.

Table of Contents

Clash! The World of Debate

Amy M. Azzam

Debate teaches critical thinking and literacy, helps develop students' organizational and research skills, promotes self-confidence, and empowers students—especially marginalized students—by giving them a voice. The urban debate movement, with its 19 leagues across the United States, is working to bring these benefits to urban schools. High school students in the Washington, D.C. Urban Debate League engage in two kinds of debate: public debate and policy debate. In both instances, students debate for and against a proposition before a judge. Before debating, students need to research the topic in depth; during the debate, they need to take notes, listen, summarize, weigh arguments, look for weaknesses in the arguments of the opposing team, and prepare to talk. Students learn to deal with complex problems and become well-versed in issues that affect their communities, their nation, and their world.

Table of Contents

Educational Leadership Themes for 2008–2009

Table of Contents

What's Valid? What's Reliable?

W. James Popham

Table of Contents

Project-Based Learning

Jane L. David

Table of Contents

Effective Grading Practices

Douglas B. Reeves

Joanne Rooney

ASCD Community in Action

Table of Contents

Shooting Aliens: The Gamer's Guide to Thinking

Nathan Holbert

Nathan Holbert challenges the notion that video games are a complete waste of time. When players learn to play a new game, they must use a process similar to the scientific method to understand their environment. They must then set goals, plan how to achieve their goals, and solve problems along the way. To master a video game, players often must engage in monotonous tasks that lead to some sort of reward that enhances their game play. Teachers can follow the video game model by incorporating planning and problem-solving activities into their lessons and making sure students are rewarded for their efforts.

Table of Contents

Thinking Like an Artist

Pamelia D. Valentine

A middle school art teacher tells how she infuses reading, writing, and thinking skills into art class. Drawing on strategies from both art educator Terry Barrett and literacy educators Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, Valentine leads her students through a process she calls "d-coding." For each artwork studied, she prompts students to answer four questions: 1). describe (what do you see?); 2). decide (what is this artwork about and how do you know?); 3). defend (what makes this work famous?); and 4). destruct (what might you change and why?). As students become comfortable analyzing art, they write short critiques based on their observations and eventually use the process to analyze their own artwork and that of their peers.

Table of Contents

Five Minds for the Future

Naomi Thiers

Table of Contents

EL Study Guide

Naomi Thiers

Table of Contents