More Strategies and Tools to Promote Thinking in the Classroom

Analogies

An analogy is a way of stating a relationship between things. Studying and creating analogies can help students develop personal understanding of the various ways things can be related to one another. Cub is to lion as calf is to cow is an example of an analogy. Analogies can also be represented in the following way:

Mahathir : Prime Minister : Ungku Aziz : Professor

Which is the standard convention for identifying an analogy and is kind of shorthand way to express that Mahathir is to Prime Minister as Ungku Aziz is to Professor.

Cubing

Cubing is a writing-thinking activity that encourages student to explore meanings of a given object, concept or phenomenon from six dimensions. It is a means for the teacher to inquire of students as well as a means for students to inquire of themselves what they already know or think they knows about a topic. The stimulus for thinking is a cube that has six different writing prompts, one on each face. Students do a series of six focused discussions or free writings on a specific topic, responding to each of six prompts in turn.

Graphic Organizers

A graphic organizer is a scheme for arranging information on a page so that the relationships among the concepts are made clear visually. For instance, a causal relationship might be shown with an arrow pointing from the cause to the effect or subordinate details might be shown radiating from a main idea like spokes from the center of a wheel.

There are many different types of graphic organizers. The one used depends on the kind of a relationship that are inherent in the material of the relationship on which students are asked to focus. Venn diagram, t-Chart, bubble map, mind map or visual map are some of the example. These graphic organizers assist students in organizing their information, stimulating their memory, creating their own interest in a subject, sustain concentrate and comprehending content. In particular, visual mapping (Caviglioli & Harris, 2003), for example allow students to:

1. Analyze and make connections.
2. Become better thinkers
3. Learn meaningfully
4. Think flexibly
5. Communicate effectively
6. Become active creators of their own knowledge and framework of interpretation
7. Search out meaning and impose structure
8. Go beyond the information given
9. Deal systematically yet flexibly with novel problem situations.
10. Adopt a critical attitude to information and argument
11. Make reasoned judgments
12. Make their own thought processes more explicit

Paraphrasing

This is a strategy one uses when he or she is expected to state what he or she has heard someone else say or has read without losing the main and important point made. However, this is not a strategy used to narrate word by word what has been heard or read. In classroom, this strategy helps teachers develop and monitor comprehension and of student of materials they are reading or talking about.

Students too will be able to monitor their comprehension of the text and use those information on their writing or speaking. Teachers can assist students by proposing to them to identify key words or key points to look for during the reading or discussion to help them paraphrase those information later

Developing children’s thinking skills

Developing children’s thinking skills is one of the most important aspects of being a teacher.  Teacher’s need to give children plenty of opportunities to allow them to develop these skills.  Here is a selection of ideas on how to do this.

•  Questioning – Open questions allow children to explain their answer and justify their reasons.  Also gives other children the opportunity to explain their point of view or explanation.  Philisophical questions don’t have a right or wrong answer, e.g. if a tree falls over in a forest and no one is around to hear it, would it make a sound?  Give children time to answer the question.  Can be very easy to move on to the next children without giving the child the necessary thinking time.  A great opportunity to start this is using these questions in a morning challenge whilst taking the register.
• Activities – Hands on/rich activities that allow children to manipulate and touch physical objects can enhance children’s thinking.  Activities that allow for further, deeper learning can really give children that sense of investigation and exploration.
• Assessment – Giving children the opportunity to self assess their work can be a worthwhile activity to allow them to see what they have done well, and hoe they can improve their work.  Furthermore peer assessment can offer children the ability for another child to look at their work and assess what they have done.  Children have that way of telling their peers that sometimes even teachers can’t get accross!
• Classroom/ Whole School Ethos – As a teacher, providing a safe and secure environment where children are allowed to get questions wrong, will improve children’s confidence in having a go at answering questions.  If children realise they won’t be laughed at even if they aren’t even close to the answer, more children will have the confidence to answer.
• Creativity – This can be thought of as being tricky to do.  However by providing problem solving questions/ activities that allow for children to answer/solve the question, children will be creative in solving and answering the question.  By mixing up your teaching strategies you will soon find what works and what doesn’t work well.
• ICT – With technology changing at such a fast rate, children need to be given opportunities to use ICT both discretely and ambedded accross the curriculum.  With programming being a hot topic at the moment, I thought I would trial it with my year 4 class.  I was thinking this isn’t going to work as programming is difficult to understand.  Without any previous experience of using the software my class were already programming items and things on their computer. (check out Scratch).
• Blogging – Having a class blog allows children to reflect on what they have learnt throughout the day.  Allows children to continue to develop their thinking skills both in and out of the classroom.  A great opportunity to show parents what their child is learning at school..
• Environment – By showcasing your classes work on a display will help to further immerse children with their learning.  Children can also look back at their work to see what they have learnt, and feel a sense of achievement.
• Responsibility – Allow children to take responsibility and ownership for their learning.  Elicit their understanding by finding out misconceptions they have and then ask them, ‘What do you want to find out from this topic?’  Makes the learning more meaningful and purposeful.