What Were You Thinking?

1. What Were You Thinking? Keri Bailey keribailey@swin.edu.au

2. Thinking begins when there is: A question A need A problem Good thinking skills uses the skills of: Analysis, Classification, Comprehension, Comparison, Deduction, Evaluation, Flexibility, Fluency, Forecasting, Generalizing, Hypothesizing, Interpretation, Observation, Planning, Predicting, Questioning, Sequencing, Synthesizing………………AND MORE

3. Theories about Thinking Skills Creative thinking Higher Order Thinking Reflective thinking Critical thinking Definitions and theories abound including: • Blooms taxonomy (concrete to abstract) • Cognition (mental processes) • Meta cognition (monitor own thinking) • Transfer (apply thinking to any area) • etc

4. Who needs to learn thinking skills? Ina impulsive Goes with first idea regardless of consequences Skill needs: decision making, problem solving, analysis, forecasting Danny Dependent Always needs help Skill needs: productive, inductive and deductive thinking

5. Who else needs to learn how to think? Al Always Goes all directions at once, never reaches goal Skill needs: deductive thinking, planning, analysis, problem solving Rita Rigid Uses only learned information Skill needs: fluency, flexibility, creativity, perceptual thinking.

6. Anyone else? Belinda Believer Believes everything written must be true Skill needs: critical thinking, hypothesizing, evaluating, judging Rob Right Sticks to his idea regardless of evidence Skill needs: analysis, synthesing, comparing, evaluation

7. And last but not least…… Fred Fear Never responds for fear of being wrong Skill needs: productive and deductive thinking, problem solving Dora Dense Usual comment: “I don’t understand” Skill needs: interpretation, conceptualization, abstract thinking

8. Get Ready to Think about teaching Thinking

9. Ready to test your awareness skills? Stay tuned as this link takes us to the test…YouTube

10. Do YOU see the bear?

11. Break out of the prison of familiarity

12. Get ready to teach Thinking Find a perfect star in the pattern on your handout As you look for it, try to be aware of the search strategies you use.

13. Use the creative enigmas of Heraclitus

14. Accelerated Innovation

15. Use the KnowBrainers

16. Flash Thinking Duos Find partner and assume roles of Flasher and Thinker Flasher randomly flashes “words” from all 4 Steps Thinker brain storms “card” connections to: Goal, Challenge or Problem Flasher records ideas Skip cards that do not trigger ideas and move to new cards Switch roles at signals

17. Closing Ritual Shake hands with your partner and say: “Thanks for the stimulation, you were a great flasher’

18. Use CCS cards for creative imagery

19. Think of a caption for this

20. Teaching thinking

21. oh my god, it’s thinking outside the square! Think outside the Square

22. References: Von Oech, Roger: ‘A Kick in the Seat of the Pants” 1986 Harper and Row, New York Von Oech, Roger: “Innovative Whack Pack” www.usgamesinc.com Von Oech, Roger: ‘Creative Whack Pack” 1992, Creative Think, USA Von Oech, Roger: ‘Expect the Unexpected or you wont find it” 2002, Simon and Schuster Free Press, New York http:/blog.creativethink.com/creative_thinking/index.html Compatibility Communication System (CCS) www.ccscorporation.com.au Accelerated Innovation http://www.solutionpeople.com/training.htm Polette, Nancy ‘Teaching Thinking Skills with Fairy Tales and Fantasy” 2005, Harcourt Education Cotton, Kathleen: ‘Teaching Thinking Skills’ School Improvement Research Series, November 1991, http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/6/cu11.html