Teaching Thinking -- A Guide for the Perplexed Yoram Harpaz

1. Teaching Thinking -- A Guide for the Perplexed Yoram Harpaz Mandel Leadership Institute, Jerusalem yoramha@mandelinstitute.org.il

2. Why teach thinking? The explosion of knowledge • Knowledge is expanding • Knowledge is accessible • Knowledge is relative

3. How teach thinking when... “There are an awful lot of theories around.” – Robert Sternberg “With so much controversy in the air, it’s understandable that only a few teachers and schools make the attempt.” -- David Perkins “Mind Workers Unite!” -- Arthur Costa

4. Approaches to Teaching Thinking • The Main Question: what is the foundational element of good thinking and how is it taught? • Skills Approach • Dispositions Approach • Understanding Approach

5. Some definitions Skills: means of thinking implemented rapidly and precisely (e.g. heuristics, tools, organizers). Neutral skills: means of thinking that render common cognitive processes more efficient (e.g. classifying, grading, comparing, deciding, etc.). Normative skills: means of thinking that create uncommon cognitive processes (e.g. breaking patterns, devising problems, exposing premises, discovering biases, etc.).

6. Some definitions Disposition: intellectual trait that is conciously chosen and justified. Thinking dispositions: traits with direct impact on thinking. Disposition to think: to engage and be engaged in thinking.

7. Some definitions Understanding: locating knowledge in relevant and rich contexts and/or performance – intellectual moves with knowledge. Substantive understanding: understanding the substance of thinking. Reflective understanding: understanding thinking or the conditions that make it good thinking.

8. Patterns of teaching thinking Teaching: education through knowledge Skills – Impartation Disposition – Cultivation Understanding – Construction

9. The Approaches as Worldviews Skills: Good Thinker is efficient thinker Dispositions: Good Thinker is wise thinker Understanding: Good Thinker is learned thinker

10. The approaches as lenses Thinking Shortfalls Skills: faults (lack of thinking skills or their faulty application) Dispositions: weaknesses (character flaws or “weak ego”) Understanding: misunderstandings Metacognition Intelligence Transfer

11. The Metaphorical Aspects “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) Skills: thinking as a toolbox Dispositions:thinking as deep currents Understanding: thinking as a net

12. The practical aspect: the approaches in school Skills’ “standard deviation”: taming Dispositions’ “standard deviation”: preaching Understanding’s “standard deviation”: lecturing

14. Two Essential Questions 1. What to believe – why three? 2. What to do – which approach is best?

15. 1. Threeelements of good thinking correspond to three components of thinking: Thinking skills Processes of thinking Thinking disposition Qualities of thinking Understanding Contents of thinking

16. 2. Teach skills and dispositions within the understanding approach and the pattern of construction.