Think the Thinking Thoughts!



Think the Thinking Thoughts!
Teachers often say to students `Let's think about this ...' or `Put on your thinking caps ...' or `Think hard'. There is, however, little agreement about the nature of the thinking the teachers expect.
Many hope for the `right answer' that they are silently holding in their heads and some may anticipate an attempt that offers insight into their pupils' misconceptions.
Very few will expect an unprompted `I think that ... because ...' type of response. Many teachers will not know the extent or nature of the thinking most of their students engage in because, as Astington and Olson (1995) comment, `A major problem is that ... thinking does not have any behavioural indices.'
It is therefore difficult for teachers to observe it in action. Teachers can only really infer what kind of thinking may have taken place by listening to children's speech (through responses to questions, conversation between peers), watching their actions (through reviewing their writing), observing how they go about a practical task or judging what they produce (a work of art, a story or report or even a simple invention of some kind).
As children progress through primary and secondary school they come to understand, through experience and reflection, that teachers expect very different kinds of thinking and mean quite different things when they say `think about it'. Just as teachers hold very different perceptions of the kinds of thinking they may wish their pupils to engage in, so do prominent and experienced educators.
There are many diverse views about what constitutes thinking in an educational sense.
Good quality thinking should:.
1. Be skilful.
2. Be flexible.
3. Be meaningful and purposeful.
4. Be developed through the application of thinking skills .
5. Arise in authentic learning situations
support effective learning.
6. Illustrate social responsibility for actions Be personally fulfilling be useful academically and socially).
7. Be transferable to other contexts and situations (in and out of school)
8. Continue to be developed throughout life, not just in school
9. Be more widely acknowledged in school is effortful, Challenging, Not easy,
Requires practice

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