January/February 2006

Volume 10 Issue 1  Jan/Feb 2006

A Thinking Framework

This is a major revision and update to the thinking framework paper we presented 3 years ago.

The brain is 1.5kg of super parallel electrochemical processing grey squishy stuff that contains 10 billion neurons and 60 trillion synapses running on elaborate chemical and electrical stimulation and response. . . . . .

UCLA’s Human Brain Mapping Centre[1]

 . . . . . and we understand almost nothing of how the brain functions holistically or why it does what it does so well. We struggle with concepts of self, (How do I know I am me? is still a widely debated question), we struggle to measure intelligence, understand the interplay between the mind and the brain, how memory functions and how emotions form, why some people show great insight and ability in certain areas while at the same time struggle to be on time or cannot automatically tell left from right when asked for a quick response. . . . . . The list here is probably unlimited and it is only in recent years that significant resources have been applied to finding answers to these questions. Our understanding of the physiology of the brain has been accelerated through the invention of MRI and subsequently fMRI scanning of the brain and hopefully this will provide new keys to our understanding of the mind and how it functions.

But just to start you thinking and humble your knowledge of self look scroll down and view the picture of the fish for a minute or so and then return to this point again.

Now having looked at the picture visualise the image in your mind and ask yourself what is the colour of the fish just to the left of the tear shaped rock and is it the largest, second largest, third largest or smallest fish of that colour in the picture? Now some of you may have remembered how many fish there were, how many were blue, that some were blurred etc.  but is there actually a picture of all the fish in your mind? If there is you should be able to easily answer the question by just looking at the picture that is in your mind.

The answer is actually that there is no picture of the fish in your mind!! If there was a picture in your mind where is the screen, (the image is being projected on to), located and where is the eye in your head that is seeing the created image and relating the image to  . . .?? For our entire lives we have believed that we see images in our mind and the simple truth is that this is impossible. One of the first times in our lives this may become obvious to us is when a person very close to us dies. The next day following the trauma of the event we are further traumatised by the fact that despite living with this person for 35 years we cannot see them in our mind. But then again this is simply impossible, sad but impossible.

In a wonderful radio series on the BBC in 2003 VJ Ramachandran gave the annual Reith lecture on The Emerging Mind[2]. In the second of these lectures Ramachandran took us back to some basic science:

One common fallacy is to assume there is an image inside your eyeball, the optical image, exciting photoreceptors on your retina and then that image is transmitted faithfully along a cable called the optic nerve and displayed on a screen called the visual cortex. Now this is obviously a logical fallacy because if you have a screen and an image displayed on a screen in the brain, then you need another little chap in there watching that image, and there is no little chap in your head. And if you think about it, that wouldn't solve the problem either because then you'd need another little guy in his head looking at the image in his brain and so on and so forth, and you get an endless regress of eyes and images and little people without really solving the problem of perception.[3]

If your still think you understand your personal world try working out whose voice you hear when you think to yourself saying sentences such as “whose voice is this?” without making any sound. We often say we hear ourselves think but how can we hear something when no sound is being made? 

These are just several of many conundrums brought about by the limitations of language. Regardless of what language you speak we use associations of words to express what we are experiencing. When we see a picture in our mind there is no picture but it is so hard to describe what is really in our mind when we have no known physical reference that we refer this experience to. We struggle with “well it’s like  . . . . . .”  but what we are experiencing is like nothing we have ever experienced in our physical world so we have no reference terminology. The lack of a representative experience we can link our observation to means that we use the closest experience we can think of and one which has been reinforced for many years; that being that we can see a picture of something in our mind! We have been tricked.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self

Benjamin Franklin

Image courtesy of the Morgue File
Photographer Roswitha Schacht
http://www.roswitha-schacht.de   

Are men really from Mars and are women really from Venus and are men really poor communicators when compared to women or are these just pop psychology fashion statements just that have taken on a ring of truth because, from our worldview perspective the labels seem to fit other people? According to a report in Scientific American: Mind[4], Janet Shibley Hyde, a university professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, having reviewed 46 major gender studies over 20 years Hyde notes that girls and boys seem to have the very similar capabilities in mathematics, men have similar communication capabilities as women and boys and girls both seem to have self esteem problems . . . . and this is just the beginning.

How we interpret and interact with the world about us depends upon a highly complex interplay between our senses, thinking strategies we may learn, knowledge and our perceptions within our minds, and our ability to modify and improve that knowledge and those perceptions.

A “mental model,” described in Senge’s ground-breaking work on transforming organizations into “learning organizations” (1990), is the “internal, coherent frame of reference we use to represent our worldview, to integrate our experiences and to draw upon for problem solving and decision making” (VanderVen, 2000, p. 121). Mental models can range from the simplistic to the more complex, with complexity better enabling the person to understand both subtle and systemic factors operating in a situation. It would seem that the mental model is the internal determining factor of what actually gets implemented in practice and determines the practitioner’s response. Given the relevance of effective early childhood practice to these abilities, it would seem that the more complex an early childhood practitioner’s mental model is, the more sound his or her practice would be because it would better resonate with the reality and needs of a particular situation. Thus, it would seem that if teacher preparation in early childhood education were designed in a way to develop complex mental models in practitioners, then these would provide an internal working concept of integrated theory and practice.[5]

Collectively this provides us with an overall worldview, which we see the actions of others through. The thinking process is then engaged and the incoming information is filtered through our worldview glasses, our own internal questioning, our ability to be critical of the information we are processing, our values, ethics, spirituality and culture, and our metacognitive processing ability. The result of this process is a revised worldview made up of new and (hopefully), improved conceptual models of understanding. This then alters our conception of how the world functions and we adapt to these changes by changed social and cognitive responses.

If we cannot clearly say what thinking is, then we clearly cannot teach children to think.

So we need to have a thinking and adaptive population but just what do we mean by thinking? Marzano et al in their text "Dimensions of Thinking: A Framework for Curriculum and Instruction"[6], stated that thinking can be considered to be an integration of:

·  metacognition

·  creative thinking

·  critical thinking

This is consistent with Robert Sternberg’s[7] theory on successful intelligence where he identifies the three key intelligences as analytical, practical and creative. There is an almost endless list of thinking processes that draw on core thinking skills such as concept formation, principal formation, comprehension, problem solving, decision-making, research, composing and oral discourse.  

 As educators we want to know and understand what thinking is, but it is such a vague, and at the same time complex notion, that it seems almost fanciful to aspire to a total understanding of it.  To keep thinking tangible and manageable we have taken the course of looking at thinking from the perspective of an individual’s view of the world and how they perceive their world. The worldview of an individual is shaped by their experiences and their cognitive capabilities for forming concepts and integrating these into holistic models. The world view of an individual is continuously being modified by our daily experiences but our individual models of the world are fatally flawed with some very amusing results.

Our senses are not as reliable as we would hope in perceiving the world as it really is. Our minds are overwhelmed with sensory data every moment of our lives and indeed if we had to consciously process all the incoming data we would end up achieving nothing. Let us list all the information that is being scanned by your senses at any moment in time as you are driving down a road in your car:

·         The air temperature, humidity and smells of the car and if you window is open, of the outside world

·         The noise from the car stereo, motor, air conditioning unit, passengers,  from cars passing from behind, approaching from in front, the exhaust, wheel bearings, suspension . . . .

·         Visual information from viewing the rear vision mirror, wing mirrors, peripheral vision, the view of the car ahead as well as the oncoming traffic, lighting, possible traffic police, surrounding countryside, glare from the sun, speedometer, fuel gauge . . . .

·         Your comfort in relationship to the car seat, the sensory responses from your grip on the steering wheel, gear column, the fine motor skills involved in adjusting volume of the CD player, changing the radio station, modifying the airflow, adjusting the pressure on the accelerator . . . .

·         The taste of the chocolate and the coffee you are consuming as you drive along.

Then of course there are all the decision making processes that you need to engage in, based on the sensory inputs that are arriving every nanosecond, along with the thoughts that are going through your mind which have nothing necessarily to do with the incoming sensory data; no wonder you feel tired at the end of the day! But just how do we deal with such an overwhelming sensory environment coupled with wide ranging thoughts and feelings which we are also simultaneously engaged with and are being processed?

The mind is constantly scanning for information that does not quite fit in with what would be a “normal driving experience”. The sound of the tires on the road is perceived subconsciously but not processed consciously.  It is only when the noise of the tires on the road changes that we consciously take notice of it.  If you suddenly have a flat tire then you are instantly aware of the change in the road noises and interpret this, from your experiences, that you possibly now have a flat tire. You can drive for hours without even consciously thinking about the noise of the tires on the road until there is a change, even a very subtle change in the pitch, or that volume of the sound and suddenly you are immediately aware of the new noise. 

The same applies to your rear vision mirror.  As you scan the rear vision mirror you notice a vehicle approaching a great speed from behind you.  You instantly adjust your speed, grip on the steering wheel and take additional conscious notice of the immediate road conditions, as well as taking into account the road conditions up ahead at about the time you perceive this car will overtake you. As the car approaches and overtakes you at great speed you subconsciously note the red colour of the car, the fact that the car is very low to the ground, that the driver appears to be quite young, that there is a girl in the passenger seat who is also quite young, that the driver has a police radar detection gadget on the dashboard, that there is a minor dent on the left front of the car, and the number plates are out of state  . . . . immediately your mind makes a judgment call and frames all the events into a single, generalized, previously experienced (or not), boxed-up the event. The driver “obviously” has wealthy parents, he is driving their car and has eloped with his young girlfriend from interstate, he has possibly been drinking/doing drugs, has been spoiled by his workaholic parents, through expensive gifts to make up for the time they haven’t spent with him and he is now driving frantically searching for a place to hide from the police, who will probably not be far behind. Is any of this analysis based on fact?

Indeed the story may have very little relationship to the actual event but your stereotypical interpretation of events fits the experiences that you have had previously or more probably the situation profile matches events you have seen on television, the movies or the advertising/marketing campaigns you have been immersed in and these experiences and the resulting stereotyping is automatically switched on when the situation matches up with what you are experiencing now. If the match is close enough you will apply the surreal situation interpretation to your present real situation. This happens even though these experiences of others (those in movies, adverting situations, books you have read, urban myths we have turned into reality, Net gossip . . . .) are surreal and bear little resemblance to the “real world”. However your real but somewhat misinterpreted event reinforces the surreal events which led to the interpretation and the surreal interpretation now becomes part of your own “real” experiences. 

In this way these surreal perceptions of the world (which are not necessarily real) are applied to your real experiences, which are then interpreted as though the surreal models in your mind are real and the myth is reinforced and the surreal, as far as your mind is concerned, becomes real.

In all possibility the young brother and sister may well be speeding on their way to spend some time with their dying grandmother who has been given only a brief time to live following a household accident, but that would not be a strong sub-plot in the constant line-up of soap operas which media rely on!

So how much of what is stored in your mind do you consider to be an accurate representation of reality if a lot of it is based on assumptions, stereotyping, generalizations and our need to categorize everything to cope with the overwhelming amount of data we have to process, organize and recall? Probably quite a lot of what is stored in your mind is less than accurate which means that what we consider to be truth may well be  . . . . . .  well not quite the reality we would hope for. While this may seem unbelievable it has to be reasonably true if you consider our interpretations of something as simple as colour. If 100 people were to be interviewed as to their opinions on the colour and style of the drapes in a room you would get a range of opinions varying from the fact that they are “ghastly” thorough to those that think they are very “chic”. They are the same drapes but they are being viewed via 100 different world views.

Our worldview is unique, colored by our life of experiences, our interpretation of what we casually observe and to add to this there is the increasingly mediated environment we live in. In our not so distant past most of the information we received we received via direct sensory interaction with the event. There was no-one interpreting the event for us we simply saw, smelled, touched, heard or tasted the event.  Admittedly there were far less events in our lives but now most of the information we receive is interpreted for us by news organizations, governments, friends, television networks and billboards.

Interestingly then, your worldview which is based on these interpretations may not be very accurate! In fact your world view may well be predominantly based on the “mediated”[8] (media saturated) world based interpretations which are simply not real. Interestingly we firmly believe in the sanctity of our worldview and will argue its merits with anyone who dares to challenge it.

If we cannot agree on something as simple as colour of drapes then it is probably not too surprising that the Middle East dispute regarding Israel has not been “sorted” yet. Each of the many different factions involved in the dispute has thousands of years of historical “world view” building. Each faction reinforces their “right view” through management of what information their members receive via newspapers, the internet, television news, radio broadcasts etc. As each member of each faction associates with only that faction, the insistence on the singular worldview of the situation is reinforced every moment we converse with another human on that topic. The news services of each faction view every event via their own world view, reinforcing that view with every interpretation of every event. You only have to watch the Al Jazeera news service (based in Qatar) to bring this issue into sharp relief and then grab the equally surreal reality by swapping channels and view CNN news for an hour.  Possibly neither interpretation of the same event is “the reality” and the 46 seconds that are given over to the discussion of the event by each faction could never summarize the event accurately even with the best of intentions.

The US view and the Arab views of this “news service” could not be further apart in their opinions of what truths are being professed. As the world perceives most of the US as Christian and most of the Arab world as Moslem then it is simply easier to see this as a Christian versus Moslem issue which it may well not be. The same process has been applied to the political issues in Ireland. For most of the world this is a catholic Vs protestant issue; i.e. the issue is a religious one. In fact it is to do with a group of people who just happen to be predominantly protestant who historically took over land owned by a group of people who happen to have a predominantly catholic persuasion. Neither group may be necessarily strongly religious at all but they are convenient labels which make the interpretation of a very complex historical issue far more simple, which, in our busy information worlds is immediately adopted into the six second sound byte which is then transmitted by CNN, the BBC or Al Jazeera around the world as “fact”.

Generalizations, stereotyping and the development of predetermined interpretations of actions based on prejudices engendered through advertising and marketing are tools your mind makes use of in order to cope with the overwhelming information overload associated with even the simplest of daily chores. Without these tools you would be completely overwhelmed. Being aware of your own world view and your culture associated with that world view and realizing how they influence your actions and your decision making processes requires self reflection and what science refers to as metacognition. Metacognition is the capability to reflect on your own thinking and analyze the various reasons for your actions in different circumstances. Encouraging metacognition in our young people is a critical thinking skill, as it builds a platform for all other thinking skills and the understanding of our “self”. Metacognition is not a simple skill to teach and there are some excellent resources available to encourage its development.

Interestingly, many of the mental models of understanding that take a residence in your mind are at odds with each other to a greater or lesser degree, and are in a state of conflict. Some of the basic premises which underpin some of your mental models of understanding (which make your worldview), can be mutually exclusive, however the human mind can manage this quite comfortably by ensuring that these models never come in contact with each other. You may find it hard to believe that we can host mutually exclusive ideas in a mind and quite happily live with this bizarre situation.

Even though these two positions are mutually exclusive the irrational, illogical mind can rationalize just about anything; we are just so jolly clever at tricking ourselves into accepting these conflicts in order that we do not have to make any changes to our mental models of understanding and the outworking of these models; our lives.  The human mind will resist change via a wide range of elaborate, self deluding practices!

Another interesting outcome of the worldview model is that how you see someone else’s actions and how you view your own actions may be extremely different even though the action itself is exactly the same. You can rationalize your own action quite comfortably while at the same time being unable to excuse the actions of others even though the two actions are exactly alike.

Jennifer, a teacher who you spend some time with in a shared teaching space drives you to utter frustration as she is highly critical of the senior management of the school which you are part of, describing them as lazy and inept. You stare in wonderment at Jennifer as she is quite lazy, struggles to control the class and is forever leaving you to supplement her teaching practices . . . . . . well at least that is your version of events!

The capability of having two entirely different worldviews of the same event is absolutely critical as it acts as a mental lubricant, allowing you to live with your own irrationality and that of others. Those who can see these clashes in their own “worldview lives” and can laugh at themselves, and others should consider themselves very fortunate and those that take them seriously can end up with serious problems.

If we can accept this worldview model than it opens up a very simplistic definition of thinking:

Using this concept of an individuals world view we can define thinking as a process that either reinforces or modifies a persons worldview.

Thinking may introduce a new concept, add new knowledge, broaden an understanding, assist in making a judgment or modify an attitude to a person, group or concept. If we accept this premise then we can move on to looking at what elements may contribute to the thinking process

There are six thinking elements that appear to contribute to this process of modifying or reinforcing your worldview. These thinking elements were identified as a result of investigating the ideas of a wide range of cognitive researchers including Marzano, Costa, Vygotsky, de Bono, Edwards, Swartz, Browne, Papert, Dunlop, Grabinger, Dugoid, Collin, Campione, Brandt, Hughes, Harpaz, Lefstein, Jones, Presseisen, Rankin, Suhor, Bloom and Jonassen and many others[9].

From their work we have identified six key elements, their interrelationships and their role in the thinking process. These elements are not based on the physiology of the brain but rather on cognitive processes that appear to be going on when thinking is taking place. In order to simplify the expression of these ideas it is inevitable that some details are not included but it does make the concepts much more easily grasped.  

It should be noted at this point that science, philosophy and faith all struggle with what thinking really is and all we present here is a model which I am sure will be improved on in due course, but what thinking is will probably never be a finished book as it probes areas beyond science and purely quantitative analysis!

1. Initiators of Thinking

If we define thinking as a process that either reinforces or modifies the persons worldview then as educators one of the key questions we need to ask ourselves is “what initiates a change in a person’s worldview?” in general we have assumed in the previous education paradigm that all we have to do is present information to a student in a number of different ways and they would simply absorb this information, add it to their conceptual framework, improving the overarching framework and they are then empowered with the capability to apply that framework of understanding to solve problems, develop new ideas etc.

There are a number of initiators of thinking processes and increasingly cognitive science is offering educators some interesting insights into how effective these can be. The simple desire for food initiates a series of thinking processes about where food may be located, how it could be cooked/presented, where it should be purchased, who will be joining in on the meal, where it should be eaten, and at what time it should be eaten. This simple desire for food draws deeply on our worldview of what elements make up a meal at a particular time of year, taking into account who will be attending and also on what other meals have been consumed over the past few days.  In the same way our desires also drive thinking processes which draw on a worldview of what is acceptable and desirable.  It is also possible to encourage people to think by setting due dates, expectations, timeframes for results etc and these imperatives can drive thinking.

A lot of thinking takes place in our own mind by reflecting on our own present understanding, adjusting this worldview to take into account information which may have been presented in the course of the day from other people, media resources or simply through combining thoughts and ideas in new ways in our own mind.  Quite often in speaking out what we think we understand, we modify our understanding on-the-fly and sometimes we find ourselves saying quite insightful things which we hadn’t rehearsed prior to speaking out about that particular idea or thought.  Inspiring speakers, either in person or other media formats also cause us to challenge our own worldview and rethink our position on a particular topic or theme.

It is possible to encourage students to use clever, rich, open, high order thinking questioning strategies on themselves; questioning their own attitudes, beliefs, values and ideas.  Some speakers are consciously inflammatory and radical in what they say in order to prompt us to question our attitudes, beliefs, values and ideas and the other speakers engage with us emotionally and sometimes spiritually in order to achieve the same result.

Many of our most famous inventors struggle to describe how they came up with their brilliant new idea and often they put into down to serendipity; the happenstance confluence of a collection of ideas that stimulates a new notion or idea. Of course it is not complete chance and as Arnold Palmer once remarked having just chipped in from the rough in a golf game: “It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get”[10]. One of the key thinking principles is being ready and expectant for new ideas and having a character that is willing to interrogate them as well as a strategy to apply the idea to new in new and different situations.

Other initiators of thinking include: needs, wants, desires, mystery, intrigue, inspiration, reflection, competition, purposeful study, observations . . . . . .

The Thinking Process

The next four contributing elements attempt to summarize the complexities of the thinking process.  As we have mentioned earlier thinking is an elusive process to try and quantify and this model, kept simple in order to be manageable is merely a model and sufferers all the “downsides” of any model in reducing complex processes into simple diagramatic summaries. However simple models of understanding allow us the capability of placing our teaching practices into a manageable context which allows the mind to cope with complexity and provides some qualifying frameworks for decision-making processes.

It should be noted that the four identified areas that comprise the process we refer to as “thinking” comprise a nonlinear, dynamic complex system and in truth the four areas are hopelessly intertwined in a manner which is best described by chaos and complexity theory. This concept is excellently summarized in an online paper by Karen VanderVen:[11]

“Nonlinear dynamical systems theory embraces chaos theory and complexity theory. In general, these theories, which recently have been utilized as a “lens” for viewing early childhood issues (e.g., VanderVen, 1998), deal with unpredictability, nonlinearity, and the interconnectedness of and among systems (Goerner, 1994). One concept in nonlinear dynamical systems theory is that of the fractal: an iterative and self-similar process in which forms repeat themselves from a micro to macro level (Eoyang, 1997). Applied to an organization, a “fractal” organization would have a thread of coherence running through every structure from the smallest to the largest, so that all actions were aligned towards a common goal or mission.”

This section of the worldview model is based on the work of many of the researchers outlined earlier and to a degree synthesizes many of the complex models and theories into a single, simplistic model and in the process of simplification a lot of the depth is lost.

2. Thinking Processors

Thinking Processors: These are the primarily semi-hard wired capabilities that we have inherited via the genetic material passed on from our forebears. Thinking processor capability provides the capacity to process and deal with information and knowledge in a wide range of different formats and media. Thinking processor groups form the basis of some of the theory underpinning multiple intelligences (Linguistic intelligence, Logical-mathematical intelligence, Musical intelligence, Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, Spatial intelligence, Interpersonal intelligence, Intrapersonal intelligence)

These are often recognized as the "talents" that each individual is born with. This does not mean a student with lower levels of creative capability cannot become creative, it simply means that students with that particular “talent” will progress faster and easier than their contemporaries who do not have this “talent” as well developed genetically.  The fact that some children get a head start genetically in certain areas plays into the hands of the very human trait of “success breading success”. The result of this is that when we start with a particular advantage in one of these areas we tend to enjoy that advantage and practice and work in that particular field with greater enjoyment and success and hence our skill levels increase even further.

These thinking processor capabilities include:

·  Creative thinking across numerous different forms including all of the different arts and performing arts, innovation and design presentation skills as well as in the area of creative writing.

·  Engaging critical thinking strategies when listening to someone speak or when engaging with other media formats. Being able to analyze information and assess its truthfulness, independence and authority.

·  The capacity for metacognition, the ability to reflect on our own thinking and use this reflective process to better understand why we do the things we do and use this to modify our own behavior.

·  Having a spiritual awareness including particular nuances associated with values or particular cultures, both societal and ethnic.

·  The capability for intricate problem solving across a wide range of different contexts including everything from day-to-day tasks through to complex mathematical problem solving, both conscious and subconscious.

·  Understanding human nature including the capability of being able to see the world through someone else’s eyes (empathy), and using this capability to form relationships at numerous different levels and across different realms such as friendship, family, working as a team, understanding competition and the competitive spirit as well as the capability for analyzing different relationships.

·  Physical coordination and balance integrating multiple skills/capabilities in order to demonstrate fluidity and success within sport, dance, recreation in the workplace or the play-place.

3. Facilitatory Environments

In order to be successful second education paradigm learners one of the key requirements is for the learner to be immersed in a rich lifelong learning culture which provides the necessary resources and tools to carry out and report on their learning process and outcomes.

·         The Learning Culture: This requires a strong lifelong learning culture where the emphasis is on working to better understand the world the learner lives in. A culture of learning requires learning attributes described by Costa and Kallick[12] including persistence, striving for accuracy, thinking and communicating with clarity and precision, managing impulsivity, gathering data through all senses, listening with understanding and empathy, creating, imagining, innovating, thinking flexibly, responding with wonderment and awe . . . . .

·             The Learning Tools: This is the environment which the learner works within and we can influence this significantly by providing a learning environment that contains the necessary knowledge and thinking tools learners require, in order to seek and process information efficiently, create new knowledge and understanding and communicate this with others.  Often referred to as knowledge environments or KnowledgeNET Personal Learning Environments, these environments are increasingly becoming software driven using the power of the Internet to provide integrated information, knowledge and communication tools.

A facilitatory environment is not just technical space but far more importantly it is a relationship place where students are encouraged to carry out real research, working in teams where necessary and individually when required. This approach requires a completely new way of thinking in regards to scheduling and timetabling. It also requires students to have time with a can carry out the work they feel is a priority.  This requirement for Individual Progression Time (IPT) is critical for the overall success in building facilitatory environment which encourages deep thinking and “real world” research.

It should be noted that as part of the development towards a rich facilitatory environment there is a requirement to transition from structured rule governed behaviour to providing a social/academic environment which allows for independence and self motivated behaviours.  These behaviours are based on the capability of the learner to move through from a novice status when it comes to lifelong learning through to an expert status in regards to lifelong learning.  This transition in status is highlighted best using what is referred to as the Dreyfus model[13]. The transition sees a practitioner move from novice to advanced beginner to competent through to proficient and then through to expert status.[14]

In a recent presentation by John Edwards the Dreyfus model was linked to another concept developed by Jim Butler (1994), of the University of Queensland of Personal Practical Knowledge[15]. The resulting graphical presentation shows the transition from rule governed behaviour of a novice through to personal practical knowledge governed behaviour of an expert. In essence, what this recognizes is the commonly held view that “rules are only required for those people who lack experience or for those who are experienced but lack wisdom”.

In facilitating these environments we are building capability for students to move from being novices, where their lives are governed by rigid sets of rules through the phases of increasing expertise moving through the developmental pathway from novice to eventually expert. One of our key roles as educators is to develop a range of competences which underpin personal practical knowledge so that students can make the transition along the continuum successfully.

4. Thinking Processes

“Few experts in the field would now support the claim that there are universal thinking skills or completely general strategies for learning and problem solving.  However it is generally accepted that there is a range of relatively general learning strategies that can be drawn out of some contexts and applied again in new contexts.”[16]

As mentioned previously the core thinking processes include:

·  Concept formation: organising information about an entity and associating that information with a label.

·  Principle formation: recognising a relationship between or among concepts.

·  Comprehension: generating meaning or understanding by relating new information to prior knowledge.

·  Problem solving: analysing and resolving a perplexing or difficult situation.

·  Decision making: selecting from alternatives.

·  Research: conducting scientific inquiry.

·  Composing: synthesis and distilling of resource into succinct ideas and principles.

·  Oral discourse: orally communicating with a wide range of different people.

The core skill categories which underpin the general competencies required include:

·   Focusing Skills     

·   Information Gathering Skills

·   Remembering Skills

·   Organising Skills

·   Analysing Skills

·   Generating Skills

·   Integrating Skills

·   Evaluating Skills

These “thinking skills” are not discrete elements but rather a collection of general learning strategies which require a range of different contexts in order to give them meaning and “real world” legitimacy.

It is important that the study of thinking processor groups are not isolated units of work but rather a set within a much larger set of contexts.. 

There are additional thinking skills which are important and should be contained within the key sets of thinking skills processes identified below.  Some of these skills would include Information Gathering Skills; Generating Skills; Focusing Skills; Remembering Skills; Analyzing Skills; Integrating Skills; Evaluating Skills; Organizing Skills . . . . .

The capacity to remember an event is an interesting thinking skill process to meditate on briefly. If you reflect on the things in your life which you can remember clearly (we won’t do the picture thing here), you will find that they were almost all very emotional events.  If we look to make a distinction between what students would describe as boring teachers and very good teachers, quite often the only difference is that the “boring” teacher lacks emotion in how they convey the information.

“The transition from temporary to permanent memory is called consolidation. The heightened state of tension, stress and novelty stimulates the consolidation phase of memory.” Scientific American Mind[17]

It would appear that teachers who are passionate and teach with emotion have a far better chance engaging learners to a greater degree and that the information that they are trying to impart will be retained and consolidated better. If you wish to have a learning experience remembered then invoking emotion will certainly assist you in the process. Emotions come on a wide range of different formats ranging from mystery and intrigue, anticipation, apprehension joy, disgust, surprise, pity, love, respect, and even examination fear all assist in memory retention and recall. Invoking these emotions into learning situations will greatly assist the students to engage with the learning situation and also remember the event.

5. Thinking Tools

These are the tools which students choose to make use of in order to improve their capacity/capability for effective and efficient thinking. These tools provide students with strategies which allow them to more formally work through a process of developing conceptual frameworks of understanding through the manipulation and interrogation of information.  These facilitatory tools include resources such as Goal Setting; Brain Storming[18]; Peer Tutoring; Conferencing; Concept Mapping[19]; Mind Mapping[20], microquests[21]; Study Groups; Concept Scaffolding . . . .

We would also include in here formalized collections of strategies such as the work of Costa and Kallick’s “Habits of Mind”. Although this collection of thinking habits are not a tool per se, the integration of these ideas becomes a tool set which we encourage teachers to integrate into their holistic thinking program.

“A Habit of Mind means having a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems, the answers to which are not immediately known: dichotomies, dilemmas, enigmas and uncertainties.”

Costa and Kallick also identify the key issue in thinking skills and that is the conscious choices we may when deciding to think through an issue, dilemma, set of choices etc. The intellectual behaviour associated with the way in which we think when we engage thinking skills in a conscious manner draws on a range of human factors and to quote from the web site[22]:

·            Employing Habits of Mind requires drawing forth certain patterns of intellectual behavior that produce powerful results. They are a composite of many skills, attitudes and proclivities including:

·                     Value:  Choosing to employ a pattern of intellectual behaviors rather than other, less productive patterns.

·                     Inclination:  Feeling the tendency toward employing a pattern of intellectual behaviors.

·                     Sensitivity:  Perceiving opportunities for, and appropriateness of employing the pattern of behavior.

·                     Capability:  Possessing the basic skills and capacities to carry through with the behaviors.

·                     Commitment:  Constantly striving to reflect on and improve performance of the pattern of intellectual behavior.

Once again this emphasises the fact that choosing to engage thinking behaviours is a critical element as our natural tendency is to engage less rational processes and hence the model of Costa and Kallick, which encourages thinking skills to become “habits of the mind”. This way the mind takes time a more rational approach, more often with the net result that better decisions are made more often. Like any habits it is imperative that students practice each of these habits in as many different scenarios and concepts as possible and continue to do so over long periods of time.  A simple habit can be picked up quite easily but developing complex habits requires consistency and commitment from an entire school over a long period of time.

The habits identified by Costa and Kallick are listed below family would strongly encourage schools to build these habits into their overarching framework of their thinking strategy.

·         Persisting

·         Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision

·         Managing impulsivity

·         Gathering data through all senses

·         Listening with understanding and empathy

·         Creating, imagining, innovating

·         Thinking flexibly

·         Responding with wonderment and awe

·         Thinking about thinking (metacognition)

·         Taking responsible risks

·         Striving for accuracy

·         Finding humor

·         Questioning and posing problems

·         Thinking interdependently

·         Applying past knowledge to new situations

·         Remaining open to continuous learning

The books which highlight the process of identifying and engaging habits of mind are available from the web site http://www.habits-of-mind.net/

6. Human Nature

As we described thinking as a process that either reinforces or modifies a persons worldview then the result of “thinking” is a revised worldview made up of new and (hopefully, but not always), improved conceptual models of understanding. This then alters our conception of how the world functions and we adapt to these changes via changed social and cognitive responses.  This would be the case all the time if human beings were logical, sensible and rational  . . . . but unfortunately we are not.  This results in an interesting dilemma.

Even though we may logically and sensibly go through thinking strategies and procedures and come out where a realization that our present model of understanding was maybe not quite correct and in need of refinement, as human beings who are illogical irrational and passionate, there is a good chance that we will not incorporate the results of an investigation into our long-term worldview.  This becomes more obvious if we use some day-to-day examples of this phenomenon.

1.      A young family visits a realtor to discuss their requirements regarding a new home and they describe in great detail the cottage in the country that they now would like to purchase having spent the last 10 years living in the suburbs. The agent shows around a range of homes within their price range but at the end of the day no decision has been made. Several months pass by and coincidentally the realtor meets up with her prospective clients who wished to purchase a cottage in the country and she inquires as to how their buying process had gone.  The couple look at each other with bemused embarrassment explain to the realtor that they have purchased a condominium right in the centre of the city on the 16^th floor of a newly built apartment complex. This type of behavior is so common that estate agents have a byline along the lines of “buyers are liars”!

2.      Another couple sit down and work out sort of car they need in order to transport children, get to work, go on holiday, pick up the groceries etc. and they decide on a very pragmatic “people-mover” vehicle that is within their budget.  The husband sets of an after a day of walking car lots he returns home with a sparkling red Maserati. It is totally impractical, uses huge amounts of petrol, cannot seat all the children, is only four inches of the ground and its top speed of 180 miles per hour can only be achieved if they leave the city, travel for two days to Salt Lake City and head out to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Somewhat surprisingly every member of the family (well almost every!), is ecstatic with the purchasing decision of their husband/father.

Logical and sensible is all very well but it is totally out of sync with our nature as human beings for being passionate and irrational. If, for one moment, you think you are rational and logical look at the person you married/your partner and ask yourself how logical and rational that was.

Unless your thinking model takes into account this very humorous dilemma then you have little chance of success in assisting learners to build an honest thinking picture.  It is important for students to realize that they are not robotic thinking machines and that this is a good thing.  If we were all sensible and logical we would all drive boring cars, wear boring clothes, go on boring holidays and we would be thoroughly bored as there would be no one to gossip about.

There is the time and place to be sensible and logical and a time and place for being irrational and passionate.  Getting into a car after having drunk too much alcohol is not a time to be passionate and irrational. Following your dreams, having a midlife crisis, buying a restored 1967 Ford Mustang car, going to Iceland for your summer holiday, these are sometimes healthy, irrational and passionate things to do. But deciding which irrational things are for our long term wellbeing and which are not is an “art” based on experience and wisdom but more on this later[23].

The following schematic diagrams lays out a summary of this model of thinking.  Before applying it to the teaching of thinking please accept the following conditions:

1. All models are fraught with assumptions and simplifications and by their very existence are flawed; BUT they are useful for framing understanding.

2. The way we behave (as a representation of our thinking/thought processes), is very dependent on the cultural setting we find ourselves in. i.e. , how we process and “live out” our thinking processes in an academic environment, in our home environment, or on the sports field, is often very different.

3. Human beings are passionate, illogical people who are fantastically varied and wonderful creatures to study but do not expect them to be rational all the time!