This text is intended for teachers, curriculum coordinators, and administrators with interesting backgrounds and ideas for implementing a reflective curriculum in their schools. It advocates authentic learning and assessment, explicit reference to a reflective curriculum at all levels, and inclusion of the entire school community.
Background to the thinking curriculum
Teachers demonstrate how higher order thinking is encouraged through the use of scaffolding and appropriate strategies and thinking tools. The diagram below shows the extent of systematic reforms believed to be necessary to properly address the needs of students in the middle years.
Design of a whole school approach to effective teaching
Since that time, many administrations, researchers, and teachers have worked to reform middle years of education, many of which originated in the projects that followed the Middle Years Reform and Development (MYRAD) report. The lack of student involvement in the middle years was the impetus for introducing students to the Thinking Oriented Curriculum (TOC).
Creating a learning environment for the thinking curriculum
School structures
Teenagers in particular need close relationships rather than large, impersonal schools, and they need opportunities to experience increasing autonomy. School staff must also work together to implement a thoughtful curriculum that takes into account their particular setting.
Devising or revising a curriculum
Do they know the 'intelligence/s' they promote mainly through classroom activities, for example linguistic, visual, scientific (Gardner, Pohl), or the brain quadrant in which they mostly function (for example Atkin, Herrmann). In Chapters 3 and 4, Golding and Meath provide guidelines for schools wishing to establish a thinking curriculum.
Learning styles
Bibliography
Abstract
Introduction
They generally get what they seek from their students, so when they try to expand the students to higher levels of thought, the students usually respond. The degree of student participation in discussions is related to the level of student engagement and self-esteem, the extent to which teachers respond to student ideas and ask questions that increase the abstraction level of inquiry, and how much encouragement is given to students. to question ideas and issues.
Beliefs about the role of language in developing thinking skills
Bloom's hierarchy of thinking defined higher and lower order thinking and described differences between concepts such as knowledge and understanding. The cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956) is used today as a basis for making distinctions between lower-level and higher-level thinking clear in classroom discussions and activities.
Bloom’s Affective Taxonomy
Effectiveness—encourages the learner to look for ways to measure the communication value of their creation to an external audience. Presentation—encourages the learner to seek the most effective expression of a concept or an external body of information.
Immersion
Persistence – encourages the learner to only reluctantly declare a concept 'done', to remain constantly open to further possibilities, and to make conceptual links beyond a current project with subsequent ideas and/or projects. In this approach, students' ways of presenting ideas must be taken seriously by their teachers.
The mid-1980s
The view that ideas, as opposed to skills and processes, should be given top priority in promoting thinking and understanding in the classroom is gaining support. In the 1970s, when Cambourne was active, Matthew Lipman's philosophical inquiry model (see later in this chapter) was developing a method that would help teachers encourage discussion and thus advance student ideas.
The 1990s
Gardner
Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) grew out of his early research into how the brain works. Examples of the application of Bloom's Taxonomy and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences to a thinking curriculum are applied in Pietzner (Chapter 7) and Chenery (Chapter 11).
Philosophy for children: the community of inquiry model
Wilks, S 1992, 'An Evaluation of Lipman's Philosophy for Children Curriculum', Masters Thesis, The University of Melbourne. The community of inquiry, first introduced into education through Lipman's Philosophy for Children model (Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanyan, 1980), involves establishing a classroom climate conducive to critical reflection.
Philosophical inquiry
Often, by the late middle years, students who have developed a voice through active participation have moved into leadership roles (Holdsworth, 1998). A community of inquiry with its supportive context, its challenging issues, and its encouragement of discussion of issues that interest the students can help them develop a voice.
Approaches that foster philosophical inquiry
It can provide what is needed to engage many more students in greater participation and leadership in the school community. Modulator Promotes discourse cohesion and guides the reasoning process in the most productive directions.
Questioning
What are five questions you can ask yourself before trying to solve a math problem. What are the five properties of a tree and how can you relate them to breakfast cereal improvement and recession problems.
Recognising a philosophical topic
Good thinking skills are needed in all aspects of the curriculum and an effective research community will help transfer knowledge. Philosophical inquiry promotes knowledge of the ways in which visual and textual interpretation and understanding can vary according to cultural, social, and personal differences.
A model school of thoughtfulness
Exploration of issues that are problematic for the student, but which are nevertheless related to their own experience, can serve as a starting point. Students tend to be self-motivated and independent, working with their parents and teachers to create a personalized curriculum and learning at their own pace.
Schools of thought
Parents and other community members are actively involved in each child's education, and students are viewed as individuals with unique talents and participants in the learning exchange.
Course offerings are in the form of
Topic: Generations
Through this interdisciplinary study of the physiological and psychological processes of aging, students are also encouraged to develop positive habits that will improve the quality of their own lives as they age. Eyers, V 1993, The education of young adolescents in South Australian government schools: report of the Junior Secondary Review.
Creating a thinking school
What is meant by developing thinking skills?
Cultural change necessary for the successful development of thinking in a school
Conventional versus thinking schools’ views of education
Cultural change
A supportive culture for a thinking school
- Ensure the development of thinking is an explicit aim of the school
- Model and personally promote the development of thinking
- Create a school environment that promotes the development of thinking
- Ensure time is explicitly set aside for the development of thinking
- Encourage teachers to consider themselves as facilitators of thinking
- Ensure that students consider themselves learners and thinkers
- Provide time, resources and training to support teachers in developing thinking students
- Inform the wider school community and involve them in creat- ing a thinking curriculum
There are several ways in which senior management can shape and encourage the development of thinking in schools. Every aspect of the school environment should encourage the development of thinking and there should be no inconsistency.
A Thinking School’s Checklist
As the Thinking Oriented Curriculum (TOC) and special programs coordinator at her school, Meath's role is to support teachers as they bring thinking skills into their programs. It also helps curriculum leaders, year coordinators and group leaders to address thinking skills from grades 7 to 12.
The New Basics
Another reason for teaching thinking skills is that teachers face the challenge of providing a foundation for their students to participate effectively in the community of the future. But for any reform to penetrate the classroom, it needs a strong core of teachers who passionately support it (in this case, a thoughtful curriculum).
Students as critical and creative thinkers
This infusion example allows for a differentiated curriculum within the classroom, thereby providing authentic enrichment and extension tasks for the more able students and relevant, achievable tasks for all.
Individual differences
Developing an innovative thinking curriculum model
The diagram below represents our attempt to connect the key elements of a thinking curriculum.
The Thinking Oriented Curriculum
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT
Materials Technology—Textiles
Teaching for thinking (the learning environment)
Teaching of thinking (explicit teaching of thinking skills)
Teaching with thinking (infused teaching of thinking skills)
Teaching about thinking (teaching thinking about thinking)
In the following block description, integrated thinking skills and strategies are emphasized rather than lesson order and scope.
1 Patchwork quilt
2 & 3 Pencil case and denim bag
4 Fashion garment
Conclusion
The neglect of the arts and the undervaluation of visual literacy and the creative process stems from a prevailing assumption that affective perception. The lack of aesthetic in the curriculum teaches students that we do not appreciate it.
Faulty testing?
Given that assessors read other essays written as part of the GAS, it should be possible for them to read students' as well. The opportunity to justify your choice should be an integral part of the test.
Right reasons for wrong answers?
The consequence of their findings was a re-examination of the data that contained the students' subtle use of modalities, for example the students' meaning of sentences like 'must've' was 'probably', not 'essentially'. At the very least, this use of modalities by children raises important questions about the likelihood of their choosing responses other than those that examiners consider to be correct (Chervin & Kyle, 1993).
Authentic assessment
They found that with each new discovery they were eroding the authority of the standard test, especially since students could be justified in disagreeing with "correct" answers. 3 Portfolio—Students collect examples of their work as evidence that they have achieved specific learning goals.
Problems with emphasis on ‘standard’ testing
1 Naturalistic—teachers observe students during everyday learning activities and systematically collect information that can be used for later analysis. 2 Performance assessment—teachers observe students performing a skill or task in response to a set of directions, for example science.
Over-emphasis on standards can mean that
The imposition of common standards that ignore individual differences and assume that knowledge is not related to the knowledge seeker and can be delivered without consideration of individual needs and interests. As part of my research and work as a teacher educator with art and general teachers, I have formulated strategies and collected resources that can be used alongside art making to engage students and develop their analytical, conceptual and perceptual skills and understanding.
The visual arts in society today
Thinking about works of art and discussing controversies associated with art can be used by teachers to help their students expand their thinking skills while promoting the investigation of the complex relationships that exist between people, cultures, and artifacts. One would think, given the importance of imagination in remembering and creating new images, that the contribution of the visual arts would be considered one of the fundamental elements of education and integrated into other areas of learning.
Art educators can facilitate critical understanding
The ideas present in the visual arts today require the observer/participant to engage in dialogue, reflection, imagination or metaphor, i.e. use other forms of communication, to make connections and understand issues. What if the curator's goal for the show is to create discussion about the issues.
Art in the postmodern era
A broader conception of art: a celebration of thinking and dialogue
What is art?
Slowing looking down
Making looking clear and deep
Questions
I think it's art because it might just be a house, but not everyone's house has a supermodel on it. I'm not sure if it's art or not because the photography is art, but you can't be sure if the house is until you've been inside.
The role of the visual arts in the integrated curriculum
Authentic education
Their story was sent to a member of the State Orchestra who set it to music. The product of his work unit showing the effectiveness of the approach is included.
Behaviourism versus constructivism: the primary school
A discussion of the article reveals that the students would like to philosophically examine the question of democracy as a political system. The teacher talks the least of all and uses Socratic questioning methods to challenge the students and facilitate their conversation.
Taxonomies
While the teacher may have corrected some misconceptions during the initial discussions and selected a newspaper article to provoke conversation, the students were never directed to uncritically absorb the knowledge the teacher possessed. The key difference between the two sessions is that in the second one the students had to construct their own understanding of the Asian section, whereas in the first they had to recall the teacher's understanding.
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
The model below illustrates the importance of each level of thinking and makes the hierarchy of skills clear. The new model insists that teachers recognize the importance of allowing students to express their knowledge and understanding of the world (as well as providing learning experiences) in diverse ways.
Rich Tasks and Productive Pedagogies
The model also helps develop a range of skills in children, allowing them to rely on those in which they are naturally stronger. Rich jobs are pieces of work that should accurately reflect a real-life job in the world.
The Significant Structures unit
This means that students believe that the work they are doing has a value that exists outside of the classroom itself. While all the work a student engages in a unit of the thinking curriculum should be rich in nature, it is particularly important that the assessment activities at the end of each unit have a particular validity and significance inherent in them. .
The productive pedagogies checklist
This meant that the unity had to be based on an understanding of the means of connecting these elements. However, we were concerned that one of the most important motivating elements of the unit would be the basis of the students' prior knowledge and concerns.
Beane’s tenets for curriculum content
They must develop problem-solving skills and deep knowledge of the complexity of the content in order to arrive at an acceptable solution. Students engage in an iterative process of gathering new information, evaluating it, forming hypotheses, and reforming their understanding of the problem.
The Learning Model
The unit
Learner
16 • Students write an LJ item with a mind map that links the information they have evaluated and the main ideas. Each student writes a review of one or two examples of drug education programs that have been studied in the classroom.
The problem scenario
Delise, R 1997, How to use problem-based learning in the classroom, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA. External feedback comes in the form of peer conferences and reflective social behavior, rather than a teacher.
Thinking about the middle years
This is not to say that no attention is paid to detail, only that in the process of trying to answer broader philosophical questions, individual students will search for the facts and apply them in ways that make personal sense ( Brooks & Brooks, 1993). . This places the content within the context of how it is used (or could be used) in the real world.
Conflict: a big idea
They can negotiate the syllabus with the teacher or help the teacher decide how they want to learn the syllabus. The classroom environment provides positive relationships with adults and peers and fosters a sense of belonging among its members characterized by support, respect and dignity.
Using learning technologies
The following curriculum outline is an attempt to synthesize these ideas into an integrated curriculum unit that enables students to pursue their own interests and use technology to motivate, enhance, collect and present information while covering aspects of the core learning areas. Their research assumed that we start with the students and work outward (Newmann & Wehlage, 2001).
Circles of Support—a context for successful school restructuring
It is an attempt to fuse the current subject-oriented curriculum into a coherent whole that is meaningful to the learner, as suggested by Newmann and Wehlage (1996). The reality today is that many schools are trying to change their high schools by aligning their structures with the ideas of an integrated curriculum.
An integrated unit
ALPS unit design of the online curriculum model throughlines
Generative topics
Goals for understanding
Performances of understanding
English
At school, they are told that they are being moved because of the outbreak of war. They lose their bags along the way and three students donate to the fourth student who lost his bag.
Music
Health and physical education
Ongoing assessment
Students will be asked to examine the play cover of The Diary of Anne Frank. The cover features images of war and Nazism and students will be asked to point out the questions they have and identify anything they already know.
How do new technologies enhance teaching for understanding?
Jensen, E 1998, Teaching with the Brain in Mind, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (online) http://www.ascd.org/frametutorials.html link to "The Brain and Learning". Muir, M 2000, Motivating learning: a failing learner's perspective, http://www.mcmel.org/motiv8/motiv8.intro3.html.
Activities and resources
I believe the problem now lies in how teachers recognize, value and assess these problem-solving, reflective, higher-order thinking skills. As a result, theorists' tools and learning activities are evaluated in the classroom for their ability to enable students to develop higher-order thinking.
Herrmann’s whole brain model
Many teachers have recognized the importance of developing higher-order thinking skills, and are developing classroom activities that help students achieve these skills: they are attempting to design a thinking curriculum. Much of the discussion by educators is currently about cognitive processes, preferred learning styles and how to ensure students are given opportunities to develop higher order thinking skills.
Herrmann’s four modes for processing information
Rethinking assessment
If we don't incorporate a range of thinking skills into our reporting procedures, then the only learning that will matter to students will be the surface learning required to recall information, apply formulas, and follow procedures. However, the testing structure does not allow for the kind of reporting I would have liked to do after the sessions described above.
Mathematics thinking journal
Further, the evaluation of these tasks can be included in the reporting procedures of the Faculty of Mathematics. Students should be familiar with the purpose of the journal in order to feel comfortable using it.
Resources for learning
Ways of demonstrating learning
Gardner’s model
It offers the curriculum designer an outstanding model for integrating different learning styles and developing rich assignments. The eight intelligences describe different ways of knowing and understanding the world with the help of different skills and methods of thinking.
Information technology and design
The model (see Chapter One) offers a dynamic approach to learning that takes into account students' individual learning styles and includes students who have traditionally felt left out. Gardner's Intelligences Tasks and activities Portfolio and assessment Verbal/linguistic discussion, presentation, involvement and contribution.
Assessment
Results should reflect strengths and weaknesses and be provided as progressive feedback over the duration of the course. Campbell, L & Campbell, B & Dickinson, D 1996, Multiple intelligences go to school: Educational implications of theories of multiple intelligences,. www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/mi_gardnernew98.html.
Thinking about information technology
In addition to a general technical knowledge of the principles behind the use of specific information technology software, students should familiarize themselves with software assignments primarily on a need-to-know basis. In this way, students should be encouraged to work with colleagues rather than struggling together without help.
Thinking modes
Project construction can also contribute to the self-esteem of weaker students, who feel as if they have contributed something to the group.
A design-based model
Their formative experiences with the design process should be collaborative rather than competitive. history, writing). The first phase of this shift should be to refocus attention on "media" in its broadest sense, that is, the vehicles that convey design and general messages in our culture.
What and where is design?
However, it can be learned in tandem with, or in service of, more intellectually driven outcomes.
Identifying and assessing project activities
Construction of knowledge Organisation of information
Of course, the discretion of the teacher in assessing projects will be important, but the systematic nature of the Queensland Research and Development (R&D) methods means that this discretion will not be an overwhelming responsibility. R&D methods should contribute to a clearly defined idea of the student's effectiveness in responding to the conceptual demands of the multilevel project.
Designing a Thinking Curriculum
