Introduction to Thinking Processes
Using thinking routines to support PPS
Thinking skills and processes are implicit in our exploration of every theme in PPS as well as made explicit in its own discrete theme. Sound familiar? Well yes - you would be absolutely right to draw a parallel with the way 'approaches to learning' skills areas work implicitly and explicitly. The more you can model with students different processes to support thinking, the more likely they will find ways that click and enable them to work independently. Great news for the RP.
Introducing 5 themes
The following set of thinking routines are just examples of how you can make thinking processes explicit throughout the PPS course and respective themes and not just isolate them in a Thinking Processes unit. Remember how everything interlinks and the aim is for students to develop skills in a metaphorical toolkit that they can draw upon in different situations. At a risk of repeating myself, as aforementioned, thinking processes is synonymous with the ATL area of Thinking Skills and therefore the same rules apply for teachers.
Make explicit reference to it and establish prior learning and experience
Make it useful with ways to practice it so students can experience how it works
Make it transferrable by having moments to consider where they have used this skill before, how they are developing it and where it might be useful in the future.
Make it visible by have the students record and reflect upon the processes they have used.
As long as the focus here is on the thinking routine and thinking about the way they are thinking and where this would be useful, then the purpose of the unit plan is achieved. Each of these thinking routines share key characteristics: they can be taught explicitly with the idea that they will be revisited so students can eventually use them authentically in a wide range of situations. Each thinking routine should be considered for how they might impact each area of the students' courses. And lastly, each thinking routine can be directly related to the learning objectives; which ones do they directly address and which ones indirectly - for example in a different context, could the learning objective be different and the outcome change?
LO1: Identify their own strengths and areas for growth LO2: Demonstrate the ability to apply thinking processes to personal and professional situationsLO3: Recognize and be able to articulate the value of cultural understanding and appreciation for diversity LO4: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of communicating effectively and working collaboratively LO5: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and action
5 Thinking Routines[1] for 5 Themes
This unit plan is intended as a series of lessons to be uses as and when might be appropriate. Please note that the plenary that follows the thinking routines is important for students to recognise the transferable nature of these thinking processes to other areas of their course.
Aim: To introduce students to the role of thinking processes in their CP course by exploring 5 distinct thinking routines connected to the key themes of the PPS course.
Creating a skill manual
A good way of utilising a visual journal so students can really recognise its use, is seeing it as a manual full of processes to help them with problem-solving, whatever the topic. Students should record their responses to the thinking routine in their visual journal and begin this series of activities by considering how this might look.
Personal Development: identifying strengths and areas for growth
Who am I? Explore, Connect, Identify, Belong
Thinking skill developed: Using questioning and close observation to identify assumptions, bias and potential problems
This thinking routine invites students go beyond superficial judgements and labelling that can happen in relation to people, systems, objects or ideas. It encourages to take a moment to consider what they really think and not rush to make a decision. The nature of this thinking routine means that students can continue building their ideas over an extended period of time and notice how their ideas about who they are have changed and matured.
Think about who you are and then about someone else. Consider how you have become who you are, where you belong and what that can mean in our changing world.
Explore: Who am I? How has my identity developed?
Connect: eg I am connected to my parents, their parents and my brother and sister and I'm in the basketball team. Who else and what else am I connected to? What else shapes my identity?
Identify: If I wanted other to know who I am, what would identify me? Do we have more than one identity?
Belong: Where do I think i belong? Do I have a sense of belonging to more that one group, more than on place?
Reflect: How does this exercise consider your strengths and areas for growth?
Intercultural Understanding: articulate the value of cultural understanding and appreciation for diversity
In addition to the activity on the Personal Development page around the ted talk that Tom Rivett-Carnac, a political strategist working with the UN, gave in 2020, students can be asked to apply this thinking process from an intercultural understanding perspective.
'I used to think ... Now I think'
Skill development: Using intercultural understanding to understand change in complex situations
A routine for reflecting on how and why thinking might have changed about a cultural issue or ethical dilemma with a cultural dimension. You could be studying an abstract concept such as fairness and truth or it could be a discrete ongoing topic.
Write a response to the simple statements:
I used to think .... Now I think ....
Extend: How does this process allow me to value cultural understanding and appreciate diversity in this context?
Effective Communication: communicating effectively and working collaboratively
Sticking Points
Skills development: Evaluating evidence and arguments
It can be hard for students to get to grips with complexities and controversies, especially in a classroom context where a debate is being encouraged. This thinking routine allows to consider different viewpoints on a big issue that opens up communication and the ability to collaborate. Students can be divided up into teams to follow this process. Use any of the debates and issues from Ethical dimensions, issues and dilemmas to utilise this thinking process.
Look at the big issue in hand and consider it from four facets:
Facts: What facts do people differ on? What facts do they agree on?
Values: What values do people differ on? What values do they agree on?
Interests: What practical interests do people differ on? (consider investments, land, loyalties etc...)
Policies: What policies (ie general actions to take) to people differ on? What policies do they agree on?
Extend: Reflect after you have completed this on how it allowed you to communicate and collaborate effectively?
Thinking Processes: Apply thinking processes to personal and professional situations
3-2-1 Reflection - 2 ways of reflecting which can work for moving a general reflection on thinking processes to a more focused reflection on personal development.
Skills development: Using reflection to take responsibility for your actions
At the end of this lesson, reflect on:
3 Things I have learnt or 3 Things I have learnt about myself
2 Questions I still have or 3 Questions I still have about myself
1 Challenge I face or 1 Challenge I personally face
Extend: how can this help me in personal and professional situations?
Applied Ethics: Recognise and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Same and Different
Skills Development: Challenging assumptions and bias to make fair and balanced decisions
A contradiction in terms, complexities in the world around us can often be accepted at face value. Being able to explore complexities can start with just a picture and a question. This can lead to a thorough and deep understanding from multiple perspectives which, in turn, can lead to independent, informed opinions and solutions.
Choose a debate, incident, or object in which opposing views are clearly apparent, or images that look different but are grouped together. Alternatively, consider the gallery pictures below which are all on the subject of Protest.
Notice: Often judgements can be made at first glance. What was the first impression you had about this?
Perspective taking: From what other points of view could this be perceived? What would one say from those points of view?
Same and Different: What are the similarities? Differences? How is this case the same and different at the same time?
How well do your students understand the processes they are utilising already in their DP subjects? This is an extension of the reflection above which considers the thinking routine first and the impact it might have on other subjects. A good reflection that can take place at any point during the course is for students to do a stock take of their DP subjects specifically and identify thinking processes discrete to that subject as well as thinking processes that seem to transfer across to other subjects.
This is an adaptation of a text based thinking routine from Harvard Project Zero called the 4 Cs which asks students to consider Connections, Challenges, Concepts and Changes within the piece of writing they are analysing. Instead, students are asked to consider each subject they take discretely before considering the connections between their subjects and the thinking processes they use.
Connections: What connectons do you draw between [insert subject] and your other subjects? What connections do you draw between this subject and your own life?
Challenge: Consider a particular topic/s in this subject that you found interesting. What ideas, positions, or assumptions do you find yourself wanting to challenge?
Concepts: Within your subject, what key concepts and ideas are important and worth holding onto throughout the course? Is this the same with other subjects?
Changes: How have you changed in attitudes, thinking or actions by the subject you have taken? How might you change in the future?
Create a visual for the connections found so far between all subjects studied.
Footnotes
- ^ Harvard Project Zero, https://pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines