Thinking Skills

What do we mean by "Thinking Skills"? Thinking skills are the mental processes that we apply when we seek to make sense of experience. Thinking skills enable us to integrate each new experience into the schema that we are constructing of "how things are". It has always been the central aim of education to improve the quality of thinking because better thinking will not only enable us to become more successful at learning but will also equip us for life, enabling us to realise our own potential and to contribute to the development of society. Why do we need to develop thinking skills? When I was at school (in the 1950's and 1960's) students were largely considered to be "clever" if they demonstrated the ability to commit to memory huge amounts of data and to recall that data on the appropriate occasion. In "How to Create and Develop a Thinking Classroom", Mike Fleetham writes: Incidentally, the current population of Australia (on 20 March 2011) is 22,594,438.

Resources Please take a look at learning resources I have produced or “acquired” (like all good teachers do!). Feel free to view, download and share – I hope they help in some way….. Constructivism Glogster posters TMHS Assessment – a poster explaining a Feed “forward” assessment strategy based on the initials of the school TMHS QR – a really simple QR poster to attract and inspire students – I’m sticking it on my door and seeing what happens! Augmented Reality (AR) Learning display posters AR Elements AR Alkali metals New Technology resources 21C Technologies Top Ten 21C Technologies checklist using ict to enhance learning QR Code resources (thanks to @nervassa for the first two resources) How to generate QR codes Find someone who can solve Making Tea QR codes Blooming Marvellous – Bloom’s Taxonomy resources (the first is from the brilliant Norbert De Mello) blooms bookmarks BloomingOrangev1[1] (from bloomsposterv4 (from Accelerated Learning Cycle

David Didau: The Learning Spy | Brain food for the thinking teacher MindShift MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions. We examine how learning is being impacted by technology, discoveries about how the brain works, poverty and inequities, social and emotional practices, assessments, digital games, design thinking and music, among many other topics. We look at how learning is evolving in the classroom and beyond.We also revisit old ideas that have come full circle in the era of the over scheduled child, such as unschooling, tinkering, playing in the woods, mindfulness, inquiry-based learning and student motivation. We report on shifts in how educators practice their craft as they apply innovative ideas to help students learn, while meeting the rigorous demands of their standards and curriculum. MindShift has a unique audience of educators, tinkerers, policy makers and life-long learners who engage in meaningful dialogue with one another on our sites. Contact the us by email.

Full On Learning | Because learning is too important to be left to chance Bloom’s Taxonomy: The 21st Century Version So much have been written about Bloom’s taxonomy; one click in a search engine will flood your page with hundreds of articles all of which revolve around this taxonomy. Only few are those who have tried to customize it to fit in the 21st century educational paradigm. As a fan of Bloom’s pedagogy and being a classroom practitioner, I always look for new ways to improve my learning and teaching, and honestly speaking , if you are a teacher/ educator and still do not understand Bloom’s taxonomy then you are missing out on a great educational resource. The following article is a summary and a fruit of my long painstaking research in the field of Bloom’s taxonomy. Bloom’s taxonomy of learning as Wikipedia has put it is “ a classification of learning objectives within education proposed in 1956 by a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom ”. 1 – The cognitive : The intellectual or knowledge based domain consisted of 6 levels . Let us now go through the different domains stated here.

The Science: The Growth Mindset - Mindset Works®: Student Motivation through a Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck, Ph.D. Why the Growth Mindset? When students and educators have a growth mindset, they understand that intelligence can be developed. Students focus on improvement instead of worrying about how smart they are. They work hard to learn more and get smarter. Based on years of research by Stanford University’s Dr. What does a Growth Mindset School look like? Administrators support teachers’ learning. Teachers collaborate with their colleagues and instructional leaders, rather than shut their classroom doors and fly solo. Parents support their children’s learning both inside and outside the classroom. Students are enthusiastic, hard-working, persistent learners. What is the impact of Mindset? Mindsets Predict Motivation and Achievement In one study, Blackwell and her colleagues followed hundreds of students making the transition to 7th grade. Growth Mindset Training Boosts Motivation and Achievement Growth Mindset Training Narrows the Gender Gap in Math Research shows that Intelligence is Malleable