Session on Thinking Skills (7th August, 07)
In our daily life, we all are faced with so many different kinds of problems. But surprisingly we tend to take similar kind of approach to solve all our problems - verbally. We don't try to look at it from different angles and figure out the best possible way to solve it. Only after today's class, I came to know that there are four different ways we can look at a problem or think in general:
· Verbal (mentally think about the problem)
· Visual ( think by drawing)
· Mathematical ( apply math, figure out some formulae)
· Kinesthetic (use our body parts like we use fingers to count)
If we can train our mind to think in these four different ways, it would be like having many different tools in our tool box. Each problem may need a different kind of a tool to solve and we would know which tool is best to solve it.
Why can't we train children to think in these four different ways? We need to understand that when a child is given a problem, speed is not important, but how well the child understands the problem and approach he or she takes to solves it.
Learning can be fun if we make the child relate it to a metaphor or a fantasy or something the child already knows. Blooms Taxonomy can be yet another excellent thinking, teaching and learning tool. Here a child can be encouraged to learn by making them think over a problem or a concept in six different levels:
- Knowledge – What (Mastery of subject matter, major ideas)
- Comprehension- Why (Understand meaning of subject matter)
- Application – Where I Use ( Use the information in different situations)
- Analysis – How It Works (Break things apart, understand cause and effect, compare and contrast)
- Synthesis – With (Combine different concepts to form a new one)
- Evaluation – So What Value ( Make judgment over the matter based on personal opinion)
The activity on how to make a child understand the concept of infinity and flipping of coin were very useful in understanding concepts of four ways of thinking and Blooms Taxonomy. Discussion on "roti rolling" left me thinking that even though we learnt so many concepts at school and college level, yet we were so incapable of understanding and applying these concepts in real life.
Yet again today's class has left me thinking how I can make a real change in my Thinking!
Anu
No comments:
Post a Comment