The Thinking Curriculum

1. The Thinking Curriculum How to encourage deeper thinking In times of change, the learners will inherit the earth, while the merely learned will remain beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer

2. Since we cannot know what knowledge they will need, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead our job must be to turn out people who love learning so well, that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned. John Holt

3. Higher-order thinking BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMYCreatingGenerating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing thingsDesigning, constructing, planning, producing, inventing. EvaluatingJustifying a decision or course of actionChecking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting, judging AnalysingBreaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationshipsComparing, organising, deconstructing, interrogating, finding ApplyingUsing information in another familiar situationImplementing, carrying out, using, executing UnderstandingExplaining ideas or conceptsInterpreting, summarising, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining RememberingRecalling informationRecognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding

4. Story questions : What happened in the story? Why did it happen that way? What would you have done? Which part did you like best? What did you think of the story? Why? Can you think of a different ending?

6. Bloom’s Experiment Form (for use with any Science Topic) Remembering List the materials used in this experiment. Materials: Understanding Outline the procedure for conducting this experiment Procedure: Applying Record data observed and collected during your experiment. Data: Analysing Examine your data and draw conclusions. Conclusions: Evaluating Describe how you would rate the success of your experiment. Establish a set of criteria for measuring the result. _ Creating Create a series of “What if” statements about your data to show things that might be different should variables be changed. What if… (adapted from Graphic Organisers and Planning Outlines, 1997, pp. 25-26).

7. A Thinker’s toolbox R U C S A C S C A M P E R 6 Thinking Hats Mindmaps Mrs Potter’s questions 3 Storey House Circle maps/flow charts/bridge maps

10. “We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself” Lloyd Alexander