Some practical suggestions for educators on the teaching of thinking skills to children.

1. Teaching
Children
To Think
Tony Ryan
Learning Consultant
tony@tonyryan.com.au

2. This is a condensed
version of a workshop
that I offer to teachers
around the world.
These strategies can just as easily be used
by parents; and by trainers / presenters
who work with adult groups!

3. Four Key
Approaches To
1. Develop positive Teaching Kids To
dispositions for thinking
and learning Think
2. Generate the highest levels
of intellectual rigour and
inquiry
3. Combine proven frameworks,
with practical strategies that are in
context
4. Enhance thinking with ICT

4. Develop positive
dispositions for
thinking and
learning

5. Positive dispositions for
thinking and learning??
• Skills are not enough. A disposition for wanting / needing to
think is critical. Make thinking spicy!
• Generate an enthusiasm for intellectual play and curiosity
• Encourage explicit and direct reasoning
• Give children time to think
• Show them how to plan ahead and get organised
• Help them to study the brain at both a physiological and
psychological level

6. Teach students to self-talk
• Self-talk is a specific awareness of their own
thinking
• For children, begin with an explicit lesson
• Write up words such as: “I’m a legend”
• Then ask them to self-talk those words, without
any sound or without moving their lips
• Encourage them to do this self-talk when they are
working on a mental task

7. Student Passions??!
• Have you asked every one of your children
about their passions in life?
• What are the Big Three interests for the age
group you’re teaching this year?
• Where and how do you compile data about
their interests?
• Where specifically do you build those interests
into the classroom environment?

8. Generate the
highest levels of
intellectual rigour
and inquiry

9. Here is a powerful process for developing an
intellectually stimulating question
It’s called the ‘Intellectual
Rubber Band’
1. Brainstorm the hardest question in
the world about the topic being studied
2. Now adjust it downwards until it can
be used with your class

10. Engage children
in constant
inquiry - get
them
wondering!
Challenge them to
conjecture on the reasons
for specific issues eg these
bricked-in windows
Hint: It’s to do
with the
expression:
“Daylight
robbery”

11. A process for
student inquiry
Q. What’s our purpose for doing this inquiry?
Q. What do we already know about this issue?
Q. What are our questions?
Q. What learning steps will we take?
Q. How will we do useful research?
Q. How will we share our findings?

12. Play the Socrates Game
Break students into pairs:
* Student A offers
perspectives on a specific
topic • Why do you believe...?
* Student B continually
asks any / all of the
• Could you give an example of that?
Socratic questions in • Are you suggesting...?
context
• What reasons do you have for saying that?
• Could you clarify that comment?
• Why did you find that interesting?
• How do you know that?

13. Zestful inquiries!!
• When possible, develop an inquiry about
passions in their lives
• Generate interest with a provocative intro
lesson
• Give your inquiry units some exciting titles
(name them after a movie or a piece of music)
• Develop an assessment task that is intellectually
stimulating

14. Develop rich focus questions
• They can be: Philosophical / provocative / quirky /
thought-provoking / unusual / intriguing
• Examples of focus questions?
• What is the price of life?
• Are we really what we eat?
• How could computer games create a better world?
• How does a trend affect our choices?
• Does happily ever after really exist?

15. Combine
proven
frameworks,
with practical
strategies
that are in
context

16. We must
deliver on 4
Educational delivery mechanisms
core areas in Curriculum: Pedagogy:
learning:
What is How it’s
taught taught
Assessment: Reporting:
How it’s How we give
measured feedback

17. Some frameworks
for ‘thinking’ within
the pedagogy
• Blooms taxonomy
• Williams taxonomy
• Marzano’s taxonomy
• Habits Of Mind
• Thinkers Keys

18. Skills for thinking
• Creative (adapt, imagine, predict, invent,
hypothesise, challenge, redefine, expand)
• Critical (synthesise, analyse, generalise,
critique, examine, infer, interpret, classify)
• Metacognitive (evaluate, reflect, summarise,
review, self-talk, develop plans, query)
• Adapted from: Learner-Centred Assessment (Wilson & Murdoch, 2006); and, Thinkers Keys
revised version (Ryan, 2007)

19. Key issues with
‘thinking’ in classrooms
• It’s not an optional extra!!
• It’s not just for smart kids!
• The quality of thinking will determine the quality
of their learning retention
• Teacher modelling of quality thinking is a critical
influence on student thinking

20. Thinkers
Keys
20 practical thinking
strategies for
enhancing thinking
(thinkerskeys.com)

21. An example of the
10 critical thinking
strategies

22. An example of the
creative thinking
strategies

23. The 20 strategies
23

24. The secret to quality thinking? Use the
strategies in sequences. Here’s an
example of a problem-solving approach.
24

25. Enhance
thinking
with ICT

26. ICT is not
2002 - Use a large piece of
cardboard; cut out some enough. The
magazine photos; copy text learning has to
from an encyclopedia (and yet,
little idea of context)
be intellectually
rigorous
2012 - Construct a wiki;
steal images from google;
plagiarise from a Cheat
Site (and yet, little idea of
context)
It’s not necessarily the ICT that
generates intellectual rigour. It’s
the quality of the teaching
practice

27. Name at least
20 different
uses for a
cellphone
These devices
encourage all of us to
create new k’ledge eg
Apps
We’re moving from
Knowledge Consumption
to Knowledge Co-
Creation

28. Using ICT tools
• How could you advance children’s
thinking with your own cellphone?
• ... or with a camera being used by the
children?
• ... or with a FlipCamera being used by
the children?

29. Transformation
eg co-creating on Redefinition
group projects Tech allows for the creation of new tasks,
with other classes previously inconceivable
world-wide
eg to make use
of multi-media Modification
in highly Tech allows for significant task redesign
enhanced ways
Enhancement
Augmentation eg using spell
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with check or word
functional improvement count
Substitution eg Typing out
Tech acts as a direct tool substitute, with your work
no functional change with a word
processor

30. This is a great visual tool, but
sometimes, not much thinking
is involved when it is only used
to create a fancy image

31. Get some thinking going eg place an
article into wordle, and then analyse the
author’s text choices

32. 21st C learning •Behaviourism
theories?? •Constructivism How do you
•Instructivism generate
•Cognitivism ‘connectivism’?
•Connectivism

33. Visual Stimulus
• Most (?!) of your students will be visual learners
• Students process images up to 10 000 times faster
than text
• Powerful recall through image: 90% recall of images
after 72 hrs; over 60% after one year
• Develop a visual database of their ongoing
achievements and / or daily learnings

34. One photo / day to
represent the most
powerful learning that day

35. Some follow-up
options
• Revisit these notes / handouts at least
once in the next week
• After 2 wks, discuss what you have placed
into practice
• Use any worthwhile ideas within a week