As an educator one is always looking beyond teaching the standards and giving students the tools they will need to be productive in society. Teaching thinking skills is the place to start. Ever wonder how to empower your students to think? Well this powerpoint is a practical application of teaching thinking skills at every level. It challenges teachers to teach students to think. Even if your students are in higher education. This powerpoint is based on Cabrera and Colosi’s book Thinking at Every Desk (2009).

1. Understanding Thinking
and Knowledge
By Wafa Hozien, Ph.D
Virginia State University
whozien@vsu.edu
Based on the Book Thinking at Every
Desk By Cabrera and Colosi

2. Ch. 1: Why Students Need 21stCentury Skills

3. To meet the challenges ahead, Problem
Solvers will need proficiency in:
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Content Knowledge
Critical Thinking
Creative Thinking
Interdisciplinary Thinking
Scientific Thinking
Systems Thinking
Prosocial Thinking

4. TWO LAWS OF KNOWLEDGE
1. We Build Knowledge
Knowledge
What to Know
(Product)
CREATES
INFORMS
Thinking
How to Know
(Process)

5. 2. Knowledge
Changes
Three ways in which
knowledge changes:
1. Growth
2. Validity
3. Relevancy

6. Restoring the Balance: What to Know and How to
Know
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Mismatches between practices and reality (which must be
resolved)
We see a system that behaves as if students can “get”
knowledge and teachers can “give” it
We see a system that behaves as if facts are static and
reliable forever
We see a system that behaves as if knowledge can be
segregated from thinking

7. Method
We don’t need a miracle to teach thinking skills- we
need a method.

9. Chapter Two
The Patterns of the Thinking Method Making
Distinctions

10. The Universal Structure of a Distinction is
Identity and Other
DISTINCTIONS
Identity
Other

11. Distinction
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Is NOT a thing that we assign a name to;
It is a boundary between that thing and everything
that is NOT that thing.
Is the boundary that allows us to capture or
explicate both an identity and an other.
Being more aware of the distinctions you are
making will make you
more analytically sophisticated,
more creative, more systematic in your thinking

12. Name all things. . .
When we name things, it’s a good indication of
distinction-making
We don’t need words to make distinctions

13. The Hazards of Ignoring the Other
We get our identity from our relationship with the
other
 If you know your enemies and know yourself, you
can win a thousand battles without a single loss
(Sun Tzu)
 You must see both the identity and the other in
every distinction you make
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14. Figuring out what Something Is and by What it is NOT

Distinction Making In Seconds or Years
◦ We make dozens of distinctions every minute
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What we choose to see or are able to recognize
changes everything:
How we think
How we behave
How we understand the world
Anytime we make a distinction we decide to
recognize some things and to ignore others
Knowledge changes – distinctions need to be
revisited and revised e.g. Pluto is now a dwarf
planet

15. Chapter Three
The Patterns of Thinking Method
Recognizing Relationships

16. Relationships
RELATIONSHIPS
Cause
Effect

17. Four Key Points About Relationships:
1.
2.
3.
4.
They are universal
They are often hidden or implicit
They are distinct and often are systems
themselves made up of parts, and
Relationships are inter-relationships between and
among ideas

18. Building New Knowledge
3 Ways to Innovate
1. Invent something totally new
2. Make an existing thing better
3. Relate two existing things in a new way

20. Chapter Four
The Patterns of Thinking Method
Organizing Systems

21. The universal structure of a system is part and
whole
SYSTEMS
Part
Whole

22. Chapter Five
The Patterns of Thinking Method
Taking Perspectives

23. Take a Point and a View
PERSPECTIVES
point
view

25. Understanding Perspective
Taking perspective
is: viewing the
world or anything in
it from a particular
point of view
 We are used to
thinking of different
people as having
perspectives,
 Ideas have
perspectives, too


26. Ideas as Perspectives
We look at one idea through another
idea:
 For example, the Civil War is called
 War Between the States (North)
 War of Northern Aggression (South)
 Same War – Different Connotation


27. Idea has Many Perspectives
Teaching students to see ideas from
many perspectives shows them that
how we name thins
 And the parts we see of an idea are a
result of the perspective from which
we view it
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28. Point of View
When you have a point of view you
have a perspective
 When thinking you are standing from a
point where to view it
 As with any relationship the point
affects the view
 And in turn the view affects the point


29. Categories Are a Perspective
Categorization is not universal
 We organize our desks in categories
of accessibility; kitchen as well
 We teach students to sort and
organize
 When we categorize we are taking
perspective
 That is from OUR world view
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30. Chapter Six
Thinking at Every Desk
Making Connections leads to Effective
Engagement

31. Ripple Effect
Energy is focused on
 Teacher Knowledge
 Student Knowledge
 These are the student-teacher
relationship/knowledge-thinking
relationship
 Focus on these TWO relationships is
the Ripple Effect
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◦ We get Best Practices for Free

32. Best Practices:
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Differentiated instruction
Student-centered learning
Multiple intelligences
Teacher effectiveness
Data-driven assessment
Deep understanding

33. Best Practices
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21st century skills
Critical thinking
Creative thinking
Interdisciplinary thinking
Systems thinking
Scientific thinking
Learning by design
Improved test scores

34. Infusion of the Patterns of Thinking Method throughout a
standards based curriculum will have the following impact on
classroom or school:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Students are more engaged.
They understand the content more deeply.
Their knowledge retention increases.
Their transfer or learning increases.
They develop skills in metacognition, understanding how
they think.
Teachers

35. Power of a Teacher
6.
7.
8.
9.
Teachers can reach any type of learner.
Teacher preparation is simplified.
A vertical articulation of essential thinking skills occurs
across all grades in all subject areas.
Thinking skills become easy to measure with a practical way
to assess how students are constructing meaning.

36. National Standards for Thinking Skills
Standard
Skill
Learns to make distinctions by
identifying what is and is not
included in an idea.
Names and defines concepts by
communicating what something is
and is not.
----------------Considers alternative boundaries
between what is and is not part of
an idea.
----------------Understands that every thing is a
distinction comprised of identity and
other.

37. Standard
Skill
Learns to think about interrelationships between and among
ideas.
Relates ideas.
---------------Identifies and names hidden
relationships between and among
ideas.
----------------Identifies the parts of a relationship.
-----------------Understands that every idea can be
related to other ideas or act as a
relationship.

38. Standard
Skill
Learns to think in systems by
organizing parts and wholes.
Identifies the parts of ideas.
--------------Organizes systems into parts
and wholes.
---------------Recognizes the alternative
wholes that a part can belong.
---------------Understands that every whole
has parts and every part is a
whole.

39. Standard
Skill
Learns to take different points-of-view Takes multiple perspectives on a
and see new perspectives
topic or issue.
------------------Understands that perspective is
comprised of both a point and a
view.
------------------Demonstrates taking various
types of perspectives (physical,
psycho-social, conceptual)
------------------Recognizes that a perspective
exists even when it is unstated.

40. Standard
Skill
Integrates the Patterns of Thinking
Demonstrates ability to combine
distinction making, interrelating,
part-whole organization, and
perspective taking processes to
create, understand and change
concepts.
Applies the Patterns of Thinking to
Content Knowledge
Is aware of both current and
structural context when
constructing the meaning of any
idea.

41. Implant or Inoculation?
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Implant: To establish or fix an idea in a person’s mind
Inoculation: The act or an instance of inoculating, especially
the introduction of an antigenic substance or vaccine into the
body to produce immunity to a specific disease.
Students must be taught to:
1. Take another look at the other.
2. Discover hidden connections between ideas.
3. See both the parts and wholes that make up a system, and
4. Take many perspectives on any and every idea they
encounter.

43. Questions
What are the four patterns of thinking
discussed in this presentation?
 How do you see yourself
implementing these strategies?
 How do you use tools to develop
thinking skills?
 How do you encourage students to
play with ideas?
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44. Reference

Thinking At Every Desk. (2009)

How Four Simple Thinking Skills Will Transform Your Teaching,
Classroom, School, and District

By Derek Cabrera and Laura Colosi

Research Institute for Thinking in Education

Ithaca, New York