Teachers’ Guide for the Explicit Teaching of Thinking Skills

Deborah E. Burns
Jann Leppien
Stuart Omdal
E. Jean Gubbins
Lisa Muller
Siamak Vahidi

Also included is a background information related to each thinking skill is presented to the teacher, including definition, purpose, examples, prerequisites, and a strategy for use. The 4-phase model follows:

Phase One: Introducing the Unit to Students
Phase Two: Teaching the Guided Practice Lessons With Familiar Content
Phase Three: Guided Practice, Single Skill, New Real World Content
Phase Four: Prompted Transfer to Current Academic Curriculum

The model moves students through a learning cycle from familiarity with the discrete skills to applications in familiar and unfamiliar content and ends with the transfer of the skills to current academic content. Several practice activities and examples accompany each phase. Graphic organizers help students practice the skills using a series of steps. Teachers are encouraged to use the practice activities as prototypes for creating their own activities to reflect their curriculum.

Instructional Methods provides additional information for teachers on the each phase of the thinking skills model. There are also sample debriefing questions and coaching and feedback tips to help students understand their thought processes, think about prior knowledge, and apply the thinking skill to new information.

Reference:

Burns, D. E., Leppien, J., Omdal, S., Gubbins, E. J., Muller, L., & Vahidi, S. (2006). Teachers’ guide for the explicit teaching of thinking skills (RM06218). Storrs: University of Connecticut, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Teachers’ Guide for the Explicit Teaching of Thinking Skills
Deborah E. Burns
Jann Leppien
Stuart Omdal
E. Jean Gubbins
Lisa Muller
Siamak Vahidi
 

Conclusions

  1. The thinking skills of cause and effect, decision making, comparing and contrasting, classifying, observing, planning and predicting are necessary skills across academic disciplines and throughout daily life.
  2. Thinking skills are applied when there is recognition of a cause, effect, problem or need. They involve careful consideration of facts, ideas, situations, alternatives, criteria, consequences and personal values.
  3. Thinking skills can progress from simple to more complex and may involve more than one type of thinking skill being applied in a given situation.
  4. Thinking skills require analysis of information to determine what is most important for the task at hand. Often, this requires an individual to put aside previous experience or knowledge to objectively analyze the situation.
  5. The development of each thinking skill can follow a series of steps that facilitate teaching and learning. The teaching of thinking skills should progress from explicit instruction to guided practice, followed by real-world application to provide support as students gain more independence with each skill.
  6. Connections to real-world situations provide opportunities for the transfer of these thinking skills to different contexts.
  7. Inherent in any thinking skills instruction or process is the nature of evaluation or assessment. Thinking skills processes are recursive, allowing for improvements at any point during the process.
  8. Thinking skills instruction should be provided for students of all ages and ability levels as these skills can be applied to schoolwork as well as in their lives outside of school.