- Facilitating complex thinking
Can you read the whole book?
SURE!
OK, then you start this time.
[Joey looks at first page, alternately at the picture and at the words.]
“IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM THERE WAS A TELEPHONE”.
[Actual text: “In the great green room, there was a telephone”,]
“AND THERE WAS A RED BALLOON”,
[Actual text: “...and a red balloon”,]
“AND A PICTURE OF THE COW JUMPING OVER THE MOON”.
[Actual text: “...and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon”.]
“AND THERE WERE...” THREE BEARS?... “LITTLE BEARS SITTING ON CHAIRS”.
[Actual text: “And there were three little bears, sitting on chairs,...”]
Could you read this book with you eyes closed?
SURE; WANT TO SEE ME DO IT?!
Well, not right now; maybe another time. Could you read it without the pictures, just looking at the
words? That’s how I do best—when I see the words instead of the pictures.
[Joey pauses to consider this.] MAYBE, BUT NOT QUITE SO WELL.
Let’s try it. [Ms Eaton proceeds to copy the words on a large sheet for Joey to “read” later.]
As Carolyn Eaton’s behavior suggests, there are decisions to make “on the fly”, even during the very act of
teaching. Ms Eaton wonders when to challenge Joey, and when to support him. She also wonders when to pause
and ask Joey to take stock of what he has read, and when to move him on ahead—when to consolidate a student’s
learning, and when to nudge the student forward. These are questions about instructional strategies which
facilitate complex learning, either directly or indirectly. In this chapter we review as many strategies as space
allows, in order to give a sense of the major instructional options and of their effects. We concentrate especially on
two broad categories of instruction, which we call direct instruction and student-centered instruction. As we hope
that you will see, each approach to teaching is useful for certain purposes. We begin, though, by looking at the ways
students think, or at least how teachers would like students to think. What does it mean for students to think
critically (astutely or logically)? Or to think creatively? Or to be skillful problem solvers? Forms of thinking lead to
choices among instructional strategies.
Forms of thinking associated with classroom learning................................................................................
Although instructional strategies differ in their details, they each encourage particular forms of learning and
thinking. The forms have distinctive educational purposes, even though they sometimes overlap, in the sense that
one form may contribute to success with another form. Consider three somewhat complex forms of thinking that
are commonly pursued in classroom learning: (1) critical thinking, (2) creative thinking, and (3) problem-solving.
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