FACULTY

John Edwards, Adjunct Professor of Education at the University of Queensland, Australia. Co-author of People Rules for Rocket Scientists, and ed. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Thinking. He researches on how people think, the direct teaching of thinking, and is also an international consultant to corporations.

Alec Fisher, Director, Centre for Research in Critical Thinking, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, Co-author of Critical Thinking : Defining and Assessing It.

Robin Fogarty, President, Fogarty and Associates, Ltd., Chicago, Illinois, author and/or co-author of Brain Compatible Classrooms, Integrating the Curriculum with Multiple Intelligences, Blueprints for Thinking in the Cooperative Classroom, How to Teach for Metacognition.

Rita Hagevik is a Teacher Educator at North Carolina State University, USA, and works in conjunction with the Wake County Public Schools and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in the United States on the Student Mentor Program. She is author of various articles on problem-based learning. Her research involves the infusion of critical thinking in science and technology.

Bena Kallick, National Consultant, author of Changing Schools into Communities for Thinking, and co-author (with Art Costa) of The Role of Assessment in a Learning Organisation.

Rebecca Reagan, Lubbock Texas Independent School District, reading specialist and international consultant on teaching thinking.

Robert Swartz, U. Mass/Boston, Director, The National Center for Teaching Thinking, co-author of Teaching Thinking: Issues and Approaches and the lesson-design handbook series for the elementary and secondary grades, Infusing Critical and Creative Thinking into Content Instruction.

Robert Sylwester, Emeritus Professor of Education – University of Oregon,. He has written several books including : A Celebration of Neurosis: An Educator’s Guide to the Human Brain (1995, ASCD) and dozens of journal articles. He has made hundreds of conference and in-service presentations on new developments in brain/stress theory and research.

Donald Treffinger, President, Center for Creative Learning, Sarasota, Florida, co-author of Creative Problem Solving: The Basic Course, and Creative Thinking and Problem solving in Gifted Education.

In addition a number of practitioners from Asia who have implemented successful projects in teaching thinking will make presentations at the institute.

The National Center for Teaching Thinking provides and supports high-quality consulting services for schools, school districts, and colleges in the United States and abroad on projects related to infusing the teaching of thinking in content instruction. Robert Swartz directs the Center. Art Costa and David Perkins are on the Board of Directors. In 1994, the National Center was the sponsor of the Sixth International Conference on Thinking held in MIT.

Besides offering a number of national programmes on infusion, the Center provides experienced consultants for onsite staff-development projects during the school year. It also offers a staff-development training and certification programme to train high-quality staff-developers in infusion.

The Singapore Centre for Teaching Thinking (SCTT) was set up in June 1998 after a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the National Center for Teaching Thinking, USA and National Institute of Education, Singapore. The co-directors are Professor S. Gopinathan, Dean, School of Education, National Institute of Education and Professor Robert Swartz, Director of the National Center for Teaching Thinking (Boston, USA).

This course features lesson design and instructional strategies for infusing direct instruction in thinking skills into content instruction. Infusion lessons will be demonstrated and analysed, and a framework for designing such lessons provided. Emphasis will be put upon the use of effective questioning techniques, strategies for metacognition, and techniques to promote the transfer of thinking skills into other appropriate domains. Special strategies, including the use of graphic organisers and cooperative learning, will be demonstrated. Sample lessons will be provided and participants will have the opportunity to develop their own infusion lessons for use in their classrooms.

Metacognition is the awareness of and control over one’s own thinking and learning. If we are to achieve intelligent behavior as a significant outcome for our students we must introduce a focus on metacognitive skills into our teaching methods, as well as into our staff-development and supervisory processes. This course is designed to take the mystery out of metacognition and help participants integrate reflective strategies into the rhythm of classroom instruction. The concept of reflection through metacognition will be investigated theoretically, research about metacognition discussed, and practical applications of this research explored. A framework for metacognition will be presented that focus on the tasks of planning, monitoring, and evaluating our thinking. Specific instructional strategies that move students towards their own self-directed lifelong learning through engaging in these tasks will be highlighted, as will ways to foster self-directed transfer of learning and to scaffold structures in classroom instruction that support the goal of learning how to learn.

Educators have recognized that besides teaching students thinking skills it is important to also help them develop broad habits of mind that manifest themselves in various forms of intelligent behaviors such as deliberativeness, persistence in a thinking task, and reflection on the strategies they are using as they tackle complex tasks. This course will explore which habits of mind are important to focus attention on in instruction, the instructional techniques that can be used to teach so that students develop these habits, how we can assess their presence, and the role of these habits in systems thinking. Participants will be given the opportunity to design practical applications of the ideas presented in this course that fit into their own instructional context.

This course is designed for participants interested in offering training programmes for teachers on infusing the teaching of thinking into content instruction. The scope and structure of effective staff-development projects will be studied in the light of overall research on school change. Coaching strategies will be demonstrated and practiced. Resources for staff development presentations on infusion will be introduced and their use illustrated. Participants will have the opportunity to design staff-development projects to meet their own or representative needs of schools desiring in-service training in teaching thinking. Participants in this course will receive a computer disc containing transparency and photocopy masters for use in staff-development programmes.

This course explores what is involved in meeting the challenge of making critical thinking a college-wide priority. An integrated approach to explicating the concept of critical thinking, designing departmental courses built on this concept, and planning how to assess students’ critical thinking development will be presented. Participants will develop strategies for designing disciplinary-course goals and learning experiences which help students to develop critical thinking abilities and then will consider how to work at the departmental level and at the institutional level to create an integrated critical thinking programme. Participants will work with their own discipline areas and/or their own unique institutional situations.

THIS COURSE IS DESIGNED FOR JUNIOR COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY EDUCATORS.

Creative Problem Solving (CPS) is a long-established approach to managing change and solving problems. It has developed through more than 40 years of research, development, and applications in organizations. CPS has been applied successfully in schools (with students from the early years through the university levels), in businesses, and in many other organizational settings worldwide. This course will provide an overview of the contemporary CPS framework, with a focus on the newly introduced updates, drawing on our most recent research and development efforts. If you are new to CPS, this course will provide a thorough explanation and demonstration of the CPS components and stages, with practical methods and tools. There will be opportunities for structured small-group practice in applying basic CPS tools. If you have previously studies CPS, this course will bring you up to date on many brand new developments and refinements.

Recent dramatic advances in the cognitive neuro-sciences have led to an increased interest in the nature of intelligent behavior, and in the major role that consciousness, emotion, and attention play in its operation. This development is educationally significant because while schools seek to measure and improve the intellectual abilities of students, we have focused more on the linear rational elements of intelligence, rather than on the key emotional/attentional elements. Educators have been more intrigued by the growing evidence that intelligence is a multiple rather than unitary phenomenon, but our interest has tended toward discovering practical school activities that purport to enhance intelligence, rather than towards understanding the neurological substrate of intelligence. This non-technical course and its related materials will:

• synthesize recent relevant cognitive neuroscience research that has led to emerging beliefs about the nature and enhancement of intelligence
• discuss key issues involved in the applications of this research
• suggest how educators might explore the concept of intelligent behavior with their students, and

• suggest instructional and classroom management applications of these new biological insights into intelligence. This course will focus on four major interrelated concepts: Brain, Mind, Environment, and School. Participants will be given the opportunity to develop ideas for applying the ideas presented in this course to their own professional contexts

31 May 2000