EDITOR’S NOTE: This work by Australian, Andrew Williamson, a music/
classroom primary school educator with over 17 years’ experience proposes that
innovation stems from thinking in particular ways in order for educators to
discuss educating for innovation in terms of educating for the processes and
tools of innovative thinking. Williamson investigates the use of creativity in
education and blogs at http://www.andrewwilliamson.me/.
NAIJAGRAPHITTI Blog publishes this work in a
two-part series. Here is the second and concluding part.
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| Image source: allthingslearning.wordpress.com |
By Andrew Williamson
The purpose of this paper is to
explore these three questions:
o How can educating for thinking
promote innovation and creativity?
o What are the different
approaches for educating for thinking?
o Can educating for metacognitive
organization and cognitive acceleration promote creative thinking?
Part 2
How does one educate for thinking dispositions? With the
skills based approach we see a transmission of knowledge from the teacher to
the student. That is, there is a pattern of impartation, the teaching pattern
meant to impart thinking skills (Harpaz). Whereas thinking dispositions are
taught by means of cultivation, a pattern intended to foster thinking
dispositions (Harpaz, 2007). This implies that there is an element of indirect
teaching. Perkins describes it as an 'enculturation
model of teaching'
(Perkins, 1993) meaning that a culture is developed where the teacher and
students provide exemplars of thinking dispositions (Perkins 1993). The teacher
creates such a culture by embodying in their personality and behaviour the
dispositions toward which they wish to educate (Harpaz, 2007). The thinking
disposition approach resonates with me because of the idea of creating a
learning environment where teachers and students value a thinking culture. What
I mean by this is that thinking becomes the overriding goal of a school.
It’s an explicit and core value of the school where teachers
and students view the development of good thinkers as the purpose of education
(Golding, 2006). This would mean that if we were to use Ritchart’s 6 thinking
dispositions, then by default, a thinking school would value creative and
innovative thinking as one of its core values that would essentially guide
teaching and learning throughout the curriculum.
Good thinking requires more than thinking skills and thinking
dispositions, it also requires understanding (Harpaz, 2007). For example, how
is a student able to apply or know when to apply their creative thinking if
they don’t have the fundamental understanding about what it is they are trying
to create? Harpaz states that in this approach ‘the quality of our thinking...depends
on our knowing the topic, or more precisely on our understanding of it’ (Harpaz,
2007). This is to be distinguished from the idea of holding knowledge in our memory.
Cramming for an exam may enable the student to memorise information that can be
regurgitated at will but this doesn’t mean the student understands the
information they have memorised. Perkins refers to this as “fragile knowledge’ (Perkins
1992). In other words, how long will the knowledge exist in one’s memory if
it’s not understood? Proponents of the understanding approach assert that
knowledge becomes durable when it’s thought about and that good thinking only
exists when knowledge is understood. Therefore, understanding is the product of
good thinking and good thinking happens when we educate for thinking skills and
thinking dispositions. I would like to also make the distinction between what I
call surface understanding and deep understanding. Harpaz claims that understanding
is not only a product of good thinking but also its source (Harpaz, 2007).
Taking this definition into account I believe that it’s possible to scaffold
students to a level of surface understanding that will act as a catalyst for
further thinking that will lead to a deeper understanding of the topic.
How does this fit with creative thinking? The following
example puts this into the context of creative and innovative thinking.
Students are set a task where they have to compose a short composition in
binary form (A section to B section). The A section must meet the criteria of comprising
of diatonic melodies and harmony (not clashing is traditionally pleasing to the
ear).
The B section must contrast with the A section by meeting the
criteria of comprising of mainly dissonant melodies and harmonies. The concept
of dissonance is a foreign term that the students have no understanding of. How
are they to apply their creative thinking skills or even have the motivation to
think creatively about something they don’t understand? By scaffolding or
enabling the students to make connections through modeling, or playing other
recordings that demonstrate dissonant melodies and harmony, I allow the students
to gain what I believe to be surface understanding of what dissonance is.
Therefore with this level of understanding the students will want to apply
their creative thinking to the task at hand. By ‘doing’, thinking and creating
the students then gain a deeper understanding of what dissonance is.
Going back to Harpaz’s definition of ‘good’ thinking, a good
thinker is one who possesses skills, dispositions and understanding’. Harpaz
justifies his preference for the understanding approach to educating for
thinking by claiming that it’s impossible to educate for all three
simultaneously (Harpaz, 2007). He calls for an approach where skills and dispositions
are learnt under the auspice of educating for understanding. I disagree with
this. Even though I do agree that deep understanding is the underlying aim of
educators, I believe that the close alliance between knowledge and
understanding may ‘cloud’ the interpretation of the understanding approach to
educating for thinking. What I mean by this is that the current climate of data
driven results based learning places a lot of pressure on curriculum design that
facilitates knowledge based learning focused on the retention of fragile
knowledge, for example students learn facts by rote to reproduce under
standardised test conditions. This would be at the expense of the idea of a student
centred learning culture which is where I believe the disposition approach for
educating for thinking should dominate and would be more effective for building
students’ thinking abilities.
Therefore, the idea of enculturating thinking and
particularly thinking dispositions is important to my framing of what it means
to educate for thinking. To locate my argument back to how does one educate for
innovative and creative thinking, one would expect me to emphasize the thinking
disposition that Ritchart categorises as ‘Creative Thinking: looking out, up,
around and about’ as being one of the fundamental dispositions to focus on.
However, I agree with Perkin’s notion of reflective intelligence where the
person is able reflect on the type, quality and effectiveness of their
thinking. I believe that good creative thinking is facilitated if one is inclined
to use their metacognitive disposition. I want my students to be able to
reflect on their creative thinking and to be able to choose the appropriate
type of thinking that will enhance their creativity.
Why do I think that metacognitive organisation will help with
creative and innovative thinking? Perkins states that there are three theories
of intelligence: Neural, Experiential and Reflective (Perkins, 1995). Neural
intelligence aligns itself with the beliefs that we are born with a capacity to
be intelligence. Unfortunately, this notion means that only a select few are
capable of intelligent behaviour. Experiential intelligence asserts the notion
that intelligence is learned through rich experience where a person is
considered to be intelligent because they are an expert in their field.
However, this type of intelligence is lacks generality (Perkins 1995). What I
mean by this is that intelligence gained through experience is localised to
that particular expertise and cannot be transferred to other areas of thinking.
Reflective intelligence is where the person has the capacity to think about
their thinking. This is often described as metacognition, meaning that if the
students are able to reflect on their thinking then they will be able to choose
the appropriate type of thinking and apply it to the creative task. This is
called metacognitive organisation and I believe this thinking disposition to be
vitally important for creative and innovative thinking. To understand my
reasons for this we need to look back to my previous definition of innovative as
the ability to create or conceive of something new and original. During the
creative process we want our students to explore ideas of novelty and newness,
and metacognition plays an important role in enabling the student to think
about the type of thinking they use to construct something new or if they need
to think ‘outside the box’. What I mean by this is they are able to order their
thinking or create a mental work flow to choose a number of types of thinking that
may unseat old assumptions and explore new ones (Perkins, 1995) and therefore
assist in the creation of something new and original. However, is there an
optimal time when students should engage in metacognitive thinking? I will
answer this question in the context of educating for cognitive acceleration and
why I believe that this thinking approach is suited to optimising creative and
innovative thinking.
Piaget and Inhelder developed a model of how children develop
intellectually through stages.
They assert that there are four stages, each age-related.
These are: sensor motor stage (toddler and preschool age), pre-operational
stage (nursery and early primary school), concrete operational stage (primary
school age) and formal operational stage (adolescence, secondary school age
into adulthood) (Sutherland, 1992). The main aim of cognitive acceleration is
to move the student from one cognitive stage to that of a higher one. Cognitive
acceleration theory breaks away from Piaget’s notion that children shift from
one cognitive stage to another through natural development. It asserts that if we
provide a suitable environment with appropriate scaffolding we can educate for
cognitive development. For example a grade 5 student may need to shift to a
higher cognitive level in order to grasp a new concept or complex task. Without
the cognitive shift the student would not be able to make sense of the task.
The key element of the cognitive acceleration approach is where the students’
cognitive structures are transformed through a process called cognitive
dissonance. Cognitive dissonance put in simpler terms is being in a state of
confusion. So one of the aims of cognitive acceleration approach is to put students
into a temporary state cognitive flux. What I mean by this is that the activity
or work that is set by the teacher needs to be more advanced that of their
current cognitive abilities.
As the student comes to grips with the task they break down
their old conceptual structure and construct something new. It’s the act of
constructing new understandings through a shift in cognitive development that I
think is the key to achieving good creative and innovative thinking. I believe
that when creative and innovative thinking is required then it represents a
time where it’s necessary to shift the students understanding, that is to break
the equilibrium through cognitive dissonance and bring them back using sound
metacognitive ordering and discussion which then leads to a deeper
understanding of topic and perhaps enabling the student to look at things
through a different lens.
Creativity and innovation are some of the fundamental elements
which help define 21st century learning. The act of being innovative is grounded
in the processes of creative thought. I think it’s now time for schools to
consider the term innovation not just in terms of the technology but in terms
of the creative thinking that students engage in. If we are developing learning
situations that reflect this then it’s essential that we as educators consider
the pedagogy of thinking.
That
is, the process for developing pedagogy which will guide the development of the
modern curriculum needs to include strong guidelines for educating for thinking.
Without it our students may not develop the creative skills, dispositions and
understandings that will enable them to navigate their way through an ever
changing world that is dominated by new and innovative technology.
Concluded
References
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publishing
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