Deep Thinking Questions
Summer contemplation. Ah! I love the freedom to sit and think. Yesterday when my parents were packing to return to Northwest Iowa after their short graduation visit, I commented on how much I enjoy Tennessee between 5 and 6 a.m. It’s a beautiful time to sit outside, to read, to sip my coffee, and to think. Throughout the school year I am embarking upon a personal crusade to enable students (and teachers) to think more deeply about their learning, their habits, their goals, and their attitudes. Some of my favorite resources to expand my own thinking include:
Joe Cuseo, Faculty member and Psychology & Director for Freshman Seminar at Marymount College, who has an excellent page on Deep Thinking Skills. I appreciate this concise list and format because I can easily create my own list for students. He continues these questions and explains the difference between critical and deep thinking.
Jamie McKenzie’s ten year old article on Deep Thinking and Deep Reading in an Age of Info-Glut, Info-Garbage Info-Glitz and Info-Glimmer. Don’t you wish you could have created this fun title?
Robyn Silbey has created some math books to promote deep thinking.
Teacher Tap’s Critical and Creative Thinking - Bloom’s Taxonomy has an extensive list. I do keep a simple flip chart of Bloom’s Taxonomy next to my school standards manual and collaborative planning graphic organizers.
Kathleen Cotton’s 1991 article on Teaching Thinking Skills is still vital today and is available from NWREL.
Georgia’s Department of Education has created a Critical Thinking Skills program with activities K-12. Some links are no longer valid, but I have been able to find their original sources through some creative searching.
Virtual Salt’s Robert Harris has an introduction and comparison chart to CREATIVE THINKING vs. critical thinking. that I believe everyone should view.
Another chart that I have found valuable in my contemplations is from Saskatchewan’s K-12 curricula. Chapter 4’s Critical and Creative thinking.
Don’t miss James J. Messina’s Coping.org article on Tools for Improving your Critical Thinking. This article has sections of clear overviews and intense contemplation interwoven.
In my next post, I’ll link you to thinking questions and our web 2.0 technologies. At least, I will begin the process. I could spend the entire summer and actually start a PhD program on this topic.
