Skillful Thinking in the Classroom: Infusing Skillful Parts–Whole Analysis Into Content Instruction

There are a number of key ingredients in the lesson we are about to examine. The teacher will do the following:

 

• Introduce students to the content material in the lesson

• Introduce students to the thinking skill and mental habits that the lesson will focus on and explicitly describe what makes the practice these skillful

 

• Prompt the students to actively use this thinking skill and display these mental habits to think about the content in depth

• Engage the students in monitoring and evaluating their own thinking

 

 

What is Skillful Thinking?

1. Thinking skills. Using specific and appropriate mental procedures

for the kind of thinking engaged in by the thinker.

2. Habits of mind. Driving the use of these procedures in ways that

manifest broad and productive task-related mental behaviors.

3. Metacognition. Doing both of these based on the thinker’s own assessment

of what is called for by the thinking task and guided by

the thinker’s plan as to how to accomplish the task.