Books that promote thinking

[Boni Luna]

In Dan Pink’s book , A Whole New Mind he states : “People who hope to thrive in the Conceptual Age must understand the connections between diverse, and seemingly separate disciplines. They must know how to link apparently unconnected elements to create something new. And they must become adept at analogy-at seeing one thing in terms of another.” p134-
I have been thinking about this and ask myself how do we as teachers prepare ourselves and our students to thrive in the Conceptual Age? It is a big question but one that is interesting to ponder and discuss.

[Allison Williams]

I added a number of books to our library collection in the area of what is called lateral thinking. Paul Sloane has written quite a few. The purpose of these puzzles is to develop creativity and original thinking. Some are good to tackle in teams, others are fun to grapple with individually.

[Sarah Hanawald]

Allison,

I looked at the Paul Sloane books on Amazon--they look fun. Is there one in particular that you would recommend?

Sarah

[Allison Williams]

I'd start with Lateral Thinking Puzzlers but I think any in the series would be fine. Also books by Nathan Levy who wrote a series called Stories with Holes are great. Levy came to Collegiate for a workshop and he was very energizing.

[Bill Ivey]

Yes, I do lateral thinking puzzles, though more in advisory than in my Humanities classes. In my classes, I use principles of democratic classroom (A Reason to Teach by James A. Beane, Soundings by Mark Springer) to help kids choose a theme question for a given unit. Then we/I do a little backward design, a la Understanding by Design, to choose a novel, classroom activities, a genre and format for the final presentation of knowledge. Humanities already integrates social studies and ELA by design, and some units work science in as well, and/or art and/or music. Ross Burkhardt (don't know if this idea appears in a specific publication) has said that basically any topic can become a fully integrated , interdisciplinary study.
Metaphors/analogies - I teach these mostly through poetry, or by my own use in the classroom in working to make the abstract more concrete for those who need that. Rick Wormeli has a book coming out in the fall about using metaphors in your teaching, and he is an amazing author.

[Allison Williams]

A team from Collegiate in Richmond visited schools in Seattle in March as part of a professional development initiative. We were drawn to schools that used an integrated curriculum and the democratic classroom. Nowhere did we see the full implementation that you describe, where students take ownership of their learning. This is really inspiring! I'd love to hear more about this.

[Kathleen Baten]

As my school is currently trying to figure out how to implement a full integrated curriculum, I would love to know what schools you visited, and if you have since found any that do offer a full implementation of these ideas. 

Thanks, Kate

[Eric Witzel]

I'll have to track down some of Paul Sloane's books; I've been interested in helping students make more and more meaningful connections. Thanks for posting this!

[Ruth Miller]

I loved this book! (Hey, I think you lent it to me!) :)
It reminds me of an article I just read (somewhere... can't remember where) that stated that one of the biggest challenges for teachers today will be to teach students how to analyze and make connections-- because they no longer need to be simply given information. However, it also stated that students often confuse the amount of data they can gather with knowledge and that, despite classes in evaluating web sources, students still tend to assume that what they read online is factual. I think it said that students need practice articulating how what they read online connects to what they are trying to learn/write about/studying in class.
I'll try to find this article. I think it was in the Times.

[Karen Murley Schifferdecker]

Ruth...did you ever find this article? It sounds interesting!

[Amy Barto]

I was thrilled when I read this book. The quote you used Boni reinforces what good teachers have known for so long - it's not about facts and isolated retention; it's being able to use the information you have in front of you to create thought and connect with both the information and with others. When I reflect on this quote, I also think about how bringing this back to teaching could help neutralize the "why do we have to learn this" challenge faced so often in classrooms right now. It would be so much clearer: "because everything is connected in some fashion and when you learn, you are learning to learn better the next time"!