"Deeper thinking"

This week we explored critical thinking. I have really learned a lot about how I learn and that thought in itself is a little higher on the Bloom's taxonomy chart than surface knowledge. I have become conscious of my own descriptive thoughts and the words that I use in describing and explaining these type of things. I see things as a scene or picture in my head and I explain that picture as it is happening. When I am writing and get stuck with a word choice, I imagine the action or see the activity and sometimes use my hands movements kinesthetically, to stimulate the thought.

I know this week was about critical thinking and we already discussed Learning styles a few weeks ago, but I want you to "see" the connection that I have made from one concept to another. When I worked on my assignment and explained how we implemented critical thinking skills to our lessons or units, I was visualizing my thoughts as if i could see the caretaker in my brain pushing and pulling levers like the great OZ in Wizards of Oz.

I love the car analogy that I read in describing critical thinking skills. It's like we know how to drive the car which represents the most basic function of thought and skill. When we get to know how the car operates by how an engine works we have then entered a deeper level of thinking and acquired another thinking skill. When we can identify parts, how they work and how to fix what might be broken, then we have acquired another critical thinking skill. When we see our car and realize their are different kinds of cars out their with similar parts and can differentiate between cars of different make, model and design, we have grasped another thinking skill. This can move on to cars and horses have similarities and differences and we then identify this with newly acquired skills. These were a few of the visuals explained and I can see them and remember them due to using my visual learning strength.

The ideas are all parts of a big pie, can you literally see the pie in your head, cut into even sized pieces? This must be the way I easily organize incoming information, the key to acquiring thinking skills is practice watching the show in your head. Applying it to the problem at hand and maybe use a different strategy if needed, another critical thinking skill. We all have thinking skills, just some are just sitting at the red light and others are approaching cautiously waiting for the green light. Thanks for taking the time.