Technology is Thinking - Computational and Design:
The Digital Technology Curriculum is first and foremost about a new way of thinking - computational thinking - which is in turn part of the bigger realm of design thinking.
Jeanette Wing (2012) defines computational thinking as the thought process involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution in a way that a computer, human or machine can effectively carry out.
Design thinking attempts to understand the intent or problem before looking at any solution — computational or otherwise. Design thinking attempts to identify why the problem exists in the first place before solving it.
Let’s suppose a thought experiment: you need to move 10 boxes from one side of town to the other. How would you do it?
As a computational thinker, a set of instructions would be drafted, tested, and the most efficient route would be attained. Questions that would be asked by a computational thinker could include ‘what are the sizes of the boxes, how heavy are they, and is anything fragile’ to best cater for the most effective action.
In design thinking, the primary question would be ‘why do you want to move the box in the first place?’.
Design thinking shapes computational thinking and so design thinking that needs to be given a high priority in our education system.
Until now it could well be argued that computational thinking has driven the education paradigm that governs what we do and how we do it in education.
We looked at reporting to parents and focused on a how question? How are others doing it?
We looked to large English speaking countries because that is who we have traditionally taken our lead from - England and USA, and to a lesser extent, Canada and Australia. From this we computationally processed an approach we named National Standards. The thinking was focused on the how of getting to a goal.
Design thinking would have led us to think about Why? Why do we want parent engagement? Why do we ascribe so much value to hard, measurable data? What should we be sharing? How can we share it creatively and meaningfully - etc.
Opening Premise:
We have been given a wonderful new curriculum document. It emphasises computational thinking throughout that document. This is an extremely important way of thinking but it is not the great panacea for 21st century learning and success in a digital society. It needs to be added to the other Thinking Cs - Creative, Critical and Caring. These three fall under the umbrella of Design Thinking.
Design thinking approach needs to be taken towards education. All learning outcomes need to have a practical application beyond the walls of a classroom. The learning needs to be accessible, meaningful and driven by curiosity. There is greater value in working out a problem that is interesting to a student as opposed to one that is arbitrary to them.
Connecting the Cs - Creative, Critical and Caring:
Thinking is one of the Key Competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum and it is an essential part of our teaching. Oliver and Utermohlen (1995) write that students too often receive information passively without questioning it. Students need be taught to “develop and effectively apply critical thinking skills to their academic studies, to the complex problems that they will face, and to the critical choices they will be forced to make as a result of the information explosion and other rapid technological changes” (Oliver, and Utermohlen, p.1).The three types of thinking can be described as follows (Boswell, 2011):
Creative:
Creative thinking is the best process to follow when engaged in ‘ideating’ - coming up with ideas - since it allows us to create something new or original. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence. It involves looking at the issue at hand from multiple perspectives and thinking about the future possibilities.
Creative thinking is non-judgmental and expansive. It allows the person to break away from the usual barriers and imagine the unimaginable.
Creativity Examples:
Creativity is bringing into being something which did not exist before, either as a product, a process or an idea.
You would be demonstrating creativity if you:
The creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate. In saying that, many believe that everyone can be more creative than they are at present when specific approaches to creative production are employed. Creative production occurs much more rapidly and consistently using deliberate techniques than by accident.
Ongoing creativity takes time and deliberate practice to become skilful. As with any other skill, continued practice will see creative thinking becoming as much a way of thinking as it is a technique.
Critical:
Critical thinking is a key ingredient in evaluating and improving our ideas.
Critical thinking refers to a process of thinking which tries to use the basic rules of reason in logic in order to evaluate arguments and claims made by people who wish to persuade us. It is a set of tools which offers the user a way of determining if an argument or claim is well reasoned and validated by evidence or if the argument or claim is using faulty logic.
Critical thinking is the process used in evaluating alternatives, making judgements based on sound reasoning, or justifying a position, stance or point of view.
Critical thinking is an integral part of thought processes such as:
Practice is learning from your own experience
Theory is learning from the experience of others
Critical thinking helps connect the two by looking at actual practice and observing how well it works with theory. It helps you take theoretical knowledge and think how it could be applied practically.
Critical reflection can therefore change practice.
Caring:
Almost every thought is accompanied by an emotion. (Restock, 1995)
Emotion is a kind of cognition. (LeDoux, 1998)
Emotional intelligence is as important as IQ. (Goleman, 1996)
Feelings have immense influence on thinking. (Damasio, 1996)
Thinking, feeling and learning are inextricably linked. (Pohl, 1997)
When we consider that thinking is:
Without caring, higher-order thinking is devoid of an affective component. If higher-order thinking does not contain valuing or valuation, there is a risk of approaching subject matters indifferently - even perhaps apathetically.
Caring thinking can provide the balance between the cognitive and the affective aspects of thinking.
Caring thinking is all about caring for yourself, caring about those that share your life, and in a more global sense, seeing yourself as a caring world citizen.
Teaching caring thinking in conjunction with the other elements of complex thinking will address the intensity of feelings, compassion and sometimes the strong sense of justice often felt and expressed by students. It can provide the basis for students in establishing a sound value system from which to make compassionate value judgements based on sound reasoning. Teaching caring thinking also has the capacity to empower students with strategies to respond productively and constructively to issues of an emotive or moral nature.
Caring thinking was introduced by Matthew Lipman at the 6th International Conference on Thinking in Boston in 1994 where he argued that it is the third prerequisite to higher- order thinking (the other two being critical and creative thinking).
Lipman described the four core components of caring thinking as:
Valuational Thinking
Engaging students in activities that will have them shape, assess and confront their values is an important aspect of developing caring thinkers. As with all caring thinking activities, the emphasis must be on thinking with the heart. The values clarification process provides both the time and opportunity to reflect, internalise and come to terms with what the issue at hand means to them personally.
Jeanette Wing (2012) defines computational thinking as the thought process involved in formulating a problem and expressing its solution in a way that a computer, human or machine can effectively carry out.
Design thinking attempts to understand the intent or problem before looking at any solution — computational or otherwise. Design thinking attempts to identify why the problem exists in the first place before solving it.
Let’s suppose a thought experiment: you need to move 10 boxes from one side of town to the other. How would you do it?
As a computational thinker, a set of instructions would be drafted, tested, and the most efficient route would be attained. Questions that would be asked by a computational thinker could include ‘what are the sizes of the boxes, how heavy are they, and is anything fragile’ to best cater for the most effective action.
In design thinking, the primary question would be ‘why do you want to move the box in the first place?’.
Design thinking shapes computational thinking and so design thinking that needs to be given a high priority in our education system.
Until now it could well be argued that computational thinking has driven the education paradigm that governs what we do and how we do it in education.
We looked at reporting to parents and focused on a how question? How are others doing it?
We looked to large English speaking countries because that is who we have traditionally taken our lead from - England and USA, and to a lesser extent, Canada and Australia. From this we computationally processed an approach we named National Standards. The thinking was focused on the how of getting to a goal.
Design thinking would have led us to think about Why? Why do we want parent engagement? Why do we ascribe so much value to hard, measurable data? What should we be sharing? How can we share it creatively and meaningfully - etc.
Opening Premise:
We have been given a wonderful new curriculum document. It emphasises computational thinking throughout that document. This is an extremely important way of thinking but it is not the great panacea for 21st century learning and success in a digital society. It needs to be added to the other Thinking Cs - Creative, Critical and Caring. These three fall under the umbrella of Design Thinking.
Design thinking approach needs to be taken towards education. All learning outcomes need to have a practical application beyond the walls of a classroom. The learning needs to be accessible, meaningful and driven by curiosity. There is greater value in working out a problem that is interesting to a student as opposed to one that is arbitrary to them.
Connecting the Cs - Creative, Critical and Caring:
Thinking is one of the Key Competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum and it is an essential part of our teaching. Oliver and Utermohlen (1995) write that students too often receive information passively without questioning it. Students need be taught to “develop and effectively apply critical thinking skills to their academic studies, to the complex problems that they will face, and to the critical choices they will be forced to make as a result of the information explosion and other rapid technological changes” (Oliver, and Utermohlen, p.1).The three types of thinking can be described as follows (Boswell, 2011):
- Critical Thinking: Focusing; affirmative judgement; staying open to ideas, looking for possibilities; planning.
- Creative Thinking: Generating ideas; fluency; flexibility; originality; elaboration; curiosity; complexity; risk taking; imagination.
- Caring Thinking: Valuational – values, attitudes, right and wrong; affective – choices, feelings, right and wrong; active – acting on beliefs, taking action; normative – attitude, perspective.
Creative:
Creative thinking is the best process to follow when engaged in ‘ideating’ - coming up with ideas - since it allows us to create something new or original. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergence. It involves looking at the issue at hand from multiple perspectives and thinking about the future possibilities.
Creative thinking is non-judgmental and expansive. It allows the person to break away from the usual barriers and imagine the unimaginable.
Creativity Examples:
- innovation
- adding value
- trying new things
- doing old things differently
- finding new ways
- applying new thinking
- seeing things differently
- finding (new) solutions
- making new connections
Creativity is bringing into being something which did not exist before, either as a product, a process or an idea.
You would be demonstrating creativity if you:
- Invent something which has never existed before
- Invent something which exists elsewhere but you are not aware of its existence
- Invent a new process for doing something
- Reapply an existing process or product into a new or different form
- Develop a new way of looking at something (bringing a new idea into existence)
- Change the way someone else looks at something.
The creative thinking process can be accidental or deliberate. In saying that, many believe that everyone can be more creative than they are at present when specific approaches to creative production are employed. Creative production occurs much more rapidly and consistently using deliberate techniques than by accident.
Ongoing creativity takes time and deliberate practice to become skilful. As with any other skill, continued practice will see creative thinking becoming as much a way of thinking as it is a technique.
Critical:
Critical thinking is a key ingredient in evaluating and improving our ideas.
Critical thinking refers to a process of thinking which tries to use the basic rules of reason in logic in order to evaluate arguments and claims made by people who wish to persuade us. It is a set of tools which offers the user a way of determining if an argument or claim is well reasoned and validated by evidence or if the argument or claim is using faulty logic.
Critical thinking is the process used in evaluating alternatives, making judgements based on sound reasoning, or justifying a position, stance or point of view.
Critical thinking is an integral part of thought processes such as:
- Decision-making
- Formulating questions for inquiry
- Problem seeking
- Problem solving
- Giving considered opinions
- Generating criteria
- Determining truth and accuracy
- Locating bias or other view points
- Finding inconsistencies or 'red herrings'
- Thinking about our own thinking.
Practice is learning from your own experience
Theory is learning from the experience of others
Critical thinking helps connect the two by looking at actual practice and observing how well it works with theory. It helps you take theoretical knowledge and think how it could be applied practically.
Critical reflection can therefore change practice.
Caring:
Almost every thought is accompanied by an emotion. (Restock, 1995)
Emotion is a kind of cognition. (LeDoux, 1998)
Emotional intelligence is as important as IQ. (Goleman, 1996)
Feelings have immense influence on thinking. (Damasio, 1996)
Thinking, feeling and learning are inextricably linked. (Pohl, 1997)
When we consider that thinking is:
- Discovering
- Inventing
- Connecting
- Experiencing
Without caring, higher-order thinking is devoid of an affective component. If higher-order thinking does not contain valuing or valuation, there is a risk of approaching subject matters indifferently - even perhaps apathetically.
Caring thinking can provide the balance between the cognitive and the affective aspects of thinking.
Caring thinking is all about caring for yourself, caring about those that share your life, and in a more global sense, seeing yourself as a caring world citizen.
Teaching caring thinking in conjunction with the other elements of complex thinking will address the intensity of feelings, compassion and sometimes the strong sense of justice often felt and expressed by students. It can provide the basis for students in establishing a sound value system from which to make compassionate value judgements based on sound reasoning. Teaching caring thinking also has the capacity to empower students with strategies to respond productively and constructively to issues of an emotive or moral nature.
Caring thinking was introduced by Matthew Lipman at the 6th International Conference on Thinking in Boston in 1994 where he argued that it is the third prerequisite to higher- order thinking (the other two being critical and creative thinking).
Lipman described the four core components of caring thinking as:
Valuational Thinking
- Valuational Thinking is thinking about what we value, prize, admire and appreciate. (It is not about evaluating or judging). It is about what matters to us, what we ought to care about, and it is about appraising how much we care about, or value this. Things we value can be concrete or abstract.
- Affective Thinking is responding to how we feel about things we value. This happens when we experience strong emotional & cognitive response to offences or wrongdoing. Affective thinking is about developing our values and ethics as we appraise what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour.
- Active thinking is acting upon what we value.
- It is action to support a cause or belief with a focus on what individuals may do about a circumstance or situation.
- It is interventionist. It involves responding in an effective, productive way to things that affect us.
- It is closely linked to normative, valuational thinking, and affective thinking.
- Normative thinking is thinking about what is, and what ought to be.
- It is the norm versus the ideal. In examining big issues or problems, it pushes us to think about what we desire, and what ought to be desired.
- It helps us to reflect upon actual current or proposed practice, examine what is done, and generate ideas, plans, an overview or blueprint for what ought to be done.
- Normative thinking should be integrated with active thinking.
Engaging students in activities that will have them shape, assess and confront their values is an important aspect of developing caring thinkers. As with all caring thinking activities, the emphasis must be on thinking with the heart. The values clarification process provides both the time and opportunity to reflect, internalise and come to terms with what the issue at hand means to them personally.
