In every class, students should actively develop their knowledge of the subject. This is what we really mean when we say instruction should be "student-centered." But if students are just turned loose to do independent and small-group projects, many will flounder, feel paralyzed by too many possibilities, or fall into poor intellectual habits. Time in school is too precious to be wasted in such ways. On the other hand, using time well doesn't have to mean putting students on a steady diet of predigested knowledge from teacher and text, or making them follow step-by-step recipes for what to produce on their own.
Frameworks for thinking give students intellectual guidance while they pursue independent endeavors with course material. In fact, these "technologies of mind" (Elliott Eisner's phrase) or "conceptual instruments" (Ann Berthoff) will be useful to students throughout life. Such frameworks are intellectual scaffolds, not recipes, checklists, or workbook exercises. Instead of fostering passivity or rote behaviors, they make students more effective thinkers and learners. People who use them repeatedly, year after year, are developing good intellectual habits.
The "First Thoughts to Further Thinking" framework is a useful core feature of any curriculum of study because it encourages students to move their thinking continually forward instead of letting them stop with a single likely answer. The framework also focuses students' attention on the direction and nature of their mental operations instead of on "corrections," giving the exploratory, provisional thoughts of students a respected place in the learning process. That is, instead of calling an idea flimsy or poor or weak, we can call it a first thought that needs further thinking, and can thereby draw its energies into the work of a class instead of squelching the student or the potentially good idea with a premature critique.
The descriptors for First Thoughts and Further Thinking are
carefully phrased to suggest 3 ways in which students can take their ideas
further and improve provisional thinking. The teacher can draw up the table
below for students from a guided class discussion and later post it on the
wall as a point of reference for course work. Although simple and general,
it is applicable to everything a person needs to do to think and write better.
Students appreciate its elegance. (These concepts have been adapted from
Harvard's Project Zero, Cognitive Skills Group).
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| Because first thoughts are quick... | So... |
| they're often shallow, simple, fragmentary | make them deep, complex, complete. (Explore!) |
| they tend to be hazy, approximate, vague | make them focused, definite, precise. (Clarify!) |
| they're rambling, chaotic, contradictory | make them logical, organized, consistent. (Connect!) |