The Center for Science and Mathematics Education (CSME) is pleased to present the CSME Exchange, an interactive brown bag discussion for faculty, students, and staff. The next CSME Exchange is:
How do we help students learn how to think? Perhaps by helping them expand their “common sense toolbox”!
David Temme (Biology)
Thursday, April 14, 2016
INSCC room 345
12-1pm
Lunch will be provided!
Margaret Mead once remarked that “children must be taught how to think, and not what to think”. But while this sounds like a wonderful idea, how does one actually go about doing so? Presenting information for a mind to “absorb” is straightforward (yet unfortunately often quite trivial). How to challenge a mind in a way that changes how it processes information is unfortunately not so clear. So, perhaps we need to rethink the question. Given that each of our brains is a biological organ that helps us navigate through life, maybe the first question should be: How have our brains evolved to think? Then, we can focus on expanding the range of constraints and considerations that enter into the thinking process. In other words, we can try to help students better transfer how they think in life, to how they think in school. This is what I mean by expanding their “common sense toolbox”.
Join us for an informal discussion and exchange of ideas!
Vist our CSME Exchange page for future meeting times and topics.