Thinkback : A User's Guide to Minding the Mind

This work argues that intelligence is not fixed at birth and that, with consistent effort, we can dramatically improve our capacities. It provides powerful strategies that can be applied to a range of important academic areas including mathematics, language and the arts.

The fundamental premise of Thinkback--based on overwhelming scientific evidence--is that intelligence is not fixed at birth and that, with consistent effort, we can dramatically improve our capacities. It counters the claims of some psychologists that it is impossible to increase intelligence because that ability is determined at birth. Thinkback builds on the Think Aloud strategies in Arthur Whimbey and Jack Lochhead''s popular and widely used volume, Problem Solving & Comprehension, now in its sixth edition. Since its publication, thousands of students have used these techniques for improving thinking and analytic reasoning to increase test scores, win National Merit Scholarships, and gain admission to top-ranked professional schools. Now, Thinkback shows how these powerful strategies can be applied to a range of important academic areas including mathematics, language arts, social studies, and science. Thinkback is a tool for student empowerment--a strategy they can use to improve both their ability to think and their ability to learn. The Thinkback classroom, on the other hand, is a design for teacher liberation--enabling them to see learning more clearly than they ever could before. This is the only book currently available that contains detailed models of metacognitive dialogues in the classroom. These dialogues enable teachers and teacher educators to observe thinking processes that have previously been invisible and undetectable. Based on over 20 years of careful cognitive research, the dialogues provide teachers with important insights into the nature of thinking and problem solving. Thinkback is a picture window on the working mind. This book: Describes the Thinkback strategy for making thinking strategies explicit, easy to teach, and easy to learn. Includes numerous detailed examples that demonstrate the Thinkback technique. Six quite different learning strategies--deri