What defines "expert thinking?"
Sunday, October 11, 2009 at 08:59AM As things so very often are
intelligence won’t get you far.
So be glad you’ve got more sense
than you’ve got intelligence.Piet Hein
In my recent post Gone Missing, I speculated that many now automated jobs are those that could be described as "Routine Cognitive Work" - jobs answering questions like "What's my checking account balance?" or "May I have a window seat?" or "Would you like fries with that?" The growth in jobs has been in the "Expert Thinking" and "Complex Communication" sectors.
I don't remember either term - "Expert Thinking" or "Complex Communication" - ever being defined. I'm guessing most of us apply the same standards to such terms as we do to "pornography" or "art" - we can't define it but we know it when we see it.
One way to look at Expert Thinking might be to determine what skills are needed when something of out of the ordinary occurs that makes following the procedures or routines impossible or nonsensical. Or when there are no rules or routines to follow in a situation at all.
For example, the library circulation policy dictates that elementary children can check out three books each week. A teacher tells the librarian that Frieda is a very good, very fast reader and three books a week do not meet her reading needs. The librarian, using Expert Thinking, quickly sees that there are two possible solutions to the problem: either allow Frieda to check out more books at one time or to allow Frieda to come to the library more that once a week. The librarian will also make a note to query her advisory group at their next meeting about whether three books a week constitutes a sensible circulation policy. Either a machine or a person who operates in the Routine Cognitive mode would simply re-state the current policy and allow Frieda to remain under served.
Creating new procedures, policies or routines brought Expert Thinking into play when Jen Hegna and I worked on our Guidelines for Educators Using Educational and Social Networking Sites. The development of these guidelines required research, synthesis, experience, and confidence. I'd argue that the ability to see relationships between the physical and virtual worlds, working knowledge of professional conduct, and a willingness to concede a degree of uncertainty are all a part of the Expert Thinking that went into creating these guidelines. I would also concede that a sense of humility that values the opinion of others, resulting in the revision of one's original thoughts, is a part of Expert Thinking.
So a couple thoughts about Expert Thinking and schools...
As I remember, most textbook chapters ended with a list of fairly standard comprehension/recall type questions: List three causes of the Spanish-American war. But I also remember the "extra credit" questions that were far more interesting: Is it possible for a newspaper, though its editorials, to start a war? If so, should newspapers be regulated to keep this from happening? Even sets of math problems were often followed by an application question or different angle on the math concept being taught.
It seems to me that it's not the standard questions, but the extra credits that asked us to use our "Expert Thinking" skills.
I am also concerned that there is a concerted effort to turn teaching into 'Routine Cognitive Work" instead of "Expert Thinking" work. Teachers, are you becoming ever more scripted? Are the number of minutes you spend on each content area being dictated to you? Is your performance being measured in only one way - student performance on standardized test scores? Are you more concerned about the rules of grammar that what students are actually saying?
Are the questions you ask your students the pedagogical equivalent of "Would you like fries with that?"
Reader Comments (3)
A person in a grad school class this summer told us that when she taught out in California she had a binder with a script she had to follow. The script even told her when to laugh!
I'm thrilled that here in Wisconsin we're throwing out our standardized test and starting over. I hope this rewrite will create a more meaningful and comprehensive way of analyzing where our students are. Educating children isn't a multiple choice task...its a personal portfolio that is developed over many years and should be gauged as such. The problem is deeper evaluations cost much more money than scantron sheets.
I think there are many people that would like to "teacher-proof" classrooms (and probably "library-proof" school libraries as well). The sheer number of standards and standardized tests are becoming untenable. I think in the next 5-10 years we need to decide--are we professionals and do we want to be treated as such? Or will the creative thinkers among us exit in droves to leave behind script-reading undergrads who are paid by the hour? I hope we can hang on and beat back this craziness but we're definitely at a crossroads...
Hi Nathan,
Glad to hear this about our neighboring state. Perhaps once we lose our current "right" thinking governor, we will head in that direction as well. Not long ago, we had the "Profiles of Learning" that stressed authentic, performance assessments but it got replaced with tests and standards. The educational pendulum swings!
Doug
Hi Ninja,
My sense is that lack of being able to be creative as a teacher helps drive those 50% out of the profession in their first 5 years. Not the only cause, but I'm thinking a contributing one.
Doug