THINKING AND ANALYSIS-PATTERNS OF THOUGHT.pdf - THINKING...

THINKING AND ANALYSIS
WHY IT MATTERS: THINKING AND ANALYSIS
Watch these middle school teachers discuss “21st-Century Skills,” or the skills they teach their students to be
successful in the twenty-first century. As you watch the video, think back to your experiences in middle school.
Watch this video online:
Were you taught these types of skills in middle or high school? Most likely, the answer is no. Unfortunately, our
education system often focuses on facts and statements rather than the mental processes behind learning. In this
section, we’ll focus on how human beings think—and how understanding thought can help you learn.
For more information on this topic, watch this TED Talk called How to think, not what to think by Jesse
Richardson:
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Licensing & Attributions
CC licensed content, Original
• Why It Matters: Thinking and Analysis. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
All rights reserved content
• 21st Century Skills in Action: Critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem solving. Authored by : VBSchools. Located at : . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube

PATTERNS OF THOUGHT
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
—Aristotle, Greek philosopher
What Is Thought?
“ Cogito ergo sum .” This famous Latin phrase comes from French philosopher René Descartes in the early 1600s.
Translated into English, it means “I think, therefore I am.” It’s actually a profound philosophical idea, and people
have argued about it for centuries: we exist, and we are aware that we exist, because we think. Without thought
or the ability to think, we don’t exist. Do you agree? Even if you think Descartes got it wrong, most would say that
thought is intimately connected to being human and that, as humans, we are all thinking beings.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
•
Identify different patterns of thought, such as those found in Bloom’s taxonomy

What, then, are thinking and thought? Below are some basic working definitions:
• Thinking is the mental process you use to form associations and models of the world. When you think,
you manipulate information to form concepts, to engage in problem-solving, to reason, and to make
decisions.
• Thought can be described as the act of thinking that produces thoughts, which arise as ideas, images,
sounds, or even emotions.