Thinkback: A User's Guide to Minding the Mind

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. The book builds on the Think Aloud strategies in Arthur Whimbey and Jack Lochhead's popular and widely used volume, "Problem Solving and Comprehension", now in its 6th 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 ablity to think and their ability to learn. The Thinkback classroom, on the otherhand, is a design for teacher liberation - enabling them to see learning more clearly than they ever could before. Th text contains detailed models of metacognitive dialogues in the classroom. These dialgoues enable teachers and teacher educators to observe thinking processes that previously had 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.

Table of Contents:
Contents: R. Brandt, Foreword. Preface. Part I: The Thinkback Process: An Introduction. Thinking With Thinkback. Teaching With Thinkback. Part II: Using Thinkback in Diverse Contexts: Illustrative Examples. Grappling With Graphic Organizers. For Writing Aloud. Kneading Knowledge as Design. Mastering Memory. Mapping Your Mind. Thinking at Home.

Review :
"As might be expected, or at least hoped for, from someone who emphasises the importance of clear thinking, the author demonstrates his own mastery by producing a book that is a model of clarity....Thinkback--both as a book and as a process--is a valuable tool for learner empowerment." —British Journal on Professional Development "...the text is an excellent illustration of a simple but powerful idea thoroughly exploited in a wide range of applications. Thinkback should become an essential part of every teacher's tool kit. It has great potential for pupils with learning difficulties and able underachievers as well as all learners at some point. I shall definitely incorporate it into my Master's programmes." —The British Journal of Educational Psychology "Lochhead's book has been written in an intentionally jargon-free, non-academic style for an intended audience of teacher practitioners looking for alternative and progressive modes of teaching and learning. The author has devoted a major portion of his academic career to developing programs aimed at improving general anayltical reasoning skills...thus laying the ground for the insightful and experience-informed intervention presented in Thinkback." —Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education "What a fun book to read (and informative, too, of course!)....The dialogues are wonderful and very engaging....This book will surely be just the thing to move teachers to use TAPPS. I hope more teachers try it in their classrooms." —Barry K. Beyer Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Education, George Mason University "Knowing how to conduct metacognitive dialogues in the classroom should be a basic skill of all teachers....The application to athletics, mathematics, language arts, social studies, and science instruction adds to the strength of this book in that it demonstrates the power of the metacognitive dialogue across numerous commonly taught subjects....Thinkback should become the subject of all teacher preparation curricula and therefore this book would make a valuable addition to graduate and undergraduate courses in pedagogy, instructional strategies, and improvement of instruction. It would be of great use to staff developers who are intent on improving the quality of classroom interaction with particular emphasis on students' cognitive processes. It will be of benefit to curriculum workers as the book legitimizes the processes of thinking as the content of instruction and the subject of classroom discussion." —Arthur L. Costa Codirector, Institute for Intelligent Behavior, and Emeritus Professor of Educat "A rich and useful guide--one that will be widely welcomed and used....The inclusion of various critical thinking strategies is particularly valuable in that, all together, they provide explicit guidance for teaching critical guidance in a variety of ways and in a wide array of contexts and disciplines." —Carole Morning Higher Education Extension Service "An interesting approach to academic explication--the use of naturalistic dialogue models a powerful technique called Thinkback, while at the same time describes some of the most important instructional strategies for teaching thinking in the past 20 years." —Ronald Narode Portland State University