Thinking in a Digital World: Taking Our Kids into the Deep End

The information age is changing how we experience the world and interact with it. This has implications for young people and their learning both in and out of the classroom. This book offers practical strategies for working with young people, helping educators and parents understand and react to this changing situation. The print dominated society led to linear thinking while the electronic world is interconnected, dynamic and ever changing. Linear thinking isn’t enough anymore. To be successful our children need additional skills. We introduce the concept of a tangible world and virtual world and show how to make the most of both worlds by staying safe, by knowing how to move within the highly stimulating, interconnected world of the internet as well as when to disconnect and think more deeply, to become skilful thinkers, who understand how they think. This book offers practical ways to develop and deepen thinking at home and at school with both curriculum content and real world home issues. We explore the power of well-formed questions and questioning techniques, the concept of mindset, the power of failure and the dangers inherent in the wrong kinds of praise.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Professor Arthur Costa Preface Introduction Chapter 1: Grown Ups - We Have A Problem: Our kids are trapped in the shallows Chapter 2: The World Is Changing: From Lines to Webs Chapter 3: Surveying the landscape: Education and Learning Chapter 4: The 21st Century needs us Chapter 5: What is happening In Our Schools? Chapter 6: The Digital Divides: Immigrants and Natives, Real and Virtual Chapter 7: Contrary to popular opinion, television can help bridge the divide Chapter 8: Living in two worlds: tangible and virtual Chapter 9: The best of both worlds Chapter 10: Safe Enough to Think: Keeping children safe and ensuring safety of information Chapter 11: It’s Hard To Manage What You Don’t Understand Chapter 12: Metacognition: What We Do When We Think In The Deep End Chapter 13: Behaving Like A Deep Water Thinker Chapter 14: Am I Clever Enough to Think In The Deep End? Conclusion Bibliography

About the Author :
Patricia Calton Buoncristiani has a wealth of classroom experience in the UK, Australia and the USA. For twelve years she was a teacher educator at Melbourne Teachers College in Australia and more recently has been an elementary school principal in both Australia and the USA. Martin Buoncristiani, emeritus professor of physics at Christopher Newport University, has been dedicated to science and mathematics education for over forty years. In curricular development for the university he has been an advocate of adapting teaching methods to current understandings of how people learn.

Review :
Pat and Martin Buoncristiani expertly blend research and common sense as they guide the reader on a journey through the challenges of educating children in a digital world. The advice they offer for anyone seeking to help children become deep thinkers, is timely, practical, and powerful. Each time I dived into a chapter I was thoroughly captivated. Great work. Well done! This book got me right from the start. The authors want us to think about disengaging rather than engaging. I learned a great deal about how technology can serve as a powerful tool when you disengage from its superficialities and distractions and learn more about how the brain works, the importance of metacognitive thinking, how young people think and most importantly, how to be a guide for their deeper thinking. The more I read, the longer my list of people I want to recommend to read this book! Martin and Pat have addressed a serious and yet often overlooked aspect of our curriculum, the impact of the digital age on our kid’s thinking. This book helps us to consider how we can save our kids from drowning in shallow thinking waters and make them skilful thinkers in the deep, rich oceans of the 22nd Century. One of the hardest jobs as a classroom teacher in 2017 is balancing the use of technology for the wonderful learning tool that it is, without losing the important part of school that involves learning and socialization in the real world. This book is an excellent resource for bridging the gap between the two. The authors provide real-world suggestions and strategies for teaching digital citizenship while using technology to enhance meaningful learning.