VOLUME 4
Siyamala Kuthan, 33, is a teacher at SJK(T) Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan who teaches Year 2, 3 & 4. When she encountered a problem on using i-THINK to teach she decided to ask the experts. Her question was:
The reply from Nick Symes, the trainer from
Thinking Schools International, is as follows:
There is always a danger that teachers think that the
development of a Thinking Map must be followed by summary writing. This is not the case.
1. If the learning outcome is purely to develop and “show” the thinking so that a thinking conversation, that is a discussion with probing questions or prompts, for example, • Why do you think that.........? • Tell me more about your thinking here, • Would you like to add anything to.........? (Then the job is done)
2. If, however, a piece of creative writing is required, the end result will probably be from the use of many different thinking processes.
10 JANUARY 2013
• So the first step might be brainstorming ideas, hence Defining - Circle Map. • If there are characters that emerge from this stage, it might be helpful to take one or two of them and try to build up a picture of each one using the Bubble Map. Do encourage the student to be adventurous in their use of describing words and phrases.
• You could look at how one character might describe another. Or how one character might describe an event in the story. Hence a Bubble with the Frame of Reference indicating a point of view. • The next stage might be to sequence it using a Flow Map. Here, refer to the earlier Circle and Bubble Maps and place the ideas developed in that (adding as the thinking continues to develop and expand) into the sequence. • Then using the information from all the thinking (contained within all the Thinking Maps created) develop that into a piece of writing. What the Maps have done is to help provide a scaffold or framework to use. • Importantly, at each step outlined above, the teacher can ”see” the thinking that is being developed and can enter into discussion about it – or it could be a discussion between the student themselves.
“Sir, I taught Tamil for Year 3 and tried using the Thinking
Maps in my lessons. The problem I found with my students is that they are good at filling in the maps but not in producing from the maps. For example they have trouble writing a short essay about a topic. They are only able to make a
few sentences from the information on the maps. Most of their sentences are similar in structure. I had to assist them throughout the lesson. In my opinion they lack creative thinking. How can I teach 10-year-olds to write creatively?”
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