Put Thinking to the Test

Put Thinking to the Test
Author: Lori L. Conrad
Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2008
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1571107312

Just as comprehension strategies have helped millions of students learn to read like proficient readers, they can also help students think like effective test-takers. The authors show how students can use background knowledge, mental images, synthesizing, monitoring, inferring, questioning, and determining of importance to understand the genre of tests and to think through the problems they are given. Instead of engaging in artificial and disconnected activities to cram for upcoming tests, students learn skills and strategies that will serve them throughout their school careers and beyond. Presenting numerous classroom vignettes featuring students in grades 3-8, "Put Thinking to the Test" includes: (1) examples of the direct application of thinking strategy instruction to test taking; (2) actual work samples from lessons used with students; (3) additional lesson ideas that go beyond the teaching described in the vignettes; (4) detailed anchor charts; and (5) background on how the authors came to understand this work so that a staff, team, or individual teacher can apply these concepts in their own school setting. This book is divided into three sections. Section I, Wondering About Tests, contains the following chapters: (1) Coming to Know Standardized Tests: Walking in Our Students' Shoes; (2) Tests as a Genre: What Makes Standardized Tests Unique; and (3) Increasing Student Stamina: The Role of Workshop Structures in Becoming Successful Test Takers. Section ii, Thinking About Tests, contains the following chapters: (4) Ask Questions; (5) Create Mental Images; (6) Draw Inferences; (7) Synthesize New Learning and Ideas; (8) Activate, Utilize, and Build Background Knowledge (Schema); (9) Determine the Most Important Ideas and Themes; and (10) Monitor for Meaning and Problem-Solve When Meaning Breaks Down. Section iii, Still Learning About Tests, contains the following chapters: (11) q and A--Weaving Thinking Together with Testing; and (12) Integrity: It's All About Being True to Ourselves and Our Profession. References are also included. [Foreword by Ellin Keene.].

The International Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test

The International Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test
Author: Richard Paul
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2019-06-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1538133962

Developed by the Foundation for Critical Thinking, The International Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test assesses the extent to which students have acquired the reading and writing abilities required for skilled analysis and evaluation. These skills are essential to the educated mind and should be considered core elements of any educational program. Through rubrics, this essay-based test measures the extent to which students can skillfully interpret, analyze, and assess what they read. The test fosters close reading and substantive writing abilities and is designed for secondary and higher education students. As part of the Thinker’s Guide Library, this book advances the mission of the Foundation for Critical Thinking to promote fairminded critical societies through cultivating essential intellectual abilities and virtues within every field of study across the world.

The Rationality Quotient

The Rationality Quotient
Author: Keith E. Stanovich
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2016-09-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0262034840

How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills. Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationality Quotient explains that these two traits, often (and incorrectly) thought of as one, refer to different cognitive functions. The standard IQ test, the authors argue, doesn't measure any of the broad components of rationality—adaptive responding, good judgment, and good decision making. The authors show that rational thinking, like intelligence, is a measurable cognitive competence. Drawing on theoretical work and empirical research from the last two decades, they present the first prototype for an assessment of rational thinking analogous to the IQ test: the CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The authors describe the theoretical underpinnings of the CART, distinguishing the algorithmic mind from the reflective mind. They discuss the logic of the tasks used to measure cognitive biases, and they develop a unique typology of thinking errors. The Rationality Quotient explains the components of rational thought assessed by the CART, including probabilistic and scientific reasoning; the avoidance of “miserly” information processing; and the knowledge structures needed for rational thinking. Finally, the authors discuss studies of the CART and the social and practical implications of such a test. An appendix offers sample items from the test.

Thinking Through Statistics

Thinking Through Statistics
Author: John Levi Martin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2018-08-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 022656777X

Simply put, Thinking Through Statistics is a primer on how to maintain rigorous data standards in social science work, and one that makes a strong case for revising the way that we try to use statistics to support our theories. But don’t let that daunt you. With clever examples and witty takeaways, John Levi Martin proves himself to be a most affable tour guide through these scholarly waters. Martin argues that the task of social statistics isn't to estimate parameters, but to reject false theory. He illustrates common pitfalls that can keep researchers from doing just that using a combination of visualizations, re-analyses, and simulations. Thinking Through Statistics gives social science practitioners accessible insight into troves of wisdom that would normally have to be earned through arduous trial and error, and it does so with a lighthearted approach that ensures this field guide is anything but stodgy.

Thinking through Error

Thinking through Error
Author: Brunella Antomarini
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2012-06-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739176234

The aim of Thinking through Error: The Moving Target of Knowledge is to describe knowledge as it works in our everyday attitude and behavior. Often in life, when making decisions and choices, we do not need to test the truth of our beliefs, so there must be another way to guide ourselves. With this in mind, Antomarini presents ‘thinking through error’ instead of ‘excluding error’. That is, we act through a slow process of guess-work, followed by quick gestures. By using our own uncertainty and our exploratory abilities, we face unpredictable situations and at the same time we acknowledge the constant presence of error in our thinking. Every decision we make continuously determines and replaces an entire universe within which that decision is plausible. Our everyday knowledge is a balance between a feeling of the truth and its negation.

Test Your Endgame Thinking

Test Your Endgame Thinking
Author: Glenn Flear
Publisher:
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2002
Genre: Games
ISBN: 9781857443059

How should a chessplayer think in an endgame? How is the game affected once there are just a few pieces left on the board? Grandmaster Glenn Flear provides the answers and guides the reader along the path to enlightenment. Using a series of examples and exercises, Flear steers the reader through all the different types of endgame positions and themes. Included in these are subjects such as checkmating patterns, space advantages, and promotion ideas. Quiz questions will be of differing difficulty and will appeal to all standards of player. *All the major endgame topics are covered *Written by a renowned endgame expert *Ideal for club and tournament players alike

Thinking in Systems

Thinking in Systems
Author: Donella Meadows
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2008-12-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1603581480

The classic book on systems thinking—with more than half a million copies sold worldwide! "This is a fabulous book... This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."—Forbes "Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."—Hunter Lovins In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet—Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking. While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner. In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.