William James

‘Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.’

Attitudes-Based Learning (or ABL, for short) is a program initiated in the year 2000 to inculcate positive attitudes and characters in children and teens in Singapore.

During that period of time, there were many incidents around the world that deserved our utmost attention. The rise of terrorism around the world was televised around the world and the increasing number of children and teens suffering due to drugs, physical and sexual abuse was alarming. The increase in school-related violence and incidents were reported widely, from America to Japan. Not to mention, several incidents involving teens going on a school killing spree in America.

One of the most bizarre incidents involved a seven-year-old boy who pulled out a gun and shot dead a girl in class (in front of his Grade 1 teacher and classmates near Flint, Michigan). Associated Press, Mar 1, 2000

With so much violence and terror in our world involving children (directly or indirectly), there was a pressing need to encourage more character building education in our societies, to bring forth positive attitudes and moral values for our young.

Hence, the development of the program, Attitudes-Based Learning (ABL) was given birth in Singapore to play a positive role in remedying the ills of our society.

In its infancy, ABL was perceived as a credible cornerstone to foster a conscious character building education in Singapore schools. But unfortunately, there was not much done to push the idea forward due to lack of interest and financial backing in year 2000. Though for a brief period, ABL made its print debut in the first Asia’s children’s creative thinking magazine, ONE, in Singapore and Malaysia through stories that emphasized positive attitudes like kindness, determination and how one can make a difference in people’s lives.

It was only until the year 2003 that ABL was resuscitated into its full glory and intentions. With encouragement and involvement of like-minded individuals who were fervent to build a mentally and emotionally stronger Singapore, ABL was re-engineered to serve as a holistic attitudes- transformation education program for all (though emphasis is still on young children and teens).

In the year 2003, the new and improved Attitudes-Based Learning program is not just another character building program. ABL was further dissected and analyzed by a small team of researchers. With added refinements to the teaching philosophy and methodology, ABL program became more adaptive and holistic. This has greatly increased the effectiveness of achieving the mission and the desired outcomes of the ABL program.

It was also realized that ABL should cater for pre-schoolers, as there was insufficient providers of character building education programs for this particular age group in Singapore and Asia. With ABL being a program that infuses the dimension of self-reflection to build better self-esteem and awareness, we were confident that through interesting and thought-provoking activities (based on Harvard’s Professor Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences concept), ABL would be immensely successful in encouraging positive attitudes amongst our pre-schoolers.

So, how is ABL unique from other character building education programs available?

• ABL adopts a 7-steps framework, which ensure that each child is correctly exposed, explained and experienced to the right attitude
• ABL emphasis is on self-discovery rather than forced inculcation
• ABL uses 4 easy-to-remember animal characters to help each child relate a specially devised set of values and attitudes.

The process of nurturing positive attitudes in your students using Attitudes-Based Learning program is not complex. They are simple but effective steps to ensure that your students will slowly but steadily transform the way they behave and feel about themselves. More importantly, family and friends will notice the difference in them in the most positive manner if done right.

The 7-Steps of the Attitudes-Based Learning Process developed by Dr. Alvin Chan

There is a sequence of 7-steps that you need to follow in order for ABL to be effective in achieving your desired outcomes.

1. EXPLANATION AND UNDERSTANDING

1. Explain the attitude to be taught to your charges
2. Increase their understanding by giving a few examples about the attitude. Better still, tell a story with the related attitude to be taught and discuss with them
3. Ask them whether they have experiences about the attitude taught to check on their understanding.

2. SHARING EXPERIENCES

1. Get them to share their experiences about the attitude and the related positive behavior

3. SITUATIONS and REFLECTIONS

1. Give them a few situations whereby such attitude can be applied in their lives
2. Ask them what they will do in this variety of situations
3. Get them to reflect upon their actions-are they appropriate or not?
4. Share your thoughts with them about their actions
5. Tell them what you think is the more appropriate action for each situation
6. Ask them to reflect on what you have told them-do they agree with you?

4. ROLE-PLAY

1. Create an environment for them to role-play the few situations that are being discussed.
2. Ask them to point out whether the ‘actors’ have acted in an appropriate manner.

5. ACTIVITY (TO REMIND AND REINFORCE THE LEARNING)

1. Give them an activity (could be listening to a story, drawing or singing a song) to reinforce what they have learnt about the attitude. This is to help them remember better the attitude learnt in class.
2. Encourage them to ‘practice’ what they have learnt in class by giving specific situations and appropriate actions they can do in their home, with their family and friends.

6. ACCOUNTABILITY

1. Get them to be accountable for practicing what they have learnt by providing them a checklist of positive actions (usually using pictures to show) for them to remind themselves (or even for their parents to sign the checklist)
2. After a few days, ask them whether they have practiced the positive actions based on the checklist that were given in class.

7. EVALUATION

1. Teacher must periodically keep track that students continue to practice the positive actions taught to ensure internalization of attitudes.
2. The checklist also acts as a measurement to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning process.

Source:.brainy-child.com

Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994) founded the ‘Reggio Emilia’ approach at a city in northern Italy called Reggio Emilia. The ‘Reggio’ approach was developed for municipal child-care and education programs serving children below six. The approach requires children to be seen as competent, resourceful, curious, imaginative, inventive and possess a desire to interact and communicate with others.

The ‘Reggio’ vision of the child as a competent learner has produced a strong child-directed curriculum model. The curriculum has purposive progression but not scope and sequence. Teachers follow the children’s interests and do not provide focused instruction in reading and writing. Reggio approach has a strong belief that children learn through interaction with others, including parents, staff and peers in a friendly learning environment.

Here are some key features of Reggio Emilia’s early childhood program:

The role of the environment-as-teacher

• Within the Reggio Emilia schools, the educators are very concerned about what their school environments teach children. Hence, a great attention is given to the look and feel of the classroom. It is often referring to the environment as the “third teacher”
• The aesthetic beauty within the schools is seen as an important part of respecting the child and their learning environment
• A classroom atmosphere of playfulness and joy pervades
• Teachers organize environments rich in possibilities and provocations that invite the children to undertake extended exploration and problem solving, often in small groups, where cooperation and disputation mingle pleasurably.
• Documentation of children’s work, plants, and collections that children have made from former outings are displayed both at the children’s and adult eye level.
• Common space available to all children in the school includes dramatic play areas and work tables for children from different classrooms to come together.
• Here is a link to view some of the environmental pictures

Children’s multiple symbolic languages

• Using the arts as a symbolic language through which to express their understandings in their project work
• Consistent with Dr. Howard Gardner’s notion of schooling for multiple intelligences, the Reggio approach calls for the integration of the graphic arts as tools for cognitive, linguistic, and social development.
• Presentation of concepts and hypotheses in multiple forms such as print, art, construction, drama, music, puppetry, and shadow play. These are viewed as essential to children’s understanding of experience.

Documentation as assessment and advocacy
(Rather unique in Reggio approach)

• Documenting and displaying the children’s project work, which is necessary for children to express, revisit, and construct and reconstruct their feelings, ideas and understandings.
• Similar to the portfolio approach, documentation of children’s work in progress is viewed as an important tool in the learning process for children, teachers, and parents.
• Pictures of children engaged in experiences, their words as they discuss what they are doing, feeling and thinking, and the children’s interpretation of experience through the visual media are displayed as a graphic presentation of the dynamics of learning.
• Teachers act as recorders (documenters) for the children, helping them trace and revisit their words and actions and thereby making the learning visible.

Long-term projects

• Supporting and enriching children’s learning through in-depth, short-term (one week) and long-term (throughout the school year) project work, in which responding, recording, playing, exploring, hypothesis building and testing, and provoking occurs.
• Projects are child-centered, following their interest, returning again and again to add new insights.
• Throughout a project, teachers help children make decisions about the direction of study, the ways in which the group will research the topic, the representational medium that will demonstrate and showcase the topic.

The teacher as researcher

• The teacher’s role within the Reggio Emilia approach is complex. Working as co-teachers, the role of the teacher is first and foremost to be that of a learner alongside the children. The teacher is a teacher-researcher, a resource and guide as she/he lends expertise to children.
• Within such a teacher-researcher role, educators carefully listen, observe, and document children’s work and the growth of community in their classroom and are to provoke and stimulate thinking
• Teachers are committed to reflection about their own teaching and learning.
• Classroom teachers working in pairs and collaboration, sharing information and mentoring between personnel.

Home-school relationships

• Children, teachers, parents and community are interactive and work together. Building a community of inquiry between adults and children.
• For communication and interaction can deepen children’s inquiry and theory building about the world around them
• Programs in Reggio are family centered. Loris’s vision of an “education based on relationships” focuses on each child in relation to others and seeks to activate and support children’s reciprocal relationships with other children, family, teachers, society, and the environment.

Reggio approach is not a formal model with defined methods (such as Waldorf and Montessori), teacher certification standards and accreditation processes. But rather, the educators in Reggio Emilia speak of their evolving “experience” and see themselves as a provocation and reference point, a way of engaging in dialogue starting from a strong and rich vision of the child. In all of these settings, documentation was explored as a means of promoting parent and teacher understanding of children’s learning and development.

While this article concentrate on Reggio Emilia approach on early childhood education, it did not play down on the other approaches such as Waldorf and Montessori. Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses as well as areas of difference.

What makes the Reggio Emilia approach stand out? In a nutshell, Reggio approach articulates children to acquire skills of critical thinking and collaboration. All preschool operators ought to benchmark against the Reggio Emilia schools. Here is the contact link to look for preschool that based on Reggio approach.

Source:.brainy-child.com

Here are some ideas and suggestions that will help you streamline and empower your child to hone his or her skills and intelligence:

Is your child a verbal learner?

Intelligence Signs:

• Show a keen sense of sensitivity to intonations, sound chords and meaning of different words.
• Your child may show a tendency to enjoy and relish storytelling and creative writing.
• Relish reading stories, poetry, and show a latent talent for working on puzzles and a range of riddles.

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Read along with your child. Ask your child to recite poems and tell stories.
• Encourage dialogues with your children. Listen carefully to his or her problems. Reply to their questions and concerns.
• Bring home plenty of books for your child to read and understand.
• Encourage your child to tell you the summary of stories and anecdotes of stories just read by him or her.
• Ask your child to write his or her own stories and poems.
• Provide ample opportunities and chances to go to public libraries and local book houses.
• Get down playing board games and puzzles.

Is your child a logical learner?

Intelligence Signs:

• Does he or she show an interest in playing games related numbers, problems solving, pattern making and alphabets?
• Does he or she display an unusual tendency of providing reasoning and logical arguments to any given problem?
• Does he or she prefer orderliness while working and solving problems?

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Allow your child experiment with objects, toys and things.
• Ask your child to paint, draw figures, mix colors and play with colorful toys.
• Teach your child how to play with an abacus and an electronic calculator.
• Provide board games that enhance thinking and mental ability catalyzing activities.
• Ask your child to help you out in household chores. Let him or her work on a number of sundry activities.
• Chess and checkers are possibly the best games that enhance your child’s mental abilities and reasoning capacities.

Is your child a visual learner?

Intelligence Signs:

• Does your child show an ability to create wonderful, visual patterns?
• Does he or she insist on you bring those toys and games that provide visual stimulation?
• Is your child a good painter or an artist?

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Allow your child to play with art items like crayons, paints, water colors and drawing boards.
• Provide an opportunity to play with puzzle boards and inventing games
• Let your child create his or her own play pen in the room
• Take your child to a museum or art gallery
• Bring home colorful posters, books with colorful pictures and photography manuals.
• Buy him a basic camera and related tools to shoot pictures.

Is your child a music learner?

Intelligence Signs:

• Does you child like playing with musical instruments?
• Does your child like to sing songs and poems?
• Does you child show an inclination towards liking voices, environmental sounds and natural melodies sung by birds?

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Allow your child to listen to different musical tunes and melodies
• Bring home a tape or CD recorder
• Ask him or her to play favorite tunes and music.
• Let your child attend music classes
• Let him or her learn playing a musical instrument

Is your child a physical learner?

Intelligence Signs:

• Is your child an athlete or a physical exercise buff?
• Does your child like playing field games, dramas, role playing and track events?
• Is your child interested in using his physical powers while solving problems?

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Allow your child to take part in gymnastics, dancing, sports and field events
• Walk along with him or accompany him for jogging.
• Play tennis and bowling with him or her
• Bring home a bike for him or her.

Is your child an extrovert?

Multiple Intelligence Signs:

• Is your child very social while talking to others?
• Does he or she show an ability to read on other feelings and expressions?
• Does your child show an inclination to be a leader in group activities?
• Is he or she an altruist?

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Play family and group games with your child
• Allow your child to participate in group activities and games
• Encourage your child to participate in group discussions and debates.

Is your child an introvert?

Multiple Intelligence Signs:

• Is your child in independent?
• Is he or she self motivated and self initiated?
• Is your child an aloof kid?

Multiple Intelligence Activities:

• Provide an ample amount of time for your child to play on his or her own
• Encourage your child to write memoir and keep a diary.
• Provide him or her tools and equipments that provide quiet and engaging activities.

Source:.brainy-child.com

What type of intelligence do you expect from your child? How do you like him or her to develop his or her intellect and talent? Is it one of those number crunching abilities? Do you want your child to develop a number of verbal and language skills? Do you wish your child to be an extraordinary athlete? In the past, experts defined intelligence as something that can deal effectively with the environment that includes an inherent ability to reason and sole most common problems that occur on a consistent basis. However, there were doubts raised on how one can define and describe intelligence and smartness in people, especially in growing children.

In 1983, Harvard scholar and psychologist, Howard Gardner proposed a new and fresh theory on intelligence in people that contained much more than just simple definitions of intelligence and smartness. According to Howard Gardner, the words multiple intelligence are new and fresh look at identifying, explaining and defining the word ¡°intelligence¡±. A growing child will have a range of abilities and skills that relate to a particular area of activity and performance.

Howard Gardner suggested the following descriptions of the multiple intelligence domains. Instead of having or owning just one type of intelligence, it is claimed that children possess several different intelligences.

Kinesthetic (Body Smart): Your child is body smart! He or she is very versatile in acting, mimicking or even moving from one place to the other. You child may like to make a number of things and enjoy activities like sports, dancing and drama. Your child can learn through the movements of their body structure and he or she may possess very fine motor control of muscle and bones. Your child may be a quick learner as well. Children with this intelligence tend to learn things like swimming, field sports and gymnastics very quickly.

Logical (Number Smart): With this intelligence, your child will have a keen sense of logic and number (arithmetic). You child can easily solve simple problems, or she or he can decipher and decode simple challenges, perform science experiments, participate in complicated board games or even take part in complex problem solving scenarios. Your child is also number smart. He or she may be very good at doing mathematical subject and perform a variety of number activities.

Intrapersonal (Me Smart): With this intelligence, your kid may be very adept at socializing with other people. Your child may be too extrovert by showing a sense of friendliness to others. Your child may like to lead people and support other in the group. He or she may also be very good at communicating others. He or she will know about strengths and weakness and understand the limit at which they can perform a particular activity.

Visual/Spatial (Picture Smart): If your child has this intelligence, he or she may be good at visualizing things and events. Your child may like to draw and paint objects and figures. He or she may also like to design and solve complex pattern related problems. People with this intelligence tend to succeed in areas like visual memory, engineering and construction. Map reading, solving complex maze like problems and finding graphical solutions are the other areas where your child may excel.

Linguistic (Word Smart): With this amazing intelligence, you child could be excellent in written, spoken and composed words. Your child may be an expert in reading, telling stories, talking, writing stories and poems as well as hearing and reading. Your child is always a word smart person.

Interpersonal (People Smart): This type of intelligence signifies that your child could be very adept at working and socializing with his or her peers. Your child may also be a leader who wants to lead his or her friends and peers in the school. Children with this strength are versatile in communicating their mind and opinions with others. Your child can easily mix and gel with others.

Musical (Music Smart): Your child could excel in creating music and evaluating different kinds if sounds. Your child may also like to sig, play, participate in musical events, play musical instruments and compose songs and lyrics. Your child may be music smart with this intelligence.

Naturalistic (Nature Smart): This type of intelligence may make your child like working with living things like animals, pets, plants and other creatures. Your child may also like to be alone with the natural objects and things. This intelligence signifies that your child is nature smart and interested in world of plants, animals and enjoys learning more about them.

Source:.brainy-child.com

(Provided by MIDAS – Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales)

Linguistic

• Linguistic sensitivity: skill in the use of words for expressive and practical purposes
• Reading: skill in reading
• Writing: ability and interest in writing such as poems, stories, books or letters
• Speaking: skill in oral communication for persuasion, mnemonics and description

Musical

• Musical ability: sensitivity to rhythms, pitch, tunes or melody; and the timbre or distinctive tone of a musical piece
• Instrument: skill and experience in playing a musical instrument
• Vocal: a good voice for singing in tune and along with other people
• Appreciation: actively enjoys listening to music

Logical-mathematical

• Problem Solving: skill in organization, problem solving and logical reasoning; curiosity and investigation
• Calculations: ability to work with numbers for mathematical operations such as addition and division
• Ability to perceive: logical patterns and relationships; statements and propositions; functions and complex processes and related abstractions

Spatial

• Imagery: use of mental imagery for observation, artistic, creative, and other visual activities
• Artistic Design: to create artistic designs, drawings, painting or other crafts
• Construction: to be able to make, build or assemble things

Bodily-kinesthetic

• Physical Skill: ability to move the whole body for physical activities such as balancing, coordination and sports
• Dancing, Acting: to use the body in expressive, rhythmic and imitative ways
• Working with Hands: to use the hands with dexterity and skill for detailed activities and small work

Interpersonal

• Understanding People: sensitivity to and understanding of other people’s moods, feelings and point of view
• Getting along with Others: able to maintain good relationships with other people especially friends and siblings
• Leadership: to take a leadership role among people through problem solving and influence

Intra-personal

• Knowing Myself: awareness of one’s own ideas, abilities; personal decision making skill
• Goal Awareness: awareness of goals and self correction and monitoring in light of a goal
• Managing Feelings: ability to regulate one’s feelings, moods and emotional responses
• Managing Behavior: ability to regulate one’s mental activities and behavior

Naturalist

• Animal Care: skill for understanding animal behavior, needs, characteristics
• Plant Care: ability to work with plants, (i.e., gardening, farming and horticulture)
• Science: knowledge of natural living energy forces including cooking, weather and physics

Gardner says, “Although they are not necessarily dependent on each other, these intelligences seldom operate in isolation. Every normal individual possesses varying degrees of each of these intelligences, but the ways in which intelligences combine and blend are as varied as the faces and the personalities of individuals.”

According to Gardner, the implication of the theory is that learning/teaching should focus on the particular intelligences of each person. For example, if an individual has strong spatial or musical intelligences, they should be encouraged to develop these abilities. Gardner points out that the different intelligences represent not only different content domains but also learning modalities. A further implication of the theory is that assessment of abilities should measure all forms of intelligence, not just linguistic and logical-mathematical.

The theory of Multiple Intelligences has focused mostly on child development although it applies to all ages. Gardner published his theory in the book ‘Frames of Mind’ in 1983 and discusses application of the theory to school programs in 1993. Many educators apply the theory of multiple intelligences in the classroom today. Check with your school community around your area that provides ‘Multiple Intelligence Program’. Here is first MI school in USA that provide the program.

If you are interested on how to apply Multiple Intelligence at home/classroom, Dr. Thomas Armstrong has translated Multiple Intelligence theory into classroom application in the book titled ‘Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom’.

In principles, Multiple Intelligences theory emphasizes that individuals should be encouraged to use their preferred intelligences in learning. The instructional activities should appeal to different forms of intelligence and finally the assessment of learning should measure multiple forms of intelligence. Don’t judge your child by academic result alone, your child may possess other intelligences waiting for you to discover.

Source:.brainy-child.com

Piaget also related these learning environments to the development of cognitive techniques. He also suggested different stages of cognitive development in a child’s early life. Here are some of the different stages of cognitive development:

Sensory-motor stage: This is the first and most important stage of cognitive development in your child’s life. It happens when your child is about two years old. This technique involves the use of senses and motor abilities to relate to the world around. Reflexes and a complex combination of both sensory and motor skills will form the basic for the basic cognitive development. However, the first two years in a child life is a series of development of cognitive processes that relate to each other. In fact, these processes are very intricate and form the basis of advanced development of cognition later in the life.

Between one and four months: Your child may show a basic action of own choice that forms a stimulus to respond to the ambience around him or her. For example, your child may like to suck her or his thumb almost as an involuntary action. Your child may also feel that it is a very good action and this will propel for more actions that may include deep sucking with intermittent sounds.

Between four and twelve months: Once your child masters the basic cognitive actions, he or she will turn to other actions that help him or her to extend more to the immediate environment. Most common actions may be sucking on the shoulders, when you hold your child or it may even be a simple squeezing action on a soft toy. These actions will be repetitive and they can extend for some time as well.

Between 12 months and 24 months: By the time your child reaches her or his second birthday, things would stabilize as far as development of cognitive processes is concerned. Your child will try to use a number of variations to master cognitions. Some of the most common learning actions could be:

• Hitting the ground with a stick
• Hitting the drums with a stick
• Hitting the table with a stick

These simple actions are always repetitive and they help your children to master these basic skills to perfection. All these learning process will eventually help your child to retain the image in his or her mind for a longer period. In fact, they can even remember the action they performed sometime ago and repeat it again after some time. They also learn how to use a fine combination of different cognitive techniques to solve simple problems.

The stage that helps your child to develop learning process is the preoperational stage that lasts from about two years to seven years of his or her life. By the time your child enters his or her second year, the ability to retain mental pictures would enhance rapidly. Your child will also be able to pretend things and mimic different actions, he or she will be putting the first small steps forward to use various symbols as a learning process. In essence, a symbol is a thing that signifies that there is something. Some simple examples of symbols are a picture, a written syllable and even a simple drawing of an animal or bird.

Young children are very good at creative play. Your child will start learning how to involve in a round of creative play by using fine senses of cognition and motor skills. He or she will also be able to understand and comprehend both the past and future. Some simple examples are:

Example #1: You will see your child crying for missing toy and you will say, “I will find your toys very soon“. Now, your child will stop crying just because he or she will anticipate something good in the near future.

Example #2: You will see your child crying after falling down from the steps. You will ask now, “Do you remember where you fell down?” Your child will respond to your query now with a sad and quizzical face, “No“.

Tip: Most growing children tend to be too egocentric and selfish. Piaget believes that this could be the result of an intensive learning process where a child will like to keep the learning process secretive.

Piaget also believes that children are children and they simply lack the ability to reason as a fully-grown adult. Hence, parents should treat their children as someone who are still trying to get a foothold in the big world. Parents can easily learn Piaget’s ideas on how children learn various skills of cognition and thinking and later use them to develop their children’s basic brain.

Source:brainy-child.com

Piaget was a great exponent of teaching how children will find a way to develop and expand their learning process, especially the cognitive development. He professed a series of learning methods that will help your child to master different learning techniques. According to Piaget, there are many types of learning processes your child will learn and master during the developmental process.

You can use many examples to explain these phenomena. Just consider the following scenarios. An infant or a young child can easily grab a colorful toy or teething equipment and later thrust it into the mouth. Most probably, a colorful and soft rattle is the first object that your child will hold and thrust in her or his mouth. In fact, this learning response will be the first of a series of practical experiments that your child will perfect in the due course of time. By the age three or four, an infant will be able to transfer this skill to hold, grab and thrust different objects other than the common rattle.

Tip: This process of assimilation helps the infant to assimilate a new type of object into the old system of learning.

However, the process of assimilation may not work for all scenarios. Your infant may come across a new object that is bigger and heavier than the previous one. Let us assume that your child will come across a rubber ball. Your child will try to hold the ball and thrust it into his or her mouth. However, this experiment is bound to fail and your child will try best his or her ability to thrust it into the mouth. In the end, your child will try to accommodate to the reality and will soon try another schema or experiment to handle the object. This new schema could be anything; it could be a simple squeezing and drooling action and this would eventually form an appropriate action for the new method. Piaget called this new schema as accommodation that will help your child to accommodate the previous experience to a new object.

Tip: Piaget also expressed that both assimilation and accommodation form two sides of the same coin, which is the process of adaptation. In fact, Piaget called this the actual process of learning. He saw this process as a natural action of innate learning that helps children to acquire new skills and new set of knowledge.

Furthermore, Piaget also believed that both assimilation and accommodation work in tandem and they help your children to understand the world around them. In essence, both these entities direct their actions as a balancing act between the mind and the immediate environment. Piaget called this as a state of equilibrium and this helps the children to create a balanced perspective of the world around them.

Piaget’s stages of intellectual development in children relate to significant developments in the brain structure. In fact, the developmental stags in the child’s brain keep shifting from one paradigm to the other with a progressive development between two successive paradigms. The human brain tends to develop only after the stage of adolescence and in the case male children, during the early adulthood. Children take their own time to develop their intellect, thinking process and IQ.

Parents always believe that their children should think and act like adults even though they are not capable of acting so. You should know what you want to expect from your child as they keep developing. It is also important to have realistic expectations from your child. Piaget was the first child expert who related children’s reaction to their immediate surroundings and how they adapt to the shifting scenarios to develop their cognition and thinking. Using Piaget’s wonderful yet revolutionary learning theory will help you child develop cognition and thinking in a remarkably different way.

Source:brainy-child.com

Let us stop for a while and think how we can raise the level of awareness among our children of different age levels. Just remember that teaching these skills is possible when your children are in the age bracket of two to twelve years; brain development in young toddlers and infants are slow paced and you may need to wait until they become two years old before you can train them to think in a meta-cognitive way.

Questions that center on the type of thinking your children did: This is perhaps the basic step in the entire process. The outcome of this step decides the way in which your children tune their mind to evaluate certain situations.

Sample questions:

• What type and kind of thinking did you do just now? Let us say that your children finish an assigned task. Your children know that they have successfully finished that task with a tangible result as the final outcome. Now, they should also know the process or method that helped them to reach the goal. When you child consciously recalls these bits of information, they will instantly learn all those steps and processes involved in the entire process.
• How did you think about the task and describe the process. You may need to ask these questions to extract the plans or strategies that you children used before finishing the task. Strategies and methods are very important solving any type of complex problems.
• The next important questions focuses on the valuation part of the thinking. Your children must be able to evaluate the results or outcome derived from the task. They should be able to think on how they can improvise on their strategies and methods so that they can achieve better results next time.

Metacognition also involves probing your children’s mind to bring out the trait of self evaluation and assessment.

Questions that help your children assess the awareness of learning are:

• What did you learn?
• What did you find out?
• How did you learn?
• Did you find anything very difficult?
• Did you find anything very easy?
• How did you do this task?
• What did you learn from your work?

Questions that help your children assess the awareness of attitudes and feelings are:

• What did you like from that task?
• Do you like doing this work? Why?
• What do you feel so good about this task?
• What did you feel not so good about this task?

Questions that help your children assess the awareness of setting targets are:

• In what way you can do better?
• What better steps you need to achieve better results?
• What is your next goal?
• What will help you in achieving your next target?

More tips:

• Get your children into learning mode. Cajole them to start learning their immediate tasks.
• Talk more about what they need to do for finishing the task.
• Listen carefully to their ideas and thoughts.
• Ask them how they are going to work on the assignment. Let them write down those steps or methods.
• Let them work on the task. Do not disturb them. If they have any doubts or problems, you can provide those clues that help them to finish the pending tasks.
• Once finished, evaluate their work and ask them self assess their efforts. Nudge them to assess their own work and make notes on them.
• Now, ask your children probing questions involving learning, attitudes, feelings and setting goals as described above.

Once you collect all the inputs, you can pool them together to guide your children to improve their intellect, attitude and learning. Some typical examples of tasks that provide both cognitive and meta-cognitive challenges are:

1. Providing puzzling tasks that offer more than one solution or provide a multitude of solutions.
2. Tasks that include cognitive conflicts such as debates and discussions.
3. Letting children make groups among themselves and having each one of them to teach other members of the team. This type of teaching is called reciprocal teaching.

Source:brainy-child.com

Many psychologists opine that metacognition links to acquisition of knowledge and its development. In fact, there are two significant processes in the acquisition of knowledge and skills:

• Automatic and unconscious acquisition of knowledge and skills.
• Gradual and sustained increase in the active and conscious control over the knowledge and skills acquired on the past.

Academicians also believe that it is possible to induce children to learn on a conscious level and assist them in gaining a mastery over the organization of the skills and knowledge acquired. Effective learning is not just about acquiring intelligence, skills and knowledge. In reality, most of us fall into what is known as “intelligence trap”, it is a condition when we believe that we have all the knowledge and skills required to lead a life of bliss and contentment. In fact, your children may remain static and sedentary and avoid opening their mind to acquire new knowledge and skills.

Some children are very efficient at learning very useful techniques and strategies and later apply them at appropriate places. Other children may look very intelligent and skilled but feel very unintelligent in their basic approach to learning knowledge and skills. Psychologists also believe that the innate meta-cognitive ability transforms with age of the children; older children are more successful in learning because of their heightened meta-cognitive abilities.

There are six basic meta-cognitive strategies that your children can learn and master. They are:

1. Asking right type of questions.
2. Planning for learning skills and acquiring knowledge and skills.
3. Monitoring the actual learning process.
4. Checking the quality and merit of knowledge.
5. Revising the learning process and fine-tuning it.
6. Self testing the learnt knowledge and skills

However, your children will need to converse with others to understand the finer aspects of the learning process. These lines of conversations could be both external and internal. Problem solving is another area of learning linked closely to metacognition. Educating your children to approach a problem in a systematic and organized manner will help them to hone their skills. Learning failure occurs because of inability of your children to tackle the problems because you did not educate them to do so. You may wish to educate your children to train their thinking process in a more productive manner like:

Ask questions:

• “What am I doing now?“
• “What am I supposed to do?“
• “Can I do this work successfully?“
• “Can I find better ways of doing this work?“

Outcome:

• Better cognition.
• Better understanding of one’s innate characters and abilities.
• Problem solving in double quick-time.
• Development of self-consciousness.

Most children are unable to evaluate the scope and magnitude of problems in front of them. Teachers and parents can bet encouragement as to reflect on the types of thinking they have been facing. Teaching metacognition to your children depends on their age and level of intelligence while the level of introspection about the skills and knowledge learned depends on the genetic makeup of children.

Successful learning needs a deep understanding of available context and the innate ability to adapt the right type of strategy at the right time. Metacognition enables your children productive learning and problem solving abilities. Young toddlers and children aged two years possess rudimentary metacognition techniques while older children develop the technique slowly over time with the guidance of their parents and children. Children of different age groups deal with learning assignments in different ways. Metacognition and its assimilation by these age groups also vary depending on the development of brain and its structure. However, it is possible to teach the techniques of metacognition to children at different age levels. Continue to read Using metacognition learning to make children smarter here!

Source:brainy-child.com

Recognizing and Recalling Activities: These are perhaps two of the most basic learning activities that you can teach your children. To learn and master critical thinking, your children must first learn to recognize and recall important bits of information. When you use these critical thinking techniques, you can help your children master such methods as classification, inferring and analyzing. Some of the important exercises that you can use are:

1. Spreading common objects on the ground and asking your child to recognize them one by one. Later, cajoling him or her to recall each object name by name.
2. Placing a number of colorful animal toys in a big box and asking your child to identify each one of them. Later ask him or her to arrange all animals on the floors by loudly recalling each animal by its name.
3. Buying a number of recognize-recall activity books to engage your children in identifying pictures and images name by name.

End Result: The above mentioned techniques will help your child to master memory techniques and to apply those techniques to recall critical bits of information. With these techniques, it is also possible to critically analyze a given set of data to synthesize comprehensible set of information.

Comprehending nature of the knowledge: This activity involves comprehending, grasping and understanding available informational materials. These activities help your child to translate, interpret and extrapolate available information into highly comprehensible and meaningful chunks of data. Some of the useful exercises that you can use are:

1. Buying “Tell Me Why” type of books that contain colorful images and pictures of animals and cartoon characters. Show how things or events happen through graphical representations of data and information.
2. Explaining events that occur naturally in your backyard garden like how flowers bloom in a plant or fruits are formed on a tree. Or, you can use the example of an egg and how it becomes a small chick and the natural process involved during incubation.

End Result: With these simple exercises, your child will become proficient in analyzing raw data into a meaningful stream of comprehensible events. These exercises also assist your child to develop the basic techniques of evaluation and analysis.

Applying available knowledge to understand strange or unfamiliar situations: This critical thinking skill will help your child to apply knowledge-learned to understand, evaluate, comprehend and master strange or unfamiliar scenarios or situations. Some of the useful exercises that you can use are:

1. Posing critical questions that help your children derive answers in response to complex situations. For example, can a ball become a live chick? Can an egg become a ball? Can apples grow on a flowering plant?
2. Taking your child for a stroll in a maze and explaining how a maze is constructed and how one can find an escape route to the exit point.

End Result: Life is full of unexpected and surprising events. The above mentioned technique will help your child solve any type of complex problems by using previously acquired knowledge and skills.

Here are some more ideas and suggestions to help encourage thinking skills in your child:

• Encourage your child to ask a series of questions, even if they sound very silly and strange. Try and answer them to best of your abilities without losing your patience.
• Be enthusiastic while answering questions. Show your child, that you are caring towards their concerns and questions.
• Your child should feel that he or she is being listened to by people. As a parent, your duty must start at satisfying your child’s curiosity and inquisitiveness.
• Why, Where, What and How type of questions will make your child develop a number of critical thinking skills.
• Your child must be able to think and analyze whether a given set of information is really true or not. Once your child learns to differentiate the right from the wrong, you can rest assured that he or she will start looking at things, events, and scenarios with a probing angle.
• Never ever answer all questions on your own. Encourage your children to answer the question on their own.

Empowering your children with very critical thinking skills will not only make them intelligent and smart, they will also make your children successful in whatever the career they pursue and follow. Critical thinking skills provide that extra edge that is much needed to ensure both professional and personal success.

Source:brainy-child.com