What is the Flexible Thinking Program?
The Flexible Thinking Program cultivates flexible thinking skills through consistent, supported practice over a span of forty‐eight sessions. Repeated practice of these activities ultimately opens up previously blocked or unused pathways in the brain.
What makes the program work
The program works by closely monitoring your child throughout the program. Keeping your child in his learning zone and asking guiding METACOGNITIVE QUESTIONS as you play thinking games allows him to develop flexible thinking skills. The Flexible Thinking Program provides with the tools you need to guide this process.
Staying in the learning zone:
The program works by closely monitoring your child throughout the program. Keeping your child in his learning zone and asking guiding METACOGNITIVE QUESTIONS as you play thinking games allows him to develop flexible thinking skills. The Flexible Thinking Program provides with the tools you need to guide this process.
Staying in the learning zone:
- You want to make sure your student is being kept in what psychologist Lev Vygotsky called the ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT (ZPD). The ZPD is the space between what the learner has already mastered and what he or she can achieve when provided with educational support.
Metacognitive questioning:
Creating a mantra that children can memorize and use when they approach a task is very helpful to building metacognitive skills. Here are 4 steps to help teach metacognition skills:
- Metacognition is thinking about thinking, knowing "what we know" and "what we don't know." This means students take time to think about what needs to be done to solve a problem and then how to solve it. Metacognitive thinking helps students understand how their mind works and guides them to use this knowledge to approach and solve problems. They take control over their learning process.
Creating a mantra that children can memorize and use when they approach a task is very helpful to building metacognitive skills. Here are 4 steps to help teach metacognition skills:
Once they have memorized and begun using the mantra. Children will be asking themselves questions and talking themselves through tasks, thereby using metacognition strategies to help build flexible thinking skills.
Building Metacognition skills can help build flexible thinking skills by helping the student focus well.
Building Metacognition skills can help build flexible thinking skills by helping the student focus well.
Administering the Flexible Thinking Program
By guiding a learner through specific tasks that may be above his/her independent level, the instructor can emphasize connections to what the student already knows in order to help the student gain independence.
By asking METACOGNITIVE QUESTIONS and catering to an individual’s learning style, this program allows the instructor to find a balance between what has already been achieved and the potential for achievement by providing support until the learner is ready to move through the task independently.
To help guide students through the program and to keep them in their learning zone, the use of the Flexible Thinking Progress Chart is important. The instructor and the student can confer on how easily the task was completed. Using colored markers, pencils, or crayons -‐ the boxes on the chart are filled in enabling the student to stay in his or her optimal learning zone.
By guiding a learner through specific tasks that may be above his/her independent level, the instructor can emphasize connections to what the student already knows in order to help the student gain independence.
By asking METACOGNITIVE QUESTIONS and catering to an individual’s learning style, this program allows the instructor to find a balance between what has already been achieved and the potential for achievement by providing support until the learner is ready to move through the task independently.
To help guide students through the program and to keep them in their learning zone, the use of the Flexible Thinking Progress Chart is important. The instructor and the student can confer on how easily the task was completed. Using colored markers, pencils, or crayons -‐ the boxes on the chart are filled in enabling the student to stay in his or her optimal learning zone.
