7 Conclusion Reading is a core activity in most courses of study. The purpose of it is to enable you to learn. But learning is not a passive process, you don't just let ideas wash over you. You have to make sense of them as you read and then use them to think with. 5.2 Thinking for yourself These are the kinds of questions you need to ask in order to read critically. As a higher-level student, you don't read simply to ‘find out facts’. It is assumed that you will think for yourself and question what you read and hear. The ‘truth’ is taken to be uncertain, so you weigh up ideas and arguments as you read about them. According to Marton and Saljo (1997, p. 49) research shows that successful students read as if they are constantly asking themselves questions of the kind: ‘ 5.1.3 Does the argument follow logically? As I was making sense of paragraph 3, I did pause to consider whether it was logically possible to say that on average richer people are happier, yet getting richer has not made us happier. Later, when I read that women in the US were less happy since their incomes had come closer to men's, it occurred to me that they would be unlikely to volunteer to revert to previous levels of inequality. This made me question what happiness really means, if it is not necessarily a state that a person woul 1 The experience of reading The best way to develop your understanding of the reading process is to follow the principles of the Kolb learning cycle, by doing some reading and then reflecting on your experience. To this end, Activity 1 asks you to read an extract from an article by Richard Layard (2003) titled ‘The secrets of happiness’ which appeared in the New Statesman. To keep the task manageable I have reduced the article to half its original length and, for ease of reference, paragraph num 9 Putting it all together We have covered a wide range of aspects of thinking, particularly those concerned with clear and critical thinking. At this stage, you may find it useful to consider how ideas like these can be put together in ways that will help you when you engage in activities such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. Here is a checklist to use when making judgements about things that you hear, see and experience. Who is speaking or writing? 8.1 Balanced argument In many instances, we are not just concerned with arguing a particular case or taking a particular point of view, we are interested in looking at all sides of an issue and producing a balanced argument. This can be helpful in drawing conclusions on an issue. 7.4 Visual tools Organising thought can be assisted greatly by the use of visual tools. These can include diagrams, mind-maps, tables, graphs, time lines, flow charts, sequence diagrams, decision trees or other visual representations. The process of making visual representations can itself involve using and developing a range of thinking skills, particularly higher order skills. So, whether you need the resulting product or not they can be worth doing. However, the resulting product can also provide an 7.2 Other ways of structuring thought Distinguishing between generals and particulars can help you in reading, note taking and writing for your course. But, looking at things in a hierarchical general-particular way is only one approach to giving structure to ideas and information. 5 Other people Other people can be one of the best tools for developing your thinking. Engaging with others, for example in debate and discussion (either face-to-face or at a distance) is how we most effectively develop our thinking and construct knowledge. This is why many educational institutions encourages, for example: dialogue with a tutor in writing (through the assignments) participatory learning methods such as group activities in tutorials< 4 A thinking disposition and the process of development In order to make effective use of opportunities for developing your thinking, you need to develop a thinking disposition as well as thinking skills. The following checklist covers some of the important elements of a thi 3.2 Looking at the thinking a further education course involves A further education course will provide many practical opportunities for developing thinking. These will be integrated into activities such as: reading texts; doing in-text activities and self-assessment questions; listening to tapes; watching videos and TV programmes; making notes; doing assignments and reflecting on assignment feedback; doing exams; participating in tutorials; attending day schools, workshops and residential schools; participating in self-help groups; talking to a tutor; pl 5.6 Reflecting forward – what am I going to do next? This is the last part of the unit but in some ways it is the most important. There will have been little point to your study if all you do is look back at what you have learned about yourself and your capacity to use Learning to change. It only really becomes significant if you use your learning in future to reach new goals. So we would like you to do two more activities. As we said at the start of this section, these activities can be seen as the start of a new cycle of personal learn 3.3 Your learning – what does ‘theory’ offer? The previous section of this section focused on using feedback to enhance what you already know about your qualities, knowledge and skills. This section explores how you might draw on theory in the same way. However, it can be very difficult to include theory with other sorts of understanding. Let’s start by thinking about why it might be useful to pay some attention to what theories about learning have to say. This leads on to a brief discussion about the difficulties that can arise 1.2 What’s in this unit? As you have probably realised from reading this far, there are also other aspects to the unit. We will have a look at these in a moment. This unit is divided into five sections including this introduction. Each section encourages you to see how learning can underpin personal change. Section 1 (this section) – Introduction. This section introduces the unit. It gives you an idea of how the unit is structured and what approaches to learning and change it takes. Section 2 – 1.2.6 Learning new computing skills There are several principles for learning new computing skills: Don't be afraid to try things out and explore. You almost certainly won't do any harm by making mistakes – modern software will usually let you undo errors, and will warn you before performing potentially damaging actions. Look for patterns. Find the differences and similarities between the ways in which things are done in different software, so you can begin to guess w 9.3.1 Establish opportunities for using skills in working with others You need to identify activities that will provide you with opportunities for working with others over a period of 3 months or so. This could involve both one-to-one and group situations, such as working on a particular project at work, a group project as part of your course or e-conferencing on a group assignment. 8.5.3 Negotiate the option to be taken forward In many contexts problem-solving activities will involve other people. You may need to seek permissions, advice, support and resources from a range of people, such as your tutor, manager, group or team colleagues, or others who may have authority over or be affected by your work. Some aspects of negotiation are: gaining the co-operation of colleagues, as necessary; establishing the availability of resources, including staffing;< 8.5.1 Generate a variety of ways of tackling problems Where the best way, or, indeed, any way, of tackling a problem is not obvious, there are a number of tools and techniques which can be useful to stimulate ideas and different ways of thinking:
reasoning: reaching conclusions or deciding on paths of action by means-end analysis or critical-path analysis;
matching: recognising similarities with other situations, drawing analogies, adapting solutions that have worked or s 8.5 Monitoring progress This stage is about keeping track of your progress. Are you tackling your problem-solving activities effectively? How do you know? Could you have done things differently, made use of different tools (such as software packages) or facilities, taken more advantage of tutorials, training sessions or local expertise, or recognised that such support would have helped you? Monitoring your own performance and progress needs practice; try to stand back and look at what you are doing as if you w 7.6.5 Identify ways of further developing your number skills Think about your overall number skills and suggest areas where you feel you need to improve, based on the experience you have gained. You might find it useful to discuss with a tutor, manager, another student or work colleague how you might do this. There may be changes you feel you need to make so that you can move forward, such as trying to extend the facilities and resources available to you, changing the way you study to make best use of the time you have, or focusing on improving your ow
Key points
Activity 14
Activity 5
Time out
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