Understanding Cognitive Engagement and the Thinking-Based Classroom
Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
—Roger Lewin
Should education focus on ensuring acquisition of knowledge (that is, information, facts, and data) or building skills (creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking)? Traditionally, the behavioral or transmission model emphasized that learning required reciting and reproducing information. This model focuses on transmission of knowledge through delivering content, not on the learner (Koenig, 2010). A thinking-based classroom looks remarkably different. It centers on building students’ skills and their thinking processes (see table 1.1). It is a path to deeper learning, which is a high-leverage strategy to propel learning as students engage in complex tasks.
This all begs the question of what thinking is in the context of learning. To be sure, thinking covers a variety of categories and cognitive levels from information analysis to problem solving and effective collaboration skills. Bloom’s taxonomy revised (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) is a key part of all this, and we’ll cover those connections in detail in chapter 2 (page 11), but in this chapter, we start with a focus on two broad-based concepts that succinctly establish the core aspects of the thinking-based classroom—critical thinking and cognitive engagement.
Table 1.1: Transmission Model Versus Thinking Model
| Transmission Model | Thinking Model |
| • Teacher-centered classrooms • One right way to answer a problem • Focus on grades • Testing culture • Students not allowed to talk • Speedy answers encouraged | • Learning-centered classrooms • Divergent ways to solve a problem • Focus on the learning process • Learning culture • Student discussions of diverse ideas and solutions • Authentic, intellectually demanding work |
Source: Adapted from Ritchhart, 2015.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a common descriptor in modern education, but it’s not always one that teachers truly know how to define. Critical thinking is a reasoned approach to problems, decisions, questions, and issues. This kind of thinking is skillful and a precursor to all learning.
We can all identify times in our lives when we didn’t think critically about a problem, decision, question, or issue. Maybe a few of these examples will resonate with you.
• Dated someone for superficial reasons (such as having nice hair, pretty eyes, or a cool car)
• Decided to go on vacation without considering possible consequences
• Took part in a class or professional development session without focusing on its content or mission
• Took a stance on an issue with little evidence or support
• Considered evidence from an unreliable source
By reflecting on times when you didn’t engage your full cognitive self, you can start examining the attributes that do describe critical (or skillful) thinking. The following list describes the Habits of Mind related to critical thinking (Swartz, Costa, Beyer, Reagan, & Kallick, 2008):
• Persisting at a task that requires thinking
• Managing impulsivity in thinking and acting
• Thinking flexibly
• Striving for accuracy and precision
• Thinking interdependently
• Listening with understanding and empathy
• Communicating with clarity and precision
• Responding with wonderment and awe
• Creating, imagining, and innovating
• Taking responsible risks in thinking
• Finding humor
• Questioning and problem posing
• Applying past knowledge to novel situations
• Gathering data through all the senses
• Remaining open to continuous learning (p. 19)
Which areas of this list are your areas of strength?
Even if you are personally strong in several of these areas, or even if you feel you have strengths in all of them, that is only the start of the process. To truly establish a thinking-based classroom, you need to impart these qualities to each and every one of your students. Education author and consultant David A. Sousa (2011) states, “If something is worth teaching, it is worth teaching well” (p. 150).
Memorizing information does not tend to support transferring the learning to new situations, but when tasks require students to process information deeply and develop understandings, transference is more likely to occur. Being smart isn’t memorizing a lot of facts. Sousa (2011) further emphasizes, “The cognitive research supports the notion that transfer occurs more easily if students have processed the initial learning in ways that promote deep, abstract understanding of the material, rather than emphasizing the rote application of superficial similarities” (p. 159).
True intelligence is the ability to solve problems, apply new learnings, and carefully evaluate. Author Rhoda Koenig (2010) comments, “Without this higher-level processing, we succeed at nothing more than adding to our students’ ‘bank’ of inert knowledge” (p. 22). Research shows that students perceive cognitively challenging tasks as meaningful and intriguing (Marzano & Pickering, 2011). Professor John Hattie (2009) finds cognitive challenge to have an effect size of 0.57 on student learning.
Effect size, which is a numerical representation of an effort’s impact on learning, derives from measuring the impact of implementing a change versus not doing so using an experiment group and a control group (Olejnik & Algina, 2000). An effect size of 0.57 is in the moderate to strong gain range, representing one to two years’ worth of academic growth.
The point of emphasizing all of this is simple: as instruction becomes more complex and stimulating, students become more engaged in the learning process. The question becomes, How do you emphasize critical thinking in your own instructional practices? Education author Bonnie Potts (1994) identifies four key areas important for teaching critical thinking that remain resonant as a core rule set for establishing criticalthinking practices in your classroom.
1. Learning with others in a group setting
2. Posing open-ended questions that are ill-defined and challenge students to think creatively
3. Providing wait time for students to develop their thinking by asking questions, discussing with others, and refining their thinking before responding
4. Practicing critical-thinking skills in various contexts to ensure students apply the skill in new situations
The fifty strategies in this book all place an emphasis on one or more of these key areas, and when you join these aspects of critical thinking with components that foster engagement, your students will fully realize the benefits of a thinking-based classroom.
Cognitive Engagement
Closely related to critical thinking, cognitive engagement refers to the “psychological effort students put into learning and mastering