Appendix for Action learning for neighbourhood improvement – from practice to theory
by Tom Bourner and Asher Rospigliosi
Examples of questions that prompt strategic thinking and questions that prompt reflective thinking.
University academics have acquired a wealth of experience in recognising the presence or absence of critical thinking in student work. How do we detect the presence or absence of critical thinking when we read the work of students? What evidence of critical thinking do we look for when we are assessing the work of students?
We look for evidence that the student can interrogate with searching questions the material with which they have been presented. What sort of searching questions? Table 1 shows a dozen of the kind of questions we recognise as the tools used by a critical thinker in the process of interrogating assertions:
Table 1: Questions as tools for critical thinking
1. What explicit assumptions are being made? Can they be challenged?
2. What implicit/taken-for-granted assumptions are being made? Can they be challenged?
3. How logical is the reasoning?
4. How sound is the evidence for the assertion(s)?
5. Whose interests and what interests are served by the assertions?
6. What values underpin the reasoning?
7. What are implications of the conclusions?
8. What meaning is conveyed by the terminology employed and the language used?
9. What alternative conclusions can be drawn from the evidence?
10. What is being privileged and what is off-the-agenda in this discourse?
11. What is the context of this discourse? From what different perspectives can the discourse be viewed?
12. How generalisable are the conclusions?
When we find evidence of the use, explicitly or implicitly, of these kinds of questions by a student it is reasonable to conclude that the student has developed the capacity for critical thinking. What is the relevance of all this to the development of reflective thinking and strategic thinking which together underpin the powers of learning?
Reflective thinking When a person examines some past experience by asking searching questions of it they are thinking reflectively. Merely reviewing an experience does not constitute reflective thinking; it is as possible to review an experience unreflectively as it is to listen to a talk uncritically.
Just as the process of critical thinking implies asking searching questions so the process of reflective thinking implies asking searching questions. What differentiates reflective thinking about an experience from unreflective thinking is the process of interrogating the experience with searching questions. What sort of searching questions do reflective thinkers use to interrogate their experience? Table 2 contains the type of questions that elicits reflective thinking:
Table 2: Questions as tools for reflective thinking
1. What pattern(s) or themes can you recognise in your experience?
2. What happened that most surprised you? Why did it surprise you? What does that tell you about your prior beliefs?
3. What was the most fulfilling part of it? What does that imply about your values?
4. What was the least fulfilling part of it? And what does that tell you about what you don’t value?
5. How do you feel about the experience now compared with how you felt about it at the time? What does that imply about how you’ve changed?
6. What does the experience suggest to you about your strengths and comparative advantages?
7. What does it suggest to you about your weaknesses and opportunities for development?
8. What did you avoid? What did you risk?
9. What did you learn from the experience about how you react and how you respond?
10. From what other perspectives could you view the experience?
11. What options did you have? Is there anything that you might have done differently?
12. What might you do differently now or in the future as a result of that experience and your reflections on it? What actions do your reflections lead you to?
Strategic thinking When a person interrogates plans to achieve some goal by asking searching questions then they are engaged in strategic thinking. Simply deciding on a course of action does not constitute strategic thinking: it is as possible to pursue a course of action unstrategically as it is to read a book uncritically.
Just as the process of critical thinking implies asking searching questions so the process of strategic thinking implies asking searching questions. What differentiates strategic thinking about a course of action from unstrategic thinking is the process of interrogating that course of action with searching questions. What kind of questions do strategic thinkers use to interrogate their proposed plans? Table 3 contains a dozen of the sort of questions that strategic thinkers use to interrogate a course of action.
Table 3: Questions as tools for strategic thinking
1. What precisely is the goal?
2. What purpose does the goal serve? What values does the goal serve?
3. What are the main obstacles to reaching the goal?
4. Who might already know how to achieve the goal?
5. Who else has an interest in the achievement of the goal i.e. who are the stakeholders?
6. What are the contexts of the ‘project’? Is it part of a larger system?
7. Can the goal be broken down into sub-goals?
8. What are all the possible options?
9. What are the relative merits of the different options?
10. What resources are needed?
11. How can progress be monitored?
12. What evidence could be provided that the goal has been achieved?
Responding to questions like, ‘What do you see as the main obstacles?’ is likely to yield returns in terms of making progress towards a learning goal. A person who is skilled in strategic thinking is more likely to be able to plan and manage their own learning. To be skilled at strategic thinking requires a rich repertoire of productive questions to explore alternative ways of achieving learning outcomes.
When we see evidence of the use by a student of the kinds of questions in table 3 it is reasonable to conclude that the student has developed the capacity for strategic thinking.
Tables 1, 2 and 3 show that critical thinking, reflective thinking and strategic thinking all involve asking searching questions. They are different questions, to be sure, in each of the three domains of thought, but they all share questioning as their core process.