Flexible thinking

In my last article, I wrote about the important area of Executive Functioning which has 8 key areas: Impulse control, Emotional control, Flexible thinking, Working memory, Self-monitoring, Planning and prioritising, Task initiation and Organisational skills. These are important skills for everyday life and academic success.

In this article, I want to focus on flexible thinking. For many of us, we like routine and the predictable pattern of each day. We feel comfortable when we succeed in tasks using the same approach each time. However, life and learning are not predictable and we do need to be able to adapt to new tasks and situations. We need to be able to accept that not everything is straightforward with one fixed answer.  Many situations and activities can be dealt with in a range of ways with varying degrees of success. Some students struggle when their familiar routine is disrupted or when task is more complicated than they initially thought. So flexible thinking and resilience needs to be modelled and taught.

As the curriculum becomes more complex, students need to be able interpret information in different ways and see other people’s point of view.  Tasks like reading comprehension, writing to explain ideas or opinions, understanding events in history or interpreting observations in science all require flexible thinking. Students need to balance concepts and ideas, look for evidence and shift between different ways of thinking before settling on the best solution for that situation.

Many believe that success is largely down to hard work and determination. However, if we keep approaching a situation in the same way time and time again without success, it can lead to frustration. Sometimes to succeed, we need accept there is a different way forward. This is where flexible thinking is vital to overcome difficulties by selecting a different approach. This may be a method we are less familiar with or confident in, but without practising this new method we can not make progress. The ability to try something new and move out of our ‘comfort zone’ can lead to can lead to both personal and academic growth.

Teachers can promote flexible thinking particularly in Primary and lower Secondary by regularly including open-ended tasks in their lessons. Initially students may need some scaffolding to help them to know how to get started with an open-ended task. They may also needed to be guided through the thinking process step by step, with a view to providing less support each time an open-ended task is presented.  In maths for example, they may need to be taught different problem solving approaches like trial and improvement, working systematically, making a pictorial representation through simple problems. Then over time they can be encouraged to look at a problem and select which method they think is best. Nrich is a good source of maths problems for different ages and levels https://nrich.maths.org/

Another important element in developing flexible thinking is create an environment where there is an acceptance of different points of view and different approaches. Students need to be encouraged to question and move away from the idea that teacher has all the answers. Encouraging students to work collaboratively with different students each time can also broaden their thinking. Students can learn a lot from discussing the range of solutions that can be found and evaluating the positives and negatives of any given solution as a class.  This allows students begin to see that in many situations there is not one ‘correct’ answer. Activities like 'Thunks' are a low risk why of developing flexible thinking. They can encourage discussion and help develop an acceptance that there can be many solutions.

 https://www.independentthinking.co.uk/resources/posts/2020/april/thunks/