Productive Thinking for Skillful Teaching
Workshop

Presenter(s): Taisir Subhi Yamin

This workshop provides an overview of skilful teaching and how to employ it effectively in the classroom settings. It was designed for: Heads of schools, elementary and post-secondary teachers, guidance counselors, interested undergraduate and graduate students (prospective teachers), teacher training personnel, and gifted programmes coordinators.

Attending this workshop will: Increase the self-efficacy of teachers towards their professional task; Introduce teachers to a set of discrete skills and strategies whereby they may become more aware, knowledgeable as professionals and thereby more self-efficacious; Establish the importance of productive thinking capability as an approach for skillful teaching; and by combining knowledge and understanding at this time raise skill levels in teachers.

This workshop will enable you to define, discuss, and demonstrate the meaning and value of major components emphasized in this workshop; learn and understand the major components of the workshop; have participants reflect upon their own teaching practices in the light of workshop components; and demonstrate/ share their learning and understanding through interactive participation in discussion/ seminars among colleagues.

In addition, this workshop will address the following topics:
(1) What is productive thinking? Personality & motivational factors in productive thinking;
(2) Visualization and Idea generating techniques; product improvement;
(3) Productive Thinking and Cooperative Learning;
(4) Mental Process as the starting background;
(5) Thinking frameworks (e.g., Creative Thinking; Critical Thinking; Creative Problem Solving; Future Problem Solving; Communication; and Collaboration);
(6) Productive Thinking Skills;
(7) Strategies and action plans to create a thoughtful, interactive, up-to-date educational environment;
(8) Practical activities in productive thinking; and putting it all together: teaching and promoting productive thinking.