As parents, creating independent learners is our goal. A key part of thinking is spotting topics or situations that need more thought, and where more thought is worthwhile.
“The growth of faith is a thinking hotspot.”
Thinking Hotspots is a routine that makes thinking visible by helping students to see thinking opportunities. This is another thinking routine from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It encourages learners to consider whether an idea is more or less true and more or less important. This greater awareness helps students to spot thinking hotspots in the future.
Making It Work
The spotting hotspots routine is best used for a topic or situation where students have some knowledge already. This is a great strategy for encouraging students to become more alert to situations where they might think more deeply about the truth of something.
Here are the steps to the routine:
- Start by identifying a topic or situation.
- Next, ask the learner to think about the topic or situation and decide whether it is clearly true, clearly false, or somewhere in the middle. Then, the learner must decide whether it is more or less important.
- With that done, the learner places a sticky note on a grid drawn on a flip chart based on truthfulness and importance. Along the bottom of the chart a horizontal axis has true on one side and false on the other. In the middle, a vertical axis has important at the top.
The sticky note can be placed anywhere on the grid, according to the student’s judgment. To encourage deeper thinking, ask questions like, “What makes this idea this way?” This will draw out characteristics that put an idea “in the middle” rather than plainly true or false and important or not important.
Application
To demonstrate, I’d like you to think about faith. Faith is the foundation of Christianity. As Christians, we believe in a living God, who we cannot see. This is not logical. This belief cannot be proven by science. Therefore, faith is central to our understanding of God.
To encourage deeper thinking on this subject, I offer the following specific topic for consideration: “Our faith grows as God answers prayers for little things.” I ask you to reflect on this statement, considering whether this idea is true and whether it is important.
I can definitely say that my father believed this statement to be true. He prayed and believed God for small things. Like the time we were on vacation, traveling in North Carolina. We had a minivan full of people stranded on the side of the road. He had me go outside and open the hood. Then, he prayed for the minivan’s engine. I shut the hood. We got back inside the vehicle and the engine started. It was such a small thing, and yes, we could have called for “roadside assistance.” Thank God for roadside assistance. However, in this example, the direct application of faith gave everyone in that vehicle a chance to grow faith and praise God. It has been many years now and my daughter’s friend, Katie, who was in that minivan, still tells the story of how God healed the minivan.
I’d also place this idea close to the important side of the vertical axis. In my dad’s case, God grew his faith so that he was used to accomplish miraculous healings, even bringing a man back from the dead. God accomplishes mountain-moving miracles for his purpose. His message to us is “All things are possible.” This starts with faith for little things.
Hotspots Encourage Thinking
The growth of faith is a thinking hotspot. This topic launched me into a deeper study of the language of faith. How we speak about faith can provide subtle, yet profound power over our ability to grow. Language helps direct our attention and action. But, pastors are not the only ones who use the language of faith. Teachers, parents, mentors, and others can model “mindfulness” as it relates to faith.
“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
—Matthew 17:20
Copyright © 2023 Chuck Locklear
Also, see Thinking Routines.