Expert: Matthew Hiebert - 3/23/2009

Question
"
 dear Mr,

I am a young Moroccan doctor and during my exercise i have observed that many children(that i love very very very much) have problems in solving problems and problems related to emotional intelligence if we compare them to others at the same age. for this Reason i am thinking about creating a center as a small business for teaching children these skills but there is a problem because i am just a man who is interested in this fields but i have no training about this and there is no available training in my country and the e-learning programs are very expensive for me. for this this reason i am writing to you with the hope to get from advice if i can train my self using books, forums....to get the necessary knowledge to launch my dream business and train others who will work with me.
Thank you very much."

Answer
Greetings,

Your question touches a very important area.  There are a great many resources available for those who are interested in critical thinking, problem solving and emotional intelligence.  I work quite a lot in the first two areas.  I would be happy to share some resources as I find them, or to help with other advice, but in order to be the most helpful to you, it would be easiest if you could identify some clear question... Your intention is clear to me, but the topic is so big it's difficult to respond.

In terms of inexpensive resources for helping students to develop good thinking skills, the best I have found are the simple books at:
http://www.criticalthinking.org/bookstore/index.cfm
They are concise and well priced, and also quite insightful. They are geared more towards older learners, secondary and college level, but the ideas are useful for younger children as well.

For free online resources which will help you scaffolding the thinking of children, I recommend just spending some good time online following links.  You might start inside wikipedia even.  

Here are a few ideas:
Bloom's Taxonomy is helpful in getting us to think about our own thinking and the kind of thinking we engage other in.  This link has some "question cues" for the different levels of thinking, which helps us to phrase questions at all levels:
http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learning/exams/blooms-taxonomy.html

Other questioning strategies are also helpful in getting kids to thinking more deeply about their own thinking.  Try starting with this page:
http://www.changeminds.org/techniques/questioning/socratic_questions.htm

I'm happy to try to provide more help if you want to follow up with additional questions.

Right now I'm overseas doing some consulting, and don't have steady internet access, but I'll do my best to respond as quickly as I can.

I applaud you for your interest in helping children with their cognitive development.  

Best of luck!

Matt