Thinkerer Tools to Kid Think: Engineer’s Tale

Concrete is harder than abstract. Take translating the Thinkerer tools into kid talk as an example. Rolls trippingly off the tongue. But the action will be done on one tool at a time. And it may be specific to the particular combination of tool and skill. And parents will care primarily about skills. The Empath insists that a parent will probably think: “I see a problem with skill X (X=getting started, say). What tool do I use and how do I use it?”

Here we revert to the previous partial taxonomy of life learning skills relevant to homework. We use an outline form because it works with text better that tables. We also focus the discussion on daily homework. (We will distinguish several subclasses of homework: daily, test preparation, and projects. These will probably integrate as different subclasses of scripts.)

Getting started. Starting Scripts? TBD. Might call for selecting scripts below.
Start Buttons http://thinkerer.org/HeadView/HeadStartButton.htm
Startalittles. http://thinkerer.org/Tools/ToolsStartaLittle.htm

Task properties: Difficult or boring. These may lead to different starting scripts, although children might describe a task as boring when the main problem is difficulty with underlying skills. Here, I will focus on difficulty.
Starting scripts would be of the general form:

What product and/or ability is the child supposed to have when finished?
What are the alternative routes to get there? (Possible Map)
How will you and the child know when you (both) have won?

The following skills seem relevant to these scripts. I will suggest plans for each in later blogs.

Question-forming and answering (goal setting).
Resource assessment Connect to previous knowledge, use info resources
Multi-module learning. (Memory and reconstruction skills)
Scheduling, pacing, focus, and span of attention
Self-confidence and Canter control.