Module 7 - Using the Seeing Reason Tool to Target Thinking Skills
Activity 7.3
Step 2: Understanding What Makes a Good Project
A good project that incorporates the Seeing Reason Tool grows out of a real-world problem with complex relationships. Helping learners sort through complex relationships is what the Seeing Reason mapping tool does best. For learner investigations, it is usually best to frame a problem in the form of an open-ended question or problem statement that requires higher-order thinking skills. The tool supports cycles of investigation where learners gather what they know, organize that knowledge into a map, investigate whether their initial concepts are supported by evidence, revise their maps, and then use their new understanding to make decisions and plans of action to answer questions of the larger project.
When designing a project that incorporates the Seeing Reason Tool, it is important to consider the following project characteristics:
The project is complex, preferably connecting to real-world problem-solving. The Seeing Reason Tool is a useful mapping tool in the investigation of an area of a project that involves multiple influences (factors) that impact other outcomes in a system. The context should have sufficient complexity; that is, it should have a high level of interaction among the factors. From the learners’ initial investigations, which are supported by the Seeing Reason Tool, they develop further plans of action, decisions, or conclusions to answer the larger questions of the project.
- The project has a meaningful Research Question that requires investigation of an issue or concept involving cause and effect. The research question is the direct question that learners will answer in their causal map. This question must be open-ended so that learners are challenged to explore many possibilities. The question should be designed to capture learner interest, encourage in-depth discussion and research, and set the stage for further questioning. The research question and the resulting investigation serve to provide a foundation on which learners build to answer the larger questions or issues of the project.
| For example, the question “What causes ice?” would probably produce a map with relatively few factors and fairly direct relationships. However, the additional factors and relationship complexity found in answering “What is causing the poles to melt?” would justify the need for map building. This question, in turn, would help learners to understand the larger problem of how to prevent unnatural climactic changes from occurring, allowing learners to continue their research and develop recommendations based on their initial assessment of the effects on climate. |
The problem is influenced by factors that can be measured, observed, or verified. When learners must limit factors to things they must “prove” in some way, they are required to think carefully and critically about cause and effect.
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The project is interdisciplinary. A good project is one that can be studied from the vantage point of many disciplines. While a social studies teacher might design a project that looks at the causes and effects of the gangsterism from a historical perspective, an interdisciplinary approach might include a variety of learner project choices about gangsterism , such as researching the resulting literature and music of the period, the repercussions in the worldwide economy, and/or the effects of the redistribution of population.
