Thinking Maps

08/08/2024  |  School News

St Joan of Arc Catholic School is thrilled to announce the addition of “Thinking Maps” for the 2024-2025 School Year. Thinking Maps is a whole-school, brain-based approach to teaching and learning designed to build foundational critical thinking, problem-solving, comprehension, and communication skills necessary for academic success. The Maps provide a shared visual “language for learning” for our entire school. This will allow students to build upon their skills year after year and carry these traits to the next grade and beyond.

Thinking Maps will make thinking skills visible and concrete. This will assist students who need support with executive functioning. Executive functioning processes are essential for managing and regulating other cognitive activities.

This includes:

1. Planning and Organization: The ability to set goals, create plans, and organize tasks to achieve those goals.
2. Working Memory: The capacity to hold and manipulate information in your mind over short periods.
3. Inhibitory Control: The ability to control impulses, resist distractions, and delay gratification.
4. Cognitive Flexibility: The skill to adapt to new situations, switch between tasks, and think about multiple concepts simultaneously.
5. Self-Monitoring: The capacity to assess and regulate one's own performance and behavior.

These skills are crucial for effective problem-solving, decision-making, and goal-directed behavior.

Traditional learning with the vision to create better thinkers for the future.