This paper introduces the reader to a polyvalent knowledge transfer system called the worksheet system. A pedagogical innovation developed by the author, it has been in use in a variety of settings for over 10 years. The paper also covers two worksheets of the broadest possible application: the first is to promote active listening in lectures and explanations. The second is to make the user aware of how s/he integrates new knowledge.
I. Introduction
Although there is much informal discussion of teaching critical thinking in the social sciences, there are surprisingly few studies about it in the published literature. There have been various studies of how much it is being taught at the university level, and whether it is related to problem solving skills. Even more rare are references to critical thinking and strategic thought, whose weaknesses are linked. However, the conclusions are clear : that critical thinking can be developed by exercises, and that these exercises are more effective when they include representation. Factors that influence the learning of critical thinking are numerous and complex. Critical thinking clearly applies extensively to several skills critical to social science in general, and to political science in particular. Those skills are : distilling a theory or argument into its cogent points; using the scientific method or logical procedure when analyzing information; assessing a theory or argument’s validity; employing conceptual clarity when analyzing theories or arguments; constructing definitions/concepts to use elsewhere; applying a theory or argument to other situations; comparing and contrasting systems; identifying assumptions, biases, viewpoints; assessing credibility of sources; and making and assessing value judgments.
This paper introduces the reader to a polyvalent knowledge transfer system called the worksheet system. A pedagogical innovation developed by the author, it has been in use in a variety of settings for over 10 years. The paper covers two worksheets of the broadest possible application: the first is to promote active listening in lectures and explanations, and for structuring group discussions. The second is to introduce the user to the pedagogical device of the core idea, to give his own thinking the characteristics of underdog strategy. There are three parts to this article: the first describes the worksheets; the second explains their possible uses, and the third discusses a worksheet with the potential to help students or trainees integrate their new knowledge.
II. Description of the worksheet system
The worksheet system is a set of individual forms that leads the student through the process of analysis using a structured set of open-ended questions. It is therefore a structured and organized version of the Socratic method, also similar to that developed by Blake and Mouton. It is also used in the classroom in a variety of disciplines.
The worksheet system makes a number of requirements of the teacher or trainer and the student or trainee. First, the teacher or trainer must understand and be able to articulate the structure of the analytical framework and be able to break it down into a step-by-step process. The teacher must also be able to increase or decrease the level of his or her own abstract thinking, and to do so transparently before the class. The teacher should also fill out the worksheet during the time of the class. If the worksheets are being used in more than one application, the teacher must be able to adapt them as necessary. The worksheets must be varied and they also must be varied in level of difficulty and complexity. Students must have the capacity and the willingness to ask questions before the group; they must also not be convinced that they already know everything they need to know.
There are also structural requirements. First, the learning that is expected of students must be structured, and the worksheet system must reflect that structure. There must be successive levels of learning, and successive levels of awareness of that learning: i.e. it means that students may start with information provided to the, but that must be followed with an immediate application, then the context of the learning can be broader, and so is the application. Ultimately, there must be an awareness of learning about learning, or a reflection of learning as a reflection on one’s practice.
The range of application in military teaching and straining is fairly broad. It includes providing personnel with step by step analysis for active listening in large lecture courses, structuring discussion in small groups, for the analysis of case studies. It is possible there are other applications, such as scientific problem solving for such areas as simulations or war fighting laboratories, although I have yet to explore those applications. In effect, worksheets can help integrate learning as well as for training in analysis or any analytical process. It structures the analysis of just about any situation.
Worksheets are 8.5 by 11 sheets of paper, with questions and boxes in which to answer the questions. The questions are clear and each individual worksheet is deceptively simple. It is the intellectual process through which the user goes through which is the key. Worksheets should be graded, and should always be tied to an immediate task.
II. Two Sample Worksheets
Worksheet 1: Active Listening
This first example is a worksheet designed to have students practice active listening during a lecture on different models of public policy-making. As the lecture progresses, the students are expected to fill in the boxes with the information provided. An active listening worksheet has to be customized to each lecture.
The second example is the Integration Diary. The integration diary’s goal is to help the participant become aware of how s/he learns, so that s/he eventually will be able to become a better learner regarding counterinsurgency. The report is structure to bring the participant to increasing levels of abstraction, i.e. it provides an additional chance to experience telescoping. The form is supposed to be completed in point form only, so that the participant works with individual ideas and concepts, rather than having the chance to be descriptive. The diary must be completed in the space provided to force the participant to choose among various possibilities, and therefore learn what priorities on which to focus. There are no right or wrong answers for this, or any other, worksheet. The point is to make explicit the processes of the participant’s learning.
The instructions to students as to how to fill out are (by column and row):
• Topic of report this is the specific aspect that the participant wishes to analyze in greater detail. There should be only one topic, for example: counterinsurgency, not ‘counterinsurgency and planning.’ The topic should be specific rather than vague. The topic should also be at the same level of generality as the rest of the content of the worksheet.
• In my view, the important components are: here, the participant should break down the topic of his/her choice into components. This process should continue until it is no longer possible to break the topic down any further. The participant then selects the components which will be discussed in the worksheet. Not all components will be analyzed.
• Because: Here the participants gives the reasons why the components selected are important enough to continue to work with. Here the participant must select priorities once again, explicitly. This process occurs in everyday life, but it is not explicit.
• Links with previous learning in strategic thinking: here, the participant must think over what s/he has learned about strategic thinking in the past, and identify where the topic under consideration connects with what s/he already knows.
• My thoughts about this topic are: the reason for this box is that the participant will have a wide range of reactions to the learning that has just occurred. This box allows him/her to make those thoughts explicit, and also to provide him/her with the opportunity to set them aside for future consideration, if necessary. The participant is now less encumbered with other thoughts to continue the analysis.
• I have a better understanding of: for the learning to be genuine, there has to be a greater comprehension of some, possibly several, phenomena. In this box, the participant is expected to provide at least one of these.
• I am more effective at: for the learning to be genuine, there has to be a change in behavior. That change can be either an improvement in an existing behavior, or a change in the probability that a particular action or course of action will be chosen. In this box, the participant is expected to list at least one such improvement.
• I am more likely to: for the learning to be genuine, there has to be a change in behavior. Sometimes that behavior is mental or psychological. That change can ebe either an improvement in an existing behavior, or a change in the probability that a particular action or course of action will be chosen. In this box, the participant is expected to list at least one such change in probability.
In the last three boxes, the participant must become very specific and concrete about what the learning has done for him/her.
• I want to learn more about: learning is a chain, and in an earlier box the participant was required to identify what previous learning on this topic s/he had done. Here, the participant must identify what s/he would most want to study next.
• What I can use: of the learning that has occurred and has been identified, the participant must now select what has practical or immediate applications in his/her responsibilities or life. In this box, the participant must identify the elements of learning that he can actually apply.
• Where? Of the learning that has occurred and has been identified, the participant must now specify what applications exist for the elements of learning that s/he has identified. It is important for participants to be as specific as possible.
III. Conclusion
The greatest obstacle to the acceptance of this knowledge and the employment of it is what Pierre Bourdieu has called the habitus. Habitus is the system of durable, transferable dispositions produced by the conditioning associated with a particular class of conditions of existence. The conditions of existence produce generating, organizing principles of practice and of mental representation of situations, which can be objectively adapted in their aim, but without the awareness of those aims and the mastery explicit of the operations necessary to attain them. The facilitator or leader must judge for him/herself whether participants or readers are capable of this evolution, the scope of which is beyond this book. The reader’s ally in using these new definitions of strategy will be what has been called thin-slicing, or the ability of the unconscious to find patters in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience. The adaptive unconscious (not to be confused with the Freudian concept of the unconscious) is thought of as a giant data processing plant that quickly and quietly processes a lot of the data we need in order to keep functioning. There are times, particularly in times of stress, where the adaptive unconscious is critical. The adaptive unconscious is certainly fallible, but it can also be trained.
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