The Synthesizing Mind

Working through this unit was difficult for me because I realize that I might not be reaching the needs of my students for developing a synthesizing mind. Although I see my students doing this, it is not an active practice for us in the classroom. After reading through Howard Gardner's "Five Minds for the Future",  I realize I need to be actively engaging my students in this practice.

In order to synthesize, Gardner names four components: A goal, a starting point, a method or approach, and a draft.

One way my students completed these four component this year was through a project involving robots. We read both science fiction and non-fiction texts on robots, We watched an informational fiction film on robots and spent time discussing many advantages and disadvantages of robots. Our goal was to decide what life would be like with robots, we started by gathering as much legitimate information we could on robots, then we decided we would create a narrative to share our thoughts on how our personal life might be different if we had a robot. The final step (draft) came through a digital story. 

I feel that due to the age level of the students, the amount of information, and the difficulty of the final project, students had to use a synthesizing mind in order to demonstrate their understanding of how life would be different with a robot. I have shared two stories below for your enjoyment. 

Gardner, H. (2007). Five minds for the future. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Kindle Edition