Conditions for the Development of GT

I found the inner and outer conditions for Global Thinking development.

Inner, personal parameters which determine inner conditions are:

Intelligence Quotient (IQ), Creativity (CR), and Motivation (M).

According to V.N. Druzinin, 1995, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Creativity (CR) are interconnected but orthogonal factors. That means that the level of creativity does not depend on level of IQ, but creativity development is limited by the level of IQ. I found the same correlation between the development of Global Thinking (GT) and values of IQ and CR. These values determine maximum potential of GT. Motivation, influence of educational process (EP) and other possible factors determine how this potential will be used.

Measurements confirmed that Global Thinking

can be formed (GT >= 3) if: IQ >=100, CR1 >=50, CR2 >=40; ( a sign ">=" means greater or equal)

Global Thinking is formed when it reaches at least the third level when a person is able to built a holistic worldview where everything has a certain place in his/her world model.

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I have found an age impact on GT Development. According to psychology researchers, a high school age is the first time when a person assembles his/her own worldview ( I.S.Kon, 1989, D.I.Fieldstain, 1990, etc.). That means person is able since this age to build her/his own opinion for each subject and process in the world. I found theoretically and confirmed experimentally that high school age is the best period of life for GT development via building a holistic worldview.

An exploration of outer conditions which affect the development of Global Thinking I started also with exploring nature of Global Thinking. A consideration of three-parameter model of Global Thinking (please find it in the beginning of the section Global Thinking Scale) works gave me a vision of this process from a different angle and build another model :

1. The width of the potential field of view (global and glocal integrity; glocal means local appearance of global laws, by W. Rudometoff and R.Robertson, 1992)

2. Skills of navigation in this field (interactivity skills in dialogue with the world; sensitivity to the problem which means responsibility for the choice of alternative points and paths leading to the effective solutions).

The structure of the first model reflects the structure of the educational environment (EE), described in the research work of S.V. Tarasov (1996). The structure of the second model reflects the structure of EE, described in the research work of V.N. Druzhinin (1995). The interaction between a person’s structures of thinking and the world defines the genesis and process of functioning GT. In this process, structures of thinking become the same as structures of the world as a whole system. The thinking process becomes integrative, dynamic, and alternative while creating a model of the world. That means thinking becomes global.

This process reflects the above-mentioned “Principle of Unity and Similarity” of a person and the world. So the EE should have the very same structure to be included in that process as a middle part, a connection in the System “a person – the world”. This determines the conditions of GT development in EE. I concluded that students need integrated, dynamic and variable content of the educational program, enriched with educational technologies of сreativity, self-organization ability, and activity development in order to develop integrity, dynamic, and alternativity of thinking.

Looking for those conditions I have found that a process of integration of Curricular and Extracurricular Education forms this environment. Generally the integrative processes in education reflect the integrative processes in all spheres of the contemporary world. I analyzed the research works of process of Integration in education, and concluded that it has four stages. The last stage forms the holistic system of the educational process with the following characteristics:

* Unity of values and principles of Curricular and Extracurricular Education must be worked out.

* Programs in Curricular and Extracurricular Education are developed by completing, correcting, and stimulating each other via the interaction of all subjects within the EP.

* Mobility, flexibility, and the opportunity for the choices dependent upon variable conditions (for example it could be the formation of interdisciplinary lessons and modules in interdisciplinary courses).

These are the characteristics of educational environment for creativity and GT development.

I found the system of parameters of the educational process for GT development.

Outer, educational parameters which determine outer conditions are:

global content in educational program, technologies for creativity development, and the above-mentioned educational environment.

I named these components: env (Environment), cont (Content), dev (Development).To find out the influence of these 3 components of such EP to GT formation, I created and used methods of comparison of the EP in different kinds of St. Petersburg’s schools. I measured the levels of IQ, CR, and GT of each student and found the average value of GT in different classes with different combinations of those 3 components of EP, and then compared these values in different ways.The table below reflects different cases of combinations of 3 personal parameters and 3 educational environment parameters which determine the conditions of GT development. I found combinations of inner and outer conditions for the formation of Global Thinking and other components of Global Education (see below). I have considered all 8 combinations in details.

M- Motivation for solving problems in effective way; IQ- general intelligence; CR – general Creativity;

env-Educational Environment with unity of values and meanings; cont- Global-oriented content of programs; dev- Creativity development via using educational technologies;

GO–Global World Outlook; GT - Global Thinking;GP–Global World Perception.

In all 8 cases, with combinations from those parameters, formation the global worldview is possible. In all cases students with high scores of personal parameters with and without EP could form GT. These conclusions are based on statements that educational interaction could have an impact on:

* Motivation, if EE is participating in worldview formation. (Almost all educational technologies have an impact on motivation);

* More difficult, but possible to creativity (there are many technologies for creativity development);

*Much more difficult to intellect (according to D. Wechsler, 70% of IQ development depends on genetics)

The interconnectedness between those 8 considered cases is described in the attachment to the manuscript where GT is considered as a multivariable function.

This is the whole picture of inner and outer conditions of GT development. There are also the other conditions, on the next levels to inner direction (in genetics), and to the next levels to outer direction (social and environmental). A glimpse of the social conditions which are necessary for GT development as a potential theme of research is given in my manuscript.

I wanted to explore the pure effect of the EP to GT development. I developed a method which could be implemented in measuring impacts of the educational process to any student’s knowledge and skills development. The main idea of this method is eliminating the effects of personal parameters to its development. I eliminated from the total number of students those whose personal parameters were high enough to develop GT without EP, and students whose personal parameters were not enough for GT development even with help of EP. I have evaluated the effect of the EP to the development of GT in different schools (by calculating the percentage of students who developed GT from the students who are left after elimination). I also developed a method of evaluation of pure impact of each parameter of EP to student knowledge and skills, and I had evaluated pure effect of env, cont, and dev for GT development.

Public School # 631 – the Advanced School for Global Education, includes all 3 parameters; ЦВР: EAC, Extracurricular Activities Center (program does not include CONT); public school # 177 – the School of Critical Thinking Development (program includes only DEV); public schools #244 and #331 – schools of ordinary program without global content. For the evaluation of the impact of the use of educational technologies for creativity development I compared students from school 177 to students from schools 244 and 331. Comparing different pairs of schools makes it possible to evaluate the pure impact of each component of the educational process to GT development.

DEV : 177 - 244, and 177 - 331; ENV: EAC - 177; CONT: 631 - EAC.

Dev – use of educational technologies for creativity development; Env – mentioned above educational environment (integrated from Curricular and Extracurricular Education); Cont – global-oriented content of program

Following table illustrates differences between educational processes’ impacts to GT development (presented at the diagram above) in different types of schools in % of students in each class. This is the confirmation of Pedagogical Hypothesis of research that such a components of educational process do impact to GT development.

That means: from 100 students with personal potential of GT formation 36-38 could form GT naturally without significant components of educational process (see the diagram with blue columns above), 29-31 could form GT via educational technologies for creativity development, 12 via mentioned above educational environment, 11-13 via global-orientated content of program, 52-56 with all tree mentioned above components of educational process.Those numbers do not claim to be exact in the other possible conditions. To be proved they need to be verified with much larger numbers of students to make a final conclusion, a minimum of a hundred of each combination of parameters. This verification was not included in my research. The goal of pedagogical part of my research was to confirm the fact of the difference.

However, the whole picture shows that CONT and ENV impacts are approximately equal, and the DEV impact is about 2.5 times more than each of the above. So I supposed that the technologies of creativity development, responsible for thinking structure development, are three times more important for the development of the GT than the other two components of educational process. Experimental results showed that the tree considered educational conditions have an impact on GT development but cannot control and manage this process. I considered the mechanism of GT development and concluded that in these conditions the structures of GT could be developed only by building up global worldview. The process of GT development goes slower because of inertia of the EP effect to the structures of thinking. Inertia means that EP can make a difference much slower to structures of thinking, than to knowledge accumulation and concepts building. To make the formation of GT more efficient, I have developed a special educational technology for GT development which enhances this process, and even enables teachers to increase the level of GT in 9^th graders to the level of 11^th graders.

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