We all have heard words like ‘Problem’, ‘Options’, etc., so often that we have stopped questioning what these words mean? Do they mean the same thing for everybody? Do we have a standard definition, which is the same for everyone? How do we impart the cognitive process or mental action associated with these words to our children? 

To resolve the issue associated with an experiential understanding of these words, we have created a list of such words whose meanings you can deliver through Konshius’ games to your children. And, we call this list Thinkabulary®. Ever heard about it? Well, you guessed it right! We coined this word at Konshius. 

In simple words, Thinkabulary words are those which do not have a definite meaning. For example, while words such as ‘pen’ will always refer to a concrete entity, i.e. an instrument for writing or drawing with ink (Ref; Oxford definition), there exist words like ‘Pattern’, ‘Possibility’ that have more depth and have meanings beyond what the words can convey. So simply put, these words are conceptual in nature. Thus, the meanings and explanations of such words vary from person to person. Don’t believe us? You can test it. You will hear many different versions as each person perceives these words differently. Why? Because of the different contexts in which each one of us learned the usage of these words. Thus, it becomes essential that we create the proper context for our children to understand the meanings of such words holistically. 

I will start with two conceptual words to build upon this topic gently, ‘Possibility’ and ‘Options’. In the day-to-day usage of language, ‘Possibilities’ & ‘Options’ are often used interchangeably. But is that the correct way to perceive them? Even though we might have been using them as synonyms in our daily conversations and interactions, possibilities and options are not synonyms in the cognitive world of experiences. The ability to identify different ways/outcomes is called ‘Possibility’. And, they are always based on a context, environment or situation. After exercising the ability to identify possibilities, what comes out is called ‘Options’.

So, in our real life, when we straightaway give options to our children, without helping them first identify possibilities (i.e. the process of generating options in the environment), we are unknowingly making the children skip a process of learning – A process of ‘how to understand an environment and ‘how to identify possibilities in that environment.

This is a concept loop that needs to be delivered to the children effectively. Why? 

Because the way one looks at the environment creates possibilities; these possibilities then become options; the availability of options makes us choose what we choose; what we choose becomes opportunities, and these opportunities then translate to success. What if we say that you can deliver all of this through Konshius game-based learning? That you can make your child learn this concept loop as an experience, rather than just a phrase to remember?

To do this for you, we have created a ‘Thinkabulary Card’ specifically for each of our games. And, in these cards, we have shared a few words whose experiential meanings can be delivered in the context of that particular game. You can use the game-playing experiences to impart these words to your child. We request you not to see these words from the dictionary perspective but as a concept whose meaning you can deliver through the experience of playing the game. 

In my earlier blog, I have written about Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. For those unfamiliar with it, this is one such taxonomy followed by schools and colleges across the globe for defining and mapping the learning outcomes. I have shared a few things there to open a new perspective on this taxonomy. So do take time to read it to dive deeper into questions like how do children learn? How can we equip our children for those unknown situations where there is no scope to fall back upon the past memorised content? Etc.

I welcome you all to stay connected and bookmark this page so that you are the first ones to read when we post new updates here.

In our previous blogs, we discussed that;

1. The first dimension of the taxonomy refers to the ‘Nouns’ that describe the content (knowledge) that is meant to be learned.
2. The second dimension focuses on the ‘Verbs’ that describe what the children need to learn so that they know what to do with that content. It focuses on the cognitive processes (mental behaviour or actions) the child has to use to be able to work with the ‘knowledge’. 

Today, we will dive deeper into the 1^st dimension, i.e. Knowledge dimension of the taxonomy and discuss how a child’s ability to ‘how to think’ and ‘how to learn’ is a result of the interactions between these two dimensions.  

To understand this further, let’s dip our feet into the categorisation of the first dimension, which will help us understand the content (knowledge) that the child is meant to learn. These four categories explain the first dimension.

1. Factual knowledge – It refers to the basic elements of any discipline that is discrete and comprises bits and pieces of information. It facilitates a child to learn discipline. The two subtypes of factual knowledge are:
   a. Knowledge of terminology 
   b. Knowledge of specific details and elements
2. Conceptual Knowledge – This refers to understanding the interrelationships between the elements of a larger structure that enables them to function together. The three subtypes of conceptual knowledge are:
   a. Knowledge of classifications and categories
   b. Knowledge of principles and generalisations
   c. Knowledge of theories, models and structures
3. Procedural Knowledge – This type refers to the knowledge concerned with the question – “how to do something?” It involves methods of inquiry and criteria for using a skill, the knowledge of algorithms, techniques, knowing the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of any situation. The subcategories of procedural knowledge are: 
   a. Knowledge of specific skills and algorithms
   b. Knowledge of specific techniques and methods
   c. Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use the appropriate procedure
4. Metacognitive Knowledge – The fourth type of knowledge involves the knowledge of cognition in general. It is concerned with knowing and being aware of one’s cognition. It can also be called ‘thinking about thinking.’ The subcategories of metacognitive knowledge are: 
   a. Strategic knowledge
   b. Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge
   c. Self-knowledge

Now that we have gained an understanding of both the dimensions, it is ideal to know that the interaction between these two dimensions gives rise to the Taxonomy table in which one can locate the junction of the classifications of any ‘Learning Objective’ under Noun (1^st dimension) and Verb (2^nd dimension)’. Now the question that stands is; 

How does this table help educators, trainers, instructional designers, teachers and, of course, parents?

This taxonomy table helps everyone understand the educational objectives. Both the dimensions are presented in the following table that can be used to write clear and focused objectives. Let’s have a quick look at the table and understand how it works.

Two Dimensions – Knowledge versus Cognitive Domains

With the help of the Taxonomy table, one can locate the learning objective. To make meaning of the objective, first of all, the verb and noun of the objective need to be identified. The verb is identified in terms of the six cognitive domains, and the noun is identified in terms of four types of knowledge. Placing the objective based on such examination will then reveal the interaction between the two dimensions. Let’s take an example where the learning objective is – “learn to apply to recycle”. Could you figure out the noun and the verb in the objective?

The verb here is ‘apply’, which straight away fits into the cognitive domain of ‘Applying’. Further, recycling refers to a procedure or method, and as we have already read, this belongs to the ‘Procedural’ knowledge. Therefore, the objective is to be placed where applying and procedural knowledge interact (shown in the table by ‘X’). So simple, isn’t it? However, the classification can sometimes become quite challenging when the objective involves more than one noun and/or cognitive domain. 

We believe – excellent curriculum planning, lesson planning, delivery planning and assessment planning can only come alive if the learning goals are to be achieved, activities used to achieve these goals and the assessment of goals are all aligned with each other. If not, there will always be gaps between the intention and outcomes. And that is precisely how we have structured the curriculum & delivery at Konshius, through such detailed mapping. 

At Konshius, we have designed a game-based learning system focusing on the ‘Creating domain’ and ‘Metacognitive Knowledge’. A system where children tap into their inner abilities with optimum utilisation of their learning potential. Through the game-playing experiences, we uncover their thinking abilities to nurture their full potential, all while having fun. 

This journey of uncovering learning will not stop for Konshius. And, it should not stop for you. So, keep discovering yourself and newer ways of learning!

In our previous blog, we discussed the six cognitive domains that make the 2^nd dimension of the taxonomy – Verbs. In this blog, we will explore their application and go deeper into some of these ‘mental action words,’ i.e. verbs as per this Taxonomy. Let’s take a step further and focus on the 250+ cognitive skills that have been distributed in these six domains. We have listed a few skills here, and let’s go through them briefly;

6 Cognitive Domains & Thinking skills as per Bloom’s taxonomy

As you see in this grid, each of these six domains has a list of verbs, i.e. thinking skills. Would you please look at each skill and try to define them in your terms? Do they all mean the same? Or are they completely different in meaning? Are some of them often used interchangeably? How do they play a part in one’s life experiences?

As you see in this grid, each of these six domains has a list of verbs, i.e. thinking skills. Would you please look at each skill and try to define them in your terms? Do they all mean the same? Or are they completely different in meaning? Are some of them often used interchangeably? How do they play a part in one’s life experiences?

Let’s understand it better with an example. We would be looking at two sets of words from two different domains that we often use in our daily lives with our children, be it at school or home.

1. For the first set, let’s take ‘Selecting’ from the ‘Understanding domain’ and ‘Choosing’ from the ‘Applying domain’.
2. For the second set, let’s look at ‘Imagining’ and ‘Visualising’, both from the ‘Creating domain’.

For the first set, I want you to do this exercise of defining how these two words – ‘Selecting and Choosing’ – are different from each other. I have seen umpteen instances where these words are used interchangeably in the education system as well as at home. That might be because ‘Selecting’ and ‘Choosing’ are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation and even in our classrooms. However, upon careful consideration, you will realise that their meanings are quite different and the mental behaviour associated with them are also distinctive. Well, for this reason, this taxonomy quite consciously has these two words in separate domains because they are indeed different.

For the second set, both the words – ‘Imagining and Visualising’ – are from the same ‘Creating domain’. Now, you might wonder that since both are from the same domain, they ought to be synonymous. However, just like in the first set, the words in the second set also have different meanings. Additionally, the mental actions underlying them are not similar. Pretty interesting! Right?

Let’s do one more exercise to take our understanding a step ahead. In the ‘Creating domain’, you will see the word ‘Collating’. Now scan the entire list of thinking skills and think of those 3, 4 or 5 verbs (from any of the six domains) that can synthesise together to form the mental action or behaviour associated with the word ‘Collating.’ Initially, it might seem like a challenge, but you would be surprised to discover for yourself how the meaning of commonly known words change just by looking at them closely from the space of cognitive or mental actions.

Before we dive deeper, let us take a moment to think about the following questions;

1. When we teach our children, do we really use these verbs based on the mental actions or cognitive meanings associated with them?
2. Do we impart to our children the thinking behaviour or mental actions that these words are supposed to create?
3. Do we create learning activities and design assessments based on the associated mental actions, or is it done based on commonly understood meanings of these words?

Now that we have successfully looked at a few words, let’s ask ourselves – ‘Will our children learn the best through the bottom-up approach, i.e. go up the ladder from ‘Remembering’ to ‘Creating’ domain or the whole system needs to be redesigned to suit the child’s learning needs in this modern world? When “Creating’ is the endpoint that we want our children to reach, then shouldn’t our education system be designed top-down, i.e. ‘Creating’ becomes the core of every learning objective, and then the movement is towards ‘Applying’ and ‘Understanding’.

Imagine the extent of children’s potential that could be unlocked if the whole system was upside down. It would have been such a wonderful and different world for our children’s learning if they were allowed to start their journey from ‘Creating domain’ as the stepping stone. But sometimes, these visions do transform into reality, and it is right here at Konshius!

With Konshius’ game-based learning, the hierarchy has been viewed in an upside-down manner. We have embedded the entire list of 250+ skills in the design of our games’ activity-based curriculum progression. We have taken this design a step further by creating single-player and multiplayer games, where multiplayer games are built on the cognitive learning of single-player games.

So in these two blogs, we explored mental actions or verbs quite well. It is pretty clear how cognitive processes contribute to meaning-making and generate products of knowledge. Now, you might wonder what is ‘knowledge’? What are these mental actions working towards? Well, that is a story for Part 3. Till then, keep deconstructing words around you and looking for new meanings!

I welcome you all to stay connected and bookmark this page so that you are the first ones to read when we post new updates here.

The key question that we all need to ask ourselves is – “Are we equipping our children to deal with these unknown situations where there is very limited scope to fall back upon the past memorised content?”

To understand this problem better, let’s jump into understanding the mental action words or verbs as per Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. But, before we do that, what is a Taxonomy? To put it simply – A taxonomy is a form of hierarchy or classification or a scientific system of arranging things.

The taxonomy that we are discussing in this blog was first published in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, famously known as Bloom’s Taxonomy. Anderson and Krathwohl and a group of cognitive psychologists in 2001 produced Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching and Assessing – A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives from now on referred to as the revision. Bloom’s unidimensional model was revised to a model having two dimensions, namely, nouns and verbs, where:

1. Nouns describe the content (knowledge) that is meant to be learned.
2. Verbs describe what the children need to learn so that they know what to do with that content. It focuses on the cognitive processes (mental behaviour or actions) the child has to use to be able to work with the ‘knowledge’. 

Since mental action words or verbs are the spotlights of this blog, we are making a conscious choice to explain the second dimension of the taxonomy, i.e. Verbs, before describing the 1^st dimension, i.e. knowledge domains, of this taxonomy (we will be discussing the 1^st dimension in the next blog).

The 2^nd dimension in the revised taxonomy changed the terminology, i.e. the names of the earlier categorised six Cognitive Domains. The names of these cognitive process categories were changed to imply action, as thinking is an active engagement process. It also changed the hierarchy by bringing the earlier categorised highest order domain of ‘evaluation’ a step below the ‘creating’ domain. To simply put the rationale behind it – a person can evaluate information without being creative, but creative thinking requires some form of evaluation and critical thinking to be done to evaluate the effectiveness of creative thinking. Let’s dive deeper into each of these six domains and understand how our children think and learn.

1. Remembering– At this stage, children can recognise or retrieve specific facts, definitions, or lists from the long-term memory. However, they might not be able to understand the information at this level of cognition. 
2. Understanding – This stage involves getting hold of the meaning of the presented information, i.e. grasping the definitions, concepts etc. This means children can determine the meaning of instructional messages in various forms of communication, i.e. oral, written & graphic. 
3. Applying – At this stage, children can use already learnt information in various other situations that might or might not be familiar, and they can carry out or use a procedure in a given situation. 
4. Analysing – At this level, children can break down information into its parts and find out how these parts are related to one another and an overall structure or purpose. 
5. Evaluating – At this level, children can judge how valuable the piece of presented information is or how reliable the source of information is based on their values or opinions. They can make judgments based on standards or personal views. 
6. Creating – This is the final level in the cognitive processes hierarchy referred to as children’s ability to creatively and uniquely apply prior knowledge to give birth to novel ideas, thoughts and processes, involving reorganising patterns of information to make a functional whole and an original product.

Now that we have explored these six cognitive domains, let’s understand how these domains work. The six domains in the taxonomy have always been seen as sequential and hierarchical. They rely on this assumption that until the time ‘Remembering’ skills aren’t well developed in the children, they cannot move to the next levels of the cognitive abilities like ‘Understanding’, ‘Applying’ and all the other higher domains up in the sequence.

Given the advancement and requirements of the modern world, where long-term memory might fail to catalyse the generation of new ideas and solutions, the hierarchical structure of the taxonomy might not hold. It might fail in situations that require the use of ‘Working memory or Executive Functions’ of the brain to do problem-solving, decision-making etc. 

This then calls for a need to bring in alternate methods of learning for our children which does not rely on memorisation or long-term memory. A system of learning where the importance is not on building the memorisation capacity of the child but the ability to process information presented through short-term memory by using critical thinking. And that’s precisely where Konshius comes in! Bloom’s revised taxonomy and Konshius’ framework meet on the way to answer the question – “What is cognitive learning?” 

Konshius has always been critical about the unnecessary attention given to memorisation. The vision of Konshius is to create a more inclusive approach to education that does not depend on the storage of content but on nurturing the individual capabilities of each child. As a result, our pedagogy moves away from the conventional way of viewing learning based on the accumulation of facts and information. At Konshius, the focus is more on making meaning of the subjective experiences rather than reducing the mental functions to recreating already stored information. 

And we do all this through scientifically designed game playing experiences. The games at Konshius are designed to make use of the information presented in the context of games without relying on retrieval of information from the long-term memory. Through this, the children prioritise their sense of understanding to grasp the game elements and playing instructions. And, we made a conscious decision while designing our games that these elements and instructions should not take more than a minute for children to start playing the game. Furthermore, our pedagogy team ensured that all our games are free from any kind of long-term memory based content, including even the dependency on language skills, and are free from any type of social, cultural and academic barriers or interpretations. This enabled our games and instructions to be explained through sign language or visual demonstration. Grounded in our values, we are also working towards making these games relevant for the visually impaired. Thus making our learning games genuinely inclusive.

In our next blogs(Konshius’ & Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy – Part 2> and <Konshius’ & Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy – Part 3>), we will delve deeper into the 1^st and 2^nd dimensions of the taxonomy by looking at some exciting examples. I welcome you all to stay connected and bookmark this page so that you are the first ones to read when we post new updates here. 

There is an overbearing expectation for all children to be proficient at the same sets of academic competencies. Being conditioned to believe that textbook education is the only way for proper learning, a lot of us struggled and are still struggling with what we call 21st Century skills.

These are the skills that are focused on “how to learn” rather than “what to learn”. These are the skills that are focused on “how to think” rather than “what to think”. These skills are not something that can be memorised through books, nor can they be reproduced by all the children through our current examination system. Then, how can these skills be imparted in the appropriate way catering to the individual needs of each child?

Before we move on, we need to understand what these 21st Century skills are. As per various researchers and bodies, these include primarily learning skills with the 4 C’s, digital literacy skills and life skills.

• Learning skills enhance a child’s capacities to adapt to the modern world; they increase the child’s problem-solving abilities, foster creative thinking, help in understanding the dynamics of teamwork and communicating effectively (Check our blog on 6 times tested benefits of critical thinking in 2021 to build a better understanding of these points).
• Digital literacy skills promote the child to stay integrated as a part of the rapidly changing digital society. They involve understanding data and information; reviewing information to be factual and complete, and use technology for self-advancement. Cognizing information and technology is the most crucial skill in this age. With the boom of media platforms, it is also important to constantly be updated with the correct information; and be able to validate what’s the right source and deduce what’s the right information to consume.
• Finally, life skills involve those which are valuable for one’s personal growth but bleed into their professional lives as well. These skills encompass empathy, critical thinking, leadership qualities, cognitive & emotional flexibility, being persistent yet resilient, taking initiatives, being connected with society, understanding their role in society and contributing to society.

Our children need to catch up with this new normal world and imbibe these 21st-century skills that can be influential in both their future personal and professional lives.

It is not feasible to learn such skills in a set-up that only considers performance in conventional academia to be the benchmark for quality of learning. So, what could be the solution? The answer is – integration of play and activity/game-based learning with conventional methods!

It would be prudent to formally include game-based learning, which is defined as the approach that embodies a varied range of skills that can be operational in activating a learner’s academic, artistic, cognitive, social, and emotional capacities that can result in more effective learning. Thus, nurturing the learning potential of each child. It makes experience creation at the spotlight of learning and enriches relational values within the varying learning environments, for the holistic development of children.

With the turn of the century, holistic learning has steadily gained momentum and recognition as traditional styles of learning have become the subject of criticism. A learning environment that has a holistic approach, aims to cater to the individual needs of children, therefore being more inclusive in nature. The advent of the digital age has also propelled this approach so that from a very young age, children can gain worthwhile experiences helpful for their future endeavours.

There are numerous ways in which holistic learning can be facilitated to build 21st century skills:

1. Experience-based learning – Children can be exposed to different learning styles through game-based learning and given the opportunity to figure out which style is best for them. Based on the style, they can be given problem-solving exercises or creative innovation tasks. This form of experiential learning can easily adapt to the preferred language of communication-based on the comfort of a child. This can also be used for making children work in groups to facilitate teamwork.
2. Community learning – The educators can take the help of community members like family, social organisations, etc. to provide further opportunities to the children. This might include summer programs, game-playing sessions between adults and children, art and film workshops, and community outreach programs for hands-on experiential learning. It will help children to augment their relationships with society and community, and build various interpersonal and intrapersonal skills.
3. Encouraging relationships – This involves engaging parent figures and other guardians to take part in the learning process of children. When the educators become aware of the context of the child with the help of the parents, the child can be taught skills for their personal growth and improve their adaptive capabilities. Encouraging guardian involvement will also help the children to become comfortable with the different learning environments and deepen the educator-learner relationships.
4. Integrating Emotional reflection – Mental and emotional well-being often get neglected in the traditional educational systems. Thus, a holistic approach can help the child to become aware of such emotional and social issues in a controlled environment of activity and play-based learning. A well-guided system that supports introspection and discusses such issues can provide an opportunity for children to be more connected to their own emotions and social behaviour. Thus, the educators should provide time for such emotional reflection and contemplation so that the children perceive their learning environment to be a safe space. It will not only inspire the children to engage more but will also hone their emotional and social quotient.
5. Self-Guided Learning – A structured and thought through the integration of giving the children an opportunity to learn by self will promote holistic learning in a great way. It can be very effective in aiding children to become more adept with technology, evolving to a new challenge or life situation, critically source authentic information, and present their point of view based on rationale. It will also boost their confidence to indulge in creative thinking and gradually become self-reliant.

Play, activity and game-based learning as pedagogy is an area that is constantly evolving and developing to become increasingly inclusive. It looks at education from the STEAM model rather than its predecessor STEM approach. Therefore, this form of learning has emerged to be possibly the best option to integrate 21st-century skills in children. This approach to learning takes the outcome beyond merely academic achievement and enables a holistic learning environment that boosts a child’s self-awareness, imparts essential human values, develops cognitive and emotional flexibility, and promotes better life outcomes. Through its interdisciplinary mode of learning, the child is ready to take on the rapidly changing modern world that awaits.

However, the development of the foundation of the creativity quotient largely takes place during the first 12 years of a child’s life. During these years, the mind can stretch to assimilate unimaginable information through different experiences that will ultimately foster creativity and dynamic cognitive behaviour. Shaping up the brain in formative years, helps children to yield novel ideas, solutions and even facilitates effective communication. It’s like shaping up wet clay into thoroughly carved, cooked, and polished earthenware.

Creativity has often been defined as the ability to generate novel ideas, create a new whole altogether different from an existing expression, organise the same information in different possibilities and alternatives, figuring out interrelationships between otherwise unrelated things and transcending traditional ways of thinking. Many believe that the creative quotient is a skill, which can be honed through exposure to different activities over time.

As children grow up, they continually display newer applications of their logical thinking, experimentation to self-discipline, emotionally resilient yet persistent. However, if gone unnoticed, they show up as a one-off event and not as a sustainable skill. As parents, we need to keep engaging our children to actively stimulate their creative quotient; the absence of which can create mental blocks, face issues with problem-solving, divergent or convergent thinking and communicating ideas. Through various researches, practitioners have come up with different methods to help enhance the creative quotient of children. Let’s look at 5 of these:

1. Role-playing Exercises: Role-playing exercises can work wonders to foster children’s creative thinking. For example, you can put on an awkward hat and start talking in a specific accent while washing dishes and ask your child to join in. Seeing you, they would be encouraged to role-play different characters. You can broaden the limits of role-playing by taking the activity beyond the gender that they identify to. You can also play out different animals or objects.
2. Blocks, Puzzles & Thinking or Mind Games: These toys & games can assist your child in inductive as well as deductive reasoning. In some such games, the child’s imagination can be pushed to build something concrete out of nothing. Thus, augmenting the ways they can look at problems and develop abilities to think in original ways. They might initially resist or show frustration on certain kinds of puzzles or games as they would be required to expand their limits. But that might also push those areas in their brain which need exposure. They might, through such experiences and your guidance, learn how to find solutions to situations that originally seemed to be not doable.
3. Exposing to different environments: One of the most effective ways that children can gain varied experiences is by experiencing different environments, with your presence acting as a comfort or safety net. You can start by scheduling a walk outside every day, or every other day. Expose them to different textures – damp grass, concrete, mud, sand and more: basically, help them derive knowledge from their surroundings. It might be messy at the start but the results will be worth it. You can also use such situations as opportunities to ask about their experiences at the end of each of these walks; their perspective on surroundings; their feelings and emotions.
4. Introduction to Arts: Different forms of art can come in handy to expand the creative capacities of your child. Drawing, painting, playing an instrument or writing prose all stimulate various mental faculties. They help in boosting a child’s imagination in ways that conventional methods of learning can’t, and can even surface hidden talents that your child has; which can be honed over time for a better outcome.
5. Socialising: Sometimes people miss out on the importance of socialising in expanding the creative quotient of their children. Socialising with different kinds of people, be it other children or adults, would give them insights into different types of experiences and information sharing that they can have. Such exposures can be great opportunities to create in them the joy of sharing – not just the things but even sharing by participating in others’ plays. This would help them build the ability to step into the shoes of the other person. In fact, empathy is now being considered as one of the top valuable traits in the 21st century.

These activities can definitely prove beneficial for your child who is in the formative years of brain development. It is crucial to note as a parent that we should expose our children to these activities not for achievement but for the value of such experiences. We as parents have to free our children from the yardstick of success or failure while they indulge in such activities. So, we have to give that much-needed space to our children to engage in these activities for the joy of these activities.

One last word from our side before we close this article for you. We all need downtime, even the children too. We as parents should allow our children their downtime, where it is okay not to take part in any activities.

Happy exploring the world through the lens of your child’s creative eyes!

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of thoughts by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing them. It is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored and self-corrective thinking for effective communication and problem-solving abilities. It is a much-needed life skill for future generations to thrive in these fast and dynamically changing macro conditions.

The top 6 time tested benefits of critical thinking in the year 2021:

1. A timeless and universal life skill: Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk – all have one thing in common. They all are great critical thinkers in their respective eras. Some of the best solutions to humanity’s problems have emerged through such practitioners. The critical and logical thinking tradition seeks ways of understanding the mind; then training the intellect for minimizing the “errors”, “blunders” and “distortions” in order to gain mastery to apply this skill independent of the domain. It means that no matter what path or profession our children would pursue, these skills will always be relevant and beneficial for their success.
2. Laying the foundation of a scientific and liberal democratic society: Science requires the critical use of reason in experimentation and theory confirmation. The proper functioning of a liberal democracy requires citizens who can think critically about social issues to make informed judgments about proper governance or any other matter of importance to overcome biases and prejudice. As critical thinkers, our children would be able to learn from our experiences and surroundings, while at the same time have the ability to evolve their preconceived notions and inferences.
3. Foster better relationships and healthier social environments: From an individual perspective, the quality of a person’s thoughts, impacts the quality of decisions and life. Families and societal ecosystems which practice critical thinking create an atmosphere of psychological safety where children feel safe to acknowledge mistakes, reassess conclusions, and explore differences of opinions with respect. When children are exposed to the process of questioning, discussing, debating, and consequently improving over time, it not only uplifts their relationship with society but also facilitates their holistic growth.
4. Promotes curiosity: Curiosity exists to help us gain a deeper understanding of not only the world surrounding us but the things that matter within our experience of that world. This extends to the topics that children are taught in schools and also the ones that they observe in their daily lives. Effective critical thinking helps them to learn a wide range of topics, build broad interest areas, and retain inquisitiveness. They share understanding and appreciation of different cultures, beliefs, and views spanning across different facets of humanity. This is also a part that makes them lifelong learners.
5. Helps differentiate between what’s real and what’s fake: While nowadays there is easy access to information, thinking critically helps in asking the right questions, examining the facts and exploring the roots of the core argument to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. The combined implementation of critical and logical thinking has always helped children and adults alike at the art of deducing inferences and building on their past life experiences.
6. Fosters creative thinking and innovation: What happens when a person deploys reason and logical thinking to various situations and challenges? The person moves towards identifying the root cause of seemingly difficult problems. By coupling critical thinking processes with other meta-creative thinking skills like first principle thinking and design thinking approach, creative solutions emerge for the identified problems and challenges. In fact, reasoning & logical thinking are the key pillars of critical and creative problem-solving.

To summarize, critical thinking is a time-tested skill that supports the holistic growth of our children and promotes curiosity, which helps solve problems in every aspect of life, be it career, social or personal life. It prepares individuals to be independent in case of adversities or any form of the challenges life has in store for them. As the world is evolving, it is quintessential we carve the growth of our children in a manner that makes them independent thinkers, gives them the ability to think on their feet, and prepares them for the dynamic yet unprecedented nature of the coming future.

While, both the ages are expressed numerically, the difference essentially lies in what is being measured. People often use the two interchangeably which becomes a reason why enough emphasis is not laid on the advancement of mental age.

Wisdom comes not from age, but from education and learning! – Anton Chekhov

Chronological age is the number of years that have passed since birth, whereas mental age is related to intelligence and the learning quotient. Before we discuss how you can work on the mental age of your child, let’s understand the key differences between mental age and chronological age, and then we will share Konshius’ game-based learning framework for bridging these gaps.

What is Mental Age?

Mental Age is a person’s mental ability and capacity, which can be assessed through various tests. These tests encompass problems, that are not conventionally taught in schools, to measure aspects like:

• The ability to do logical analysis and comprehending the interrelationships of the concrete and abstract.
• The ability to use blocks for analyzing and reproducing abstract designs; working from whole to part and reconstruction.
• The ability to perceive a 3D model and its translation into a linear model.
• The skills of visual perception, organization, and reasoning with visually presented nonverbal material.
• The adeptness required for mental sequencing and mental manipulation of information.
• The ability to organize attention, short-term auditory memory, visuospatial imaging, and processing speed.

And, many other aspects to ascertain whether mental faculties have developed beyond the chronological age to unravel inherent talents the child embodies. They reveal what capabilities are consistent with normal average age and what areas are showing the signs of limitations or challenges.

Unfortunately, such an assessment is conducted sparingly during the child’s development period. Thus, any gaps left in the development of particular mental abilities are left unattended and most of the children end up not realizing their full learning potential as they step up in our education system.

Chronological age

The chronological age is one of the most straightforward and simple concepts to understand. To calculate your chronological age, all you got to do is subtract your date of birth from the date of assessment. Chronological age is expressed in terms of years, months, or even days. One can’t control chronological age. And no surprises here, but chronological age is widely seen as the legal age for progressing in the school system.

Our existing education system depends on measures of certain academic and non-academic performance defined as per the chronological age. And, achievement in these pre-decided measures is seen as the benchmark of utilising the learning potential of a child. It assumes that if a child is fit to participate in the economic activities of society by achieving certain scores and grades, the child has accomplished the full potential.

How does Konshius improves a child’s mental age?

As parents, who understand the value of 21st-century skills, often the following thoughts cross our mind – ‘How to enhance my child’s learning capabilities?’ or ‘How do I help my child realize his/her full potential?’ These parents understand that learning cannot be dependent upon the academic performance measurement system alone. Their worry is genuine and natural as we ourselves can easily gauge how two children of different mental capacities have the exact same academic performance.

The good thing is that there are a lot of ways in which we as the parental figure can become facilitators in enriching our child’s mental age. Having a concerted focus on improving a child’s mental age is especially necessary during the initial 12 years. If children are exposed to the right kind of thinking experiences (plays, storytelling, physical activities, mind games, etc.) from an early age of 18 months, they are usually capable of developing various facets of their mental faculties.

The Konshius game-based learning framework and its various levels work to enrich the mental age of children. It’s the game-based learning activities that make the lacunas in the development of various mental faculties visible and act as a tool to bridge such gaps. These games are inclusive; they can be utilized for children with diverse social and cultural backgrounds, as a progressive learning tool. As these games largely require the use of the brain’s executive functions; the games and their intended outcomes produce a life-long impact.

At Konshius, we are dedicated to this movement of bringing focus on development in a holistic manner. The aim is to make each child feel that their needs are well represented. Our method patented games are backed by a scientific structure to optimize the enrichment of a child’s mental abilities. With well-detailed modules and game-based learning experiences that call for participation and engagement, Konshius is all set to redefine the education system to bring focus on mental age development. We wholeheartedly welcome you to be a part of this journey packed with excitement, fun, and vigour.

Let’s change learning, one step at a time!

With pandemic creeping into our lives, the educational institutions have evolved and adapted the digital way of conducting classes, ensuring children’s safety and learning are not jeopardized. Children took some time to adjust to this new mode of education, but since they had fewer choices, they figured out how to navigate various virtual learning forms. With the threat of pandemic still looming over our heads, online learning is unquestionably on the rise.

Teachers in the traditional education model take various measures to assess students’ levels of achievement, motivation, and engagement. However, on virtual platforms, with no face-to-face interactions, it is challenging to determine children’s engagement and learning levels. The emphasis in e-learning is yet to clear off the nebulas in terms of its effectiveness, but with technology it is facilitating the process of imparting education. A critical stance to consider is if this technology adds value to existing teaching and learning methods and objectively examines what can be potentially gained by the use or dependence on e-learning methods?

Thus, how do we ensure that e-learning enables our children to learn ‘how to learn’ and ‘how to think’?

Engagement vs Reflection

In a learning environment, engagement is commonly characterized as a learner’s level of involvement and intrinsic motivation. It’s also known as “the sum of physical and psychological energy devoted to the learning experience by the learner.” While there are challenges related to maintaining engagement in other learning environments, e-learning platforms pose added obstacles such as:

• Lack of personal interaction between facilitator and learner
• Peer-to-peer contact
• Unengaging content
• How the e-learning environment can be isolating and prone to distraction

Thus, ‘engaging the unengaged’ will always be an elusive goal in e-learning. However, even if an educator attempts to make content engaging and interacts with the child one-on-one, this does not guarantee that children will understand or retain the information, let alone apply it in real-life situations. It’s essential to provide learners with opportunities to reflect on and process what they are learning, especially when learning about complex ideas or thought processes. Reflective learning occurs as we analyze how to learn, what we have learned, think deeply about how the learning will benefit us, and apply what we have learned in real life. Learning is a continuous process, and encouraging learners to reflect on their experiences will help them create profound learning experiences.

E-Learning and Reflective Thinking

As games and gamification become more widely used for education and learning in the physical and the virtual world, how well they foster reflection can directly affect the learning outcomes of children. Konshius, through its engaging and interactive game-based learning program, promotes unique action-based cognitive reflection. Konshius games are delivered through 5 stages; engaging in Reflective Thinking stands as a fulcrum of these 5 stages– Engage, Explore, Reflect, Assimilate and Innovate process.

What do we mean by Reflective Thinking?

Learners need to be engaged in a joint guided exercise to reflect upon the thinking process used while playing the game situation. The learner’s current thinking process has to be allowed to come to the surface while playing the game using hit-and-trial or making mistakes.

However, when the child is asked probing questions regarding the entire thinking process, it enables them to verbalize thinking behind the actions taken during the free-play or hit-and-trial stage. Verbalization opens the doors for ‘new ways of thinking’ as suggestions. So, after initiating the learner to verbalize the thinking process/structure to take action(s), further questions can be asked to create reflection. As a Thinking Facilitator or Coach of your child, with Konshius, you can:

1. Ask questions to understand and go deeper to identify the thinking process.
2. Suggest alternative ways around the process of structured thinking, that were missed or could have been used at the time of thinking, i.e., before taking action.
3. Summarize all the new knowledge given at various times during the reflection process to create a complete interlinks ages of new knowledge.

What will Reflective Thinking help achieve?

Appealing to different learning styles, Konshius is based on proven pedagogy for reflection. Children can easily apply knowledge from the game-play environment in real-life situations. Thus, children become active participants in their learning process. Every session at Konshius keeps them on their toes, at every step, to think about their thinking and learn how to learn. And, this reflection method helps develop the foundation of lifelong mindful thinking by:

1. Identifying thinking process
2. Assessing strengths and weaknesses of thinking process applied in various situations
3. Selecting the thinking process most likely to help achieve the outcome
4. Assessing results/relevance/appropriateness of selected thinking process, paving the way to create new processes

Reflective thinking can aid in the exploration of virtual experiences, can get your learners’ gray cells ticking, thus leading to new insights and appreciations. Reflection is not only helpful but also crucial for learning. A learner becomes conscious of otherwise implicit knowledge or actions through reflective practice.

Helping children reflect results in several benefits, including self-development, problem solving, decision-making, uncertainty resolution; empowerment or emancipation; and other unforeseen outcomes. Learners who are made proficient at reflection have a greater chance of becoming successful lifelong learners and adapting to new circumstances. Engagement and reflection are the keys that together open the box of learning, and have equally important roles to play. However, engagement without reflection is only half the job done. As educators we need to understand the importance of this symbiotic relationship and plan the learning modules which not only engage but also become the nurturing ground for building reflective thinking.

The Konshius games, along with being fun, focus highly on the ‘how to learn’ aspect, for building a better foundation for ‘application of learning’. I highly recommend you try playing these games. It would be a fun and mentally charging experience. As a Konshius friend of children around you, your role in this journey is to make the game-playing experience engaging, exciting, and fun-filled.

When you will play these games yourself, you will realize that these games have been designed to develop critical and creative thinking which our formal education system does not do explicitly. Every activity in these games will train your children on ‘how to think.’ So, your children will be involved in a lot of serious mental actions, while playing these games with you as their Konshius friend. Due to these deeper level of mental engagement and actions, they produce a long-lasting impact and uncover higher-order thinking skills. Thus it becomes extremely important how you are sharing your inputs or feedback during this fun-learning process. Which is also one of the core elements of our ideology and delivery process to be trained on. The objective of this blog is to share with you ‘how this feedback’ should be structured and the reasons behind doing so.

Giving feedback is commonly assumed to be telling what someone did wrong, and emphasizing this wrong as a reason for results being undesired or poor. This is an age-old way of giving feedback that somehow most of us have ended up picking up unconsciously. But is it enough, or is it the right way to give feedback? Is there a better way to give feedback?

Be prepared to give feedback!

Before sharing about the feedback structure we follow at Konshius, I would like to clear a myth about learning and the process of feedback. It is believed that feedback is just a one-step process, and it is the responsibility of the learner to incorporate the feedback and make necessary corrections or changes. Now, what if I told you the process of feedback is a 4-step process, and we as parents (or as teachers) are equally responsible for the implementation aspect of the feedback? Let us now see these steps.

• Being appreciative of what was done right – Somehow we all get trained to look at what was done wrong and ignore what was done right. But, at Konshius, we always tell first what was done right, even if it was the most minor step. The first step of the feedback is to pay close attention to what was done right, and share it concretely and explicitly, by quoting specific observations. This motivates and encourages children, helps them realise and accept their self-capabilities gracefully. Please be mindful of not saying ‘right’ things for the sake of it, and it will help in winning long-lasting trust.
• Identifying what could have been done better – Once you have completed the 1st step, now is the time to share with the child about the gaps you would have identified. However, they have to be shared in a way that can create a state in the child’s mind which is most conducive to reflect on self. So, the method we follow at Konshius is that we talk about the gaps in the context of action taken by the child. We never tell the child that ‘you’ did this wrong, but we tell the child that this ‘action’ could have been done better. So, we construct our statements not being child-centric but being centric to the action taken by the child. For example, instead of saying “You are doing it all wrong,” we share it around the action “I think this action could have been done better.” This way, we are correcting the incorrect actions and not saying that the child is incorrect.
• Constructing an action process for how to do it better – Now comes the real part where we have to share with the child ‘how that action can be done better.’ Here, we as Konshius Friend watch our words carefully and share our inputs as ‘actions’ and in as concrete language as possible. This is the stage to make the child learn from our experience – How could it have been done better? So, our feedback is not just limited to telling the child about what could have been done better in the identified gap areas, we are now actually sharing with the child ‘how to think’ to make the action better.
• Justifying by sharing the benefits – What better results will come from the ‘how’ part of what you proposed in the last step i.e. how to do it better? Here we are providing the child with a window of positive outcomes which would happen by following the new process of action or thinking. And, we share these benefits because we have experienced them. We do not say them just to preach or give ‘gyan’ to the child but as confirmation of first-hand testimony of these positive results.

The development of critical and creative thinking is not a one-day task. It takes time, and in this journey, we have to be patient while constructing and giving feedback. When we follow this feedback process, we are not only telling our children how something could have been done in a better way but are also enabling them to think ‘how to think in different situations.

Let me explain the above 4 steps by taking an example. Let us say that a child in an overreaction threw something. Now in this situation –

• What was done right? – The child expressed the pent-up emotions and gave the emotions an expression. Acknowledge it gracefully that ‘Hey, you did right by expressing the emotion’.
• What could have been done better? – You can probably say – ‘Hey, the action of throwing could have been done better by verbally communicating about your emotions.’
• How it could have been done better? – By sharing what was troubling and why it was troubling. By verbally expressing what was causing the anger, or whatever emotion was troubling. by speaking about it.
• What benefits or positive outcome will come from it? – By doing this, you would have made me understand what was troubling you. When you would have spoken about your discomfort, we both would have understood something better about each other for the next time. And, the thing you threw, would not have been required to be thrown.

Why is feedback so important?

If you are thinking about how this feedback approach and process would be beneficial, then I must say that it will produce not just one but will open a window of many positive results that will happen over time. While giving feedback, you are sharing your experiences, unlike just stating facts from a textbook. You are becoming the first-hand testimony that something can be done differently. You are planting the seed inside your child that anything can be done differently and better.

I have discussed a very logical, step-by-step approach here with you. While playing Konshius games will naturally help your child develop higher-order thinking skills because of its pedagogy, practising the proper feedback process will give your child a better way of applying thinking. This approach requires some practice and work, but it is essential for your child’s overall development. A word of suggestion, please keep the feedback based on your experiences and do not let emotional triggers extrapolate, hypothesize, exaggerate or philosophize the specifics.

This blog mainly focused on the joy of learning and how the feedback model can add to that joy by building profound communication and trust with your child. In my other blog, I have also spoken about why a parent is always the first facilitator for a child. As a parent, you are the best guide to strengthen your child’s thinking skills and learning potential.

I will keep sharing more insights through blogs on this page. Till then, have fun playing all the Konshius games, and remember to follow the feedback process!