
What is 'big picture' thinking? Business consultant Andrew Sobel described it as:
1. Having a simple framework
2. Using analogies and metaphors
3. Developing multiple perspectives
4. Looking for patterns and commonalities
Big picture thinking is usually lauded in the world of corporate leadership, but it doesn't cut the mustard in most K-12 classrooms. What makes a good grown-up leader and innovator, doesn't make an ideal student let's face it. But maybe we need a paradigm shift.
Instead of training for compliance, careful rule-following, and exact memorization or a paragon of crystallized intelligence, we need to make more room for 'big picture' thinkers - while still recognizing the need for basic skills and knowledge.
Pint-sized big picture thinkers really do exist and they seem to be over-represented among gifted children who underperform or cause behavioral disruptions in their early elementary school years. Many of these kids are 'high conceptual' thinkers, those who like discovering novel subjects, themes, and things that don't make sense("The thing that doesn't fit is the interesting thing" - Richard Feynman), but the reason for this is often not random - inductive learners (learners who derive rules from examples) use novelties to generate new hypotheses or new rules.
If you really want to teach and interest big picture thinkers, you would expose them to rich multisensory and chronologically-advanced experiences. Look for subjects, phenomena and ideas that could be compared and contrasted. Complexity should be embraced and not shunned. For big picture thinkers - complex is simple and simple is complex. Complexity often brings more meaning because there are enough examples that one can make a pattern.
Big picture thinking really is a sort of upside-down thinking style, but if it is truly understood, it has many ramifications for education. Many big picture thinker struggle with time management problems and underachievement (poor written output) in their school years. When we ask many of these kids why it is hard for them to start writing, it becomes clear that the problem is more that they know too much (and have trouble narrowing their subject) than than they know too little. Many confess to us that they read more the assigned reading because they feel they need to understand things better if they are to understand a thing at all. Many of them are seeking the overarching framework inside which they can put their new bit of knowledge. Often these are 'why' kids - who need to know why something is true, not just that something is true. For those of us who are content to be 'little picture' thinkers when called for, the drive seems a little arbitrary and perhaps fatuous- but if you see enough of these kids, it seems more than a preference, it is a necessary requirement for learning at least in some people.
What does inductive learning look like in the brain? fMRI is still fairly limited to simple experimental paradigms involving inductive learning, but in a study involving uncertain visual categorization (generate rules from examples), the frontostriatal-thalamic network was active as well as other brain areas. The frontostriatal network is an interesting because of its implication in ADHD and reward and cognitive control.
Picture: Top of the world














