Analytical Skills

How to incorporate analytical skills in the classroom?

Objectives
The objectives of this session are:

1. To assist teachers in encouraging analytical skills and decision making amongst students.
2. To equip instructors with basic frameworks and tools in driving analytical behavior.
3. Providing assessment pedagogy to support instructors in evaluating these success of these
interventions.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module, you will learn:

1. Critical elements of driving analytical skills in the classroom.

2. Frameworks that you can use to encourage students to drive this behavioral change.
3. Strategies for assessment that can be used for evaluating pre- and post-classroom state.
Why are analytical skills essential?
Why are analytical skills are essential for students:

1. Analytical skills help students in acquiring data interpretation skills, help in solving complex
problems, and making rational decisions.

2. Analytical skills are a critical part of modern jobs and having good analytical skills can provide
students an extra edge at the workplace. Hence, teachers have to proactively encourage these
skills in the classroom.
Elements of analytical behavior
1. Comprehension
Analytical skills start with accurate comprehension: Determining the nature, scope and the scale of
the problem statement, identifying sources of information, evaluating information collection tools,
assessing knowledge gaps.

2. Numerical aptitude
Numerical skills include the ability to express problems, ideas, and situations using mathematical
knowledge.
This may include organizing information, data and graphs, understanding relationships between
numbers and variables, logical analysis, dexterity with numbers.
Elements of analytical behavior
3. Strategic thinking
This includes the ability to visualize the problem at large, articulating clear outcomes and
identifying a path to the solution.
4. Attention to detail
Being detail oriented means ability to concentrate well on the task at hand and being focused on
zero-error outcomes.
5. Subject matter expertise
Analytical skills are supplemented by a deep knowledge about the subject matter. Be it biology or
economics, every discipline needs a thorough understanding of the subject as a precursor to
analytical skills.
Pillars of analytical thinking
Observation Reading

Comprehend
Questioning
ing

Decision Problem
making solving
Pillars of analytical thinking
1. Observation
Instructors need to encourage students to develop their observational powers. Techniques include
mindfulness, meditation practice, see-and-repeat exercises, mental workout sessions.
2. Reading
Reading enriches perspectives and encourage students to bring multiple view points while problem
solving. Teachers can encourage students to read at least 1 book a month in their chosen subject
area, outside of the recommended reading list.
3. Comprehending
Comprehending includes absorbing the information and identifying the problem statement from a
collection of information. This includes precluding false positives and negatives, and accurately
articulating the scope and scale of the problem.
Pillars of analytical thinking
4. Questioning
Questioning skills are very important to ensure that students have accumulated all the important
information pertaining to a problem. For this they can use tools such as contextual interviews, “and
then” techniques, survey forms.
5. Problem solving
Instructors can encourage students to inculcate various problem solving techniques such as
flowcharts, root cause analysis, fishbone analysis, pattern identification, tabulation etc.
6. Decision making
Teachers can encourage decision making techniques such as elimination, decision tree, role play.
Root Cause Analysis
Root cause analysis (RCA) is a methodology of discovering the root causes of problems in order to
identify appropriate solutions.
RCA methodology can be used by teachers in the classroom to drive analytical behavior.
The RCA methodology consists of the following steps
•Identify the root cause of the event /problem
•Understand how to fix and learn from any underlying issues within the root cause.
•Apply what is learnt from this analysis to prevent future issues.
Exercise 1
Root Cause Analysis (RCA) technique:
Handout material: Handout 1
Introduction
1. Explain the outcome of this activity is to instill a strong discipline of root cause analysis in
students.
Identification
1. Give each participant a copy of the handout.
2. Ask the class “What problems does our school seek to address? What are some of the root
causes of these problems?
3. Break the class participants into pairs. Give the teams 10-15 minutes to discuss these questions.
Exercise 1
4. Deliberate on the question “How can these problems be solved for the society and the nation”
Identify roadblocks for implementation.
Closing
1. Invite teams to discuss in pairs and whiteboard their ideas.
2. Ask students to share what they learned about the RCA technique, and how can they implement
this in daily life.
Exercise 2
Handout material: Handout 2
Introduction
1. Explain the outcome of this activity is to visualize a problem in terms of data, decide influencing
variables, and derive conclusions.
Identification
1. Give each participant a copy of the handout.
2. Ask the class “How can we mathematically express the problem in data? What are the
influencing variables”
3. Break the class participants into pairs. Give the teams 10-15 minutes to discuss these questions.
Exercise 2
4. Encourage the class to use charts, diagrams and other tools for data visualization.
Closing
1. Invite teams to discuss in pairs and whiteboard their ideas.
2. Ask students to share what they learned about the data visualization technique and how will
they implement it in their day to day life.