Holistic Thinking Analytic Rubric

Holistic Thinking Rubric

This rubric was developed by a group of faculty using the AACU rubric for Integrative Learning as a starting point. It integrates many years of working with students on connecting the parts of knowledge to the whole of knowledge and the whole of knowledge to the Self, a defining feature of Consciousness-Based Education. The rubric is meant to be a guide for developing assignments and evaluating student work that attempts to develop this intellectual skill.

Definition

Holistic thinking is the skill of connecting a part of knowledge to a broader framework of ideas that is personally meaningful because the framework is also connected to personal experiences during the practice of Transcendental Meditation, including ultimately the experience of wholeness. Holistic thinking develops as finer and finer parts are connected to larger and larger wholes, finding ultimate expression in the experience that all ideas and experiences are expressions of my Self, which is wholeness.

Framing Language

Holistic thinking begins through the process of making connections among things learned, and between things learned and the prior existing framework of our ideas. It addresses the questions, “What does this have to do with me?” and “What does this have to do with what I already know?” It grows as we seek to make connections within a discipline, especially connections between ideas encountered in class and personal experience outside the classroom. It matures as we make connections across disciplines and with deeper, “unifying principles,” including principles such as found in the Science of Creative Intelligence and Maharishi Vedic Science. The skill is fulfilled in higher states of consciousness, when every part of knowledge can be seen as an expression of one unified whole that is consciousness.

Holistic thinking is related to skills such as systems thinking and integrative thinking, where we connect disparate fields of study using broad principles, often discovered inductively. It goes beyond these skills, however, by introducing vocabulary, principles, and theories from the Science of Creative Intelligence and Maharishi Vedic Science that relate to the inner realm of the mind and its functioning, as well as the source of thought or transcendental consciousness. Adding these disciplines of consciousness to the process of making connections strengthens the process by anchoring the details of study to a deep transcendental experience.

Holistic thinking may not be evident in student work unless students are explicitly asked to reflect on their thinking, or they are asked to make connections between subject matter and the Science and Technology of Consciousness. Like any skill, it improves with practice, with understanding how the skill is being defined, and with learning to read and respond to assignments.

Glossary

The definitions that follow were developed to clarify terms and concepts used in this rubric only.

Wholeness. Wholeness is defined as that sum which is more than its parts—as a machine is more than the pile of its component parts—but it also refers to an abstract experience, first experienced in Transcendental Consciousness, where wholeness can be experienced as an abstract but real focus of experience.

Principle. A principle is a statement about the world, e.g., “Life is found in layers,” that explains a structure or process that connects two or more things, in this case, “life” and “layers.” Principles are used to explain and thereby understand our experience, or sometimes simpler, more concrete ideas.

Unifying principle. A principle that can be used to recognize common patterns in very different domains of study, e.g., “Life is found in layers” can be used to understand the structure of anatomy, or of physical forces, or of my own thinking processes.

Transfer. The intellectual skill we use to apply knowledge learned in one circumstance to a different circumstance. We learn, for example, to transfer the skill of solving a simple equation with an unknown to solving a practical problem in real life.

Academic content. Ideas and information presented in the language and way of knowing of a particular discipline, such as visual arts or physics.