**3. Technical thinking**

Technical thinking and its development is a fundamental goal and prerequisite for teaching technically oriented subjects, regardless of their specific focus. The Polish psychologist E. Franus [16] analysed the concept of "*technical thinking*" and states: "*Technical thinking is the process of reflecting and using physical laws as well as technical principles in technical creation and technological processes.*" We can say that this definition quite accurately defines two interrelated aspects related to technical thinking cognitive processes with a predominantly analytical character, and creative processes, or also design processes, in which synthesis predominates.

These stated aspects of technical thinking could and should also be taken into account in the design and development of experimental activities included in technical subjects. When we talk about experimentation in these subjects, the logic and focus of cognitive processes is very similar to the cognitive processes resulting from play, but we must of course respect the wider social (psychological economic, etc.), natural (physical) and also technical context from a teaching perspective, which makes the actual abstraction rather difficult. In teaching practice, we often see trends in experimentation in technology that are based on natural science experiments, inspired by them in the form of experiments in the sense of an exploratory approach. These approaches have been published in their studies, for example, by D. Nezvalová [17], M. Papáček [18], J. Dostál [19] and others. It is not always beneficial, but what is indisputable is that these experiments apply a constructivist approach in teaching, which makes them positive for the student and the teacher. Pupils are put in the role of "scientists and researchers" - based on situations motivated by the teacher - pupils ask questions, look for evidence, formulate their explanations based on the evidence they arrive at, evaluate, communicate and verify [17].

What has now been stated is fully applicable to the questions connected with experimentation in technical subjects, but this experimentation cannot be complete if it merely promotes cognitive activity of a scientific character without revealing basic and general technical contexts, phenomena and relationships. In experimentation, the pupil's thought-creation and design processes (which form the second part of technical thinking) are combined with activities, situations, products and outputs that are concrete and real in their content. Thus, we can say that there is actually an application of the synthesis of the acquired knowledge to a new level to a "new quality of solution" (of course from the pupil's point of view) and thus also to its experimental verification. Understandably, in this case, the situations induced by the teacher

should include to a reasonable extent the different phases of the life of the technical device (design, construction, programming, production ....), including the environmental issues related to the disposal of the product [20].

The purpose of teaching technical subjects, i.e. subjects oriented towards technology, should be to encompass the pupil's cognitive activities and his creative processes, similarly to the solution of educational situations. These cognitive and creative activities are, after all, an integral part of meeting the legitimate needs of an individual or even a group, even in the context of creating, using, handling technology.

Man has placed between himself and nature an artificial environment, a material culture, by which he influences nature and which influences himself. Humans thus change and shape their environment, primarily through technology. At the same time, however, they also search for, discover, create, improve and extend this environment. These circumstances bring with them specific approaches, practices and methods of thinking precisely in relation to the technology that is conditioned by it.

As man, nature and the world change, so does the approach to education, and the shape of the school is changing, placing more and more emphasis on activity, experience, self-knowledge in creative activity, both mental and manual (unfortunately less so). It is essential to reinforce this concept, including in the preparation of those who will one day be teachers, because only in this direction can they be profiled for their future profession of teaching. The starting point in the concept of didactics of teaching subjects is therefore a critical analysis of the current concept of didactics in relation to the needs of teaching practice by assessing the level, quality and necessity of the competences acquired by pupils for their application in life.

An important part of the didacticism of technical subjects is the inherent concept of *technical thinking* and the method of its development in teaching. At present, the focus is mainly on the notion of creativity or *technical creativity*. As mentioned above, technical thinking is a specific form of thinking, a term with broadly defined content. In our view, a student's technical thinking is defined in the context of the concept of technical literacy (for example, the work of J. Kropáč [6]). The specifics of technical thinking are based on the nature of technology, where one of the key specifics is the uninterrupted continuity of theoretical and practical components, as well as the relationship between means and ends, or the determination of which means should be used to achieve a goal. Another fundamental aspect of technology and thinking is important here - complexity, because no significant context, whether technical or non-technical, can be ignored when working with technical equipment. It is also clear that different means can be used to achieve a goal or fulfil a purpose. In this case, we are confirmed by the need for critical and evaluative thinking.

Technical thinking includes operations such as analysis, synthesis, classification as well as analogies, abstractions and concretions [21]. In a context with a technical imagination, it is generally an analysis of a product, a concept, an activation of existing skills, knowledge and experience that can be used to address issues of construction and creation, and then a synthesis of all applicable realities by which we create a reality, i.e. arrive at a complete solution of design and product creation. In this context, we cite the work of the eminent Polish psychologist E. Franuse [16], which defines technical thinking as *a process that reflects and uses physical laws and technical principles in technical subjects and technological processes* [16].

German authors B. Hill and B. Meier [22] define technical thinking as a mediated and generalised reflection of reality, which is characterised and predetermined by a close relationship between the conceptual, visual and practical components of activities with technology. Thus, it is indisputable that technical thinking has cognitive and *Illustrative Techniques in the Primary School DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100568*

creative content, which are composed of thought operations with ideal reflections of objective reality. One of the characteristic features of this technical thinking, then, is the inclusion not only of existing completely objective reality, but also of possibilities based on socialisation, social cognition. These realities can take different degrees and forms - from the creation of completely new objects (procedures) to the improvement of these objects (procedures) or the search for errors and failures.

According to L. Tondel [23], the above shows that technical thinking actually has two interrelated aspects:


Both of these aspects are manifested in relation to technical construction kits, as both the cognitive and creative aspects are an integral part of the activities associated with any kit.

In problem solving, cognitive thinking always has an auxiliary function in preparing the intellect for creative synthesis. Thus, we can say that creative thinking is related to the actual "content" of cognitive thinking, and both processes play an important, determining role in problem solving. If analysis is a fundamental attribute of cognitive processes in science and technology, and synthesis is a characteristic of creative processes, then there is a psychological barrier between cognitive and creative processes that occur simultaneously in thinking and yet separately in both scientific and technical thinking. However, it is a permeable barrier that divides the thinking process into a cognitive, analytical part and a creative, constructive part. This permeable barrier is a kind of Rubicon that we cross in our thinking, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to reach a higher level, a new quality. This then occurs when our thinking process gathers enough information and thought (productive content) to transform quantity into quality (according to the laws of dialectics). However, even then, this new quality still requires a "supply" of details, but at the same time it also already offers a hint of a solution to the problem. Therefore, the barrier mentioned above is also a symbol of a kind of transition from analysis to synthesis, from the cognitive process to the creative process, from quantity to quality, from discovery to action. The question of transition is therefore a question of fulfilling the necessary conditions for solving the problem.

According to Franus [16], problem-solving thinking can be twofold:


In solving a difficult problem, intellectual work does not follow a simple model (nor does it copy that simple model), but involves many synthetic micro-parts

(microsyntheses) that form the final creative macrosynthetic complex. In addition to this complex, in multicomponent cases, the mental-cognitive creative or design structure also forms a "mosaic" of multiple microsynthetic parts.

Technical thinking, like any other type of creative thinking, is not only cognitive thinking but also a two-valued complex process that respects both simple and complex problems, as well as the structures of microsyntheses and macrosyntheses mentioned above.

In scientific thinking, creative synthesis is at the core of formulating theories within a research problem, but in technology it is at the core of finding as well as inventing and creating the structures of technical objects. In both cases, however, these are concrete or particularised (object) processes of so-called creative thinking. The quality of these processes, however, understandably differs considerably. However, both develop in the realm of concepts and ideas, which involve the form of words and sentences and then also require representation and concrete material substance.

Cognitive thinking performs various functions during the creative and analytical processes. In science, it is a research process that prepares the information needed to formulate a theory, or it can be a cognitive process that facilitates familiarity with the content of the problems to be solved. In technology, this concerns at least four general situations, namely, the provision of information to learn about the content of the problem, the learning of theories of science, technological principles and laws and rules in relation to the problem, the investigation of production processes and, last but not least, the investigation of the activities of the final product or object. In each of these situations, the result of knowledge is an act of creative synthesis as a key element for the completion of the creative process.

According to E. Franus [16], technical thinking, which is actually a concretized process, differs from other concretized processes in that it is concerned with the creation of an artificial world and the construction of technologies and objects in the broadest sense. However, with regard to the procedural and psychological aspects, this process is also characterised by a typically dual cognitive and creative structure (just like other concretized processes, for example, musical or artistic processes, etc.). Thus, it can be said that the key to cognition and creation is the procedural structure of thinking, which includes both the cognitive phase in analysis and the creative phase in synthesis (both are also closely related to the technical and constructional building blocks that connect these areas or phases). If we look at the content, then concretised technical thinking refers to a particular form of matter (substance) and therefore to a given technology or technique in the sense of an object. The various forms of matter (substance) and production technologies, methods and operations, also the results and works of the human intellect then constitute the concrete specifics of this concretised thinking. The same matter (substance), albeit in different forms and shapes and using different methods, has been and is the subject of study in different disciplines and also of description in different theories. Thus, specifically oriented concrete thinking manifests itself in all the sometimes hard-to-believe diverse forms of activity that we call creative.

Technical thinking, its content, is a broadly defined concept that can be divided according to different aspects. Indeed, the above text shows this in a way. According to E. Blomdahl and W. Rogal [24], E. Franus [16] also distinguishes four types of technical thinking, which, in our opinion, are also fully manifested in relation to construction and technically oriented building blocks:


For the development of technical thinking, a natural and important tool can be found in solving technical problems - K. Kraszewski [25] which is both a means and an end of teaching, regardless of whether these issues are of a cognitive or application nature. C. Gilbert [26] has shown a similarity between the problem-solving procedure and the process of producing or using technical equipment (i.e. technological process).
