Literature Review in Thinking Skills, Technology and Learning Rupert Wegerif

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REPORT 2: Literature Review in Thinking Skills, Technology and Learning

Rupert Wegerif, School of Education, Open University ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Asking other people for help is perhaps the most effective but least commented upon thinking skill. I am very grateful to those who were kind enough to help me prepare this review. I would like to thank Steve Higgins and Keri Facer for their feedback on the first draft, Steve Higgins again and Margaret Kirkwood for providing me with material, and Julia Gillen, Richard Joiner, Peter Scrimshaw, Lyn Dawes and Charles Crook for helpful advice and references. The comments of all the other people I buttonholed at conferences to ask what they thought about technology and thinking are also acknowledged with thanks.

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REPORT 2: CONTENTS:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2

Literature Review in Thinking Skills, SECTION 1 TERMS AND CONTEXT 4

Technology and Learning SECTION 2 CAN WE TEACH THINKING SKILLS? 12 Rupert Wegerif, School of Education SECTION 3 Open University TEACHING THINKING SKILLS WITH TECHNOLOGY 20

SECTION 4 AIMS AND PLAN The use of new technologies is often IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE, CURRICULUM linked to the development of thinking DEVELOPMENT AND The purpose of this report is: skills or ‘higher order thinking’. This THE DESIGN OF review will explore some of the LEARNING RESOURCES 34 •to clarify what is meant by thinking claims that have been made in this GLOSSARY 37 skills and their relationship to area and summarise the useful technology findings that emerge from research. INTERNET LINKS 37 There is a range of different • to identify the role of ICT in promoting approaches to understanding thinking BIBLIOGRAPHY 39 thinking skills skills and learning, each one of which • to produce guidelines for the has an impact on how the development of digital learning relationship between thinking skills resources to support the teaching and and technology is conceptualised. learning of thinking skills The first part of the review explores • to evaluate the general direction of the literature about teaching thinking research in this area and how this skills and their relationship to should inform educational practice. technology. The second part focuses more on technology, exploring claims that have been made about the relationship of information and communications technologies to the development of thinking skills.

This report has been designed to enable both rapid identification of the key findings and in-depth exploration of the literature.

The key findings and implications of the report are presented within the Executive Summary and Implications Sections. The main body of the review enables readers to explore in more detail the background to these headline issues.

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY offer reasons can therefore be seen as a part of the self-reforming process of ‘Thinking skills’ and related terms are higher order thinking. used to indicate a desire to teach processes of thinking and learning that can Most approaches to teaching thinking do be applied in a wide range of real-life not focus narrowly on procedural skills. In contexts. The list of thinking skills in the fact, successful thinking skills English National Curriculum is similar to programmes promote a variety of many such lists in including information- apparently quite different kinds of things processing, reasoning, enquiry, creative including, strategies, habits, attitudes, thinking and evaluation. While some emotions, motivations, aspects of approaches to teaching thinking treat such character or self-identity and also it is generally skills as separate, other approaches treat engagement in dialogue and in a them all as aspects of high quality thinking community of enquiry. These ‘thinking accepted that or ‘higher order thinking’. Higher order skills’ are not united by any single there is a range thinking is said to be complex thinking that psychological theory. They are all those requires effort and produces valued things that practitioners believe can and of relatively outcomes. These outcomes are not should be taught or encouraged in order to general learning predictable because the process of higher improve the perceived quality and/or the order thinking is not mechanical. This effectiveness of their students’ thinking. strategies that makes higher order thinking hard to can be drawn out define. Nonetheless it is possible to recognise higher order thinking and HOW ARE THINKING SKILLS, of some contexts to teach it. LEARNING AND TECHNOLOGY and applied RELATED? The existence and nature of thinking skills again in new is contested. Few experts in the field would Technology is a broad term for human contexts now support the claim that there are tool systems. Human learning and universal thinking skills or completely thinking is mediated by tool-systems. general strategies for learning and These could include words within a problem solving. However it is generally language, a notepad and pencil or a accepted that there is a range of relatively computer network. In this review I limit general learning strategies that can be myself to looking at computer-based drawn out of some contexts and applied technologies used to handle information again in new contexts. and aid communication (ICT).

Some have criticised the thinking skills Thinking is both individual and social. movement as being too western, There is a constant movement of the masculine and middle class. However the internalisation of social thinking into ideal of being able to listen seriously and individual thinking and externalisation out empathetically to challenges and to again into social thinking. Higher order respond to reasonable challenges with thinking is to be found in the whole reform is central to higher order thinking. movement of thought and not just in the Criticisms of particular ideas and practices individual part of this movement. in the teaching thinking movement that Technology, in various forms from

2 REPORT 2 LITERATURE REVIEW IN THINKING SKILLS, TECHNOLOGY AND LEARNING RUPERT WEGERIF, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, OPEN UNIVERSITY

language to the internet, carries the teaching machine, as providing ‘mind- much of the external social part of the movement tools’ and as a support for learning of thought. conversations. current interest in teaching Much of the current interest in teaching A review of the evidence suggests that thinking skills is prompted by technology- using technology does not, by itself, lead to thinking skills driven changes in the nature of work. transferable thinking skills. The success of is prompted by There is a consensus that new technology the activity crucially depends on how the is bringing about a new kind of economy in technology is used. Much depends on the technology- which the main products are information role of the teacher. Learners need to know driven changes and knowledge rather than material goods. what the thinking skills are that they are Workers in this new economic climate learning and these need to be explicitly in the nature require transferable thinking skills more modelled, drawn out and re-applied in of work than content knowledge or task-specific different contexts. skills. They particularly require an ability to learn how to learn new things since The evidence also suggests that accelerating technological change is collaborative learning improves the making old skills (and knowledge) effectiveness of most activities. Tutorial redundant and generating needs for software alone is not effective for new skills (and knowledge). developing thinking skills, but tutorial software used as a basis for discussion between learners can be a good way of CAN THINKING SKILLS BE TAUGHT? infusing thinking skills into the curriculum. The effectiveness of computer tools, There have been several rigorous surveys such as concept maps or programming of the impact of different teaching methods languages, for teaching transferable and programmes in the last decade. These thinking skills appears to be enhanced provide convincing evidence for the value when these are used by learners in of teaching thinking skills. pairs or groups. The positive effect of collaborative learning is amplified if The emerging consensus, supported learners are taught to reason about by some research evidence, is that the alternatives and to articulate their best way to teach thinking skills is not thoughts and strategies as they as a separate subject but through work together. ‘infusing’ thinking skills into the teaching of content areas. Technology is therefore best thought of as a support and resource for dialogues in which thinking skills are taught, applied WHAT IS THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY and learnt. The computer as a tutor and IN TEACHING THINKING SKILLS? the computer as a tool can both be ways to support and resource such learning conversations. ICT can also itself be a There are three main ways of thinking channel carrying learning conversations. about the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in teaching thinking skills: as tutor or

3 SECTION 1 TERMS AND CONTEXT

HOW CAN WE DESIGN TECHNOLOGY Thirdly, networks can allow students to TO SUPPORT TEACHING THINKING engage directly in knowledge creation with SKILLS? others who are not physically present. Given the apparent importance of collaborative learning this has significance The finding that collaboration enhances for home education. Depending on how the the learning of thinking skills is important activity is arranged, thinking together because most software is still designed for with others at a distance can be more individual work. There are several simple motivating and can stimulate a higher design guidelines that could be applied to quality of thought, than thinking together develop software to support more with others in the same classroom. collaboration (see Section 3.5.3 for details). The best software for teaching thinking the best Some of the findings about effective skills stems from collaborations between teaching for thinking skills could also be software for developers and educators or educational incorporated into software design. For researchers. teaching thinking example, being explicit about thinking skills stems from skills, modelling them, designing activities that use the same skills in different collaborations contexts and prompting learners to 1 TERMS AND CONTEXT between reflect on thinking strategies and articulate them clearly. The main terms of this review all have developers and multiple and disputed meanings. I do not educators or Three ways in which the use of ICT can intend to use definitions of these terms as particularly enhance the teaching and a limit to the scope of the review but as a educational learning of thinking skills emerged from starting-off point to further exploration. researchers the review: Firstly, through supporting dynamic and 1.1 THINKING SKILLS multiple representations of information: Visualising patterns in data-sets, for Thinking Skills now feature in the National example, allows learners to think at a Curriculum for England where they are higher level about statistical relationships. described as follows:

Secondly, through a certain ambivalence: By using thinking skills pupils can focus on educational software can act like a teacher ‘knowing how’ as well as ‘knowing what’ – to prompt and direct enquiry but can, at learning how to learn. The following the same time, act as a resource while thinking skills complement the key skills learners discuss and explore ideas. This and are embedded in the National makes properly designed educational Curriculum: software an effective way of supporting thinking within the curriculum. An example Information-processing skills of this productive ambivalence could be to These enable pupils to locate and collect prompt reflection (directive teaching) relevant information, to sort, classify, before, during and after the use of a sequence, compare and contrast, and to simulation (discovery learning). analyse part/whole relationships.

4 Reasoning skills cultivating dispositions and the social These enable pupils to give reasons for context of critical thinking. The executive opinions and actions, to draw inferences summary runs to 20 pages and offers 14 and make deductions, to use precise useful recommendations. The shortest language to explain what they think, and to form of their definition is given below. make judgements and decisions informed by reasons or evidence. We understand critical thinking to be purposeful, self-regulatory judgment Enquiry skills which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as These enable pupils to ask relevant explanation of the evidential, conceptual, questions, to pose and define problems, to methodological, criteriological, or plan what to do and how to research, to contextual considerations upon which that predict outcomes and anticipate judgment is based. CT is essential as a consequences, and to test conclusions and tool of inquiry. As such, CT is a liberating improve ideas. force in education and a powerful resource in one's personal and civic life. While not Creative thinking skills synonymous with good thinking, CT is a These enable pupils to generate and pervasive and self-rectifying human extend ideas, to suggest hypotheses, to phenomenon. The ideal critical thinker is apply imagination, and to look for habitually inquisitive, well-informed, alternative innovative outcomes. trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing Evaluation skills personal biases, prudent in making These enable pupils to evaluate judgments, willing to reconsider, clear information, to judge the value of what about issues, orderly in complex matters, they read, hear and do, to develop criteria diligent in seeking relevant information, for judging the value of their own and reasonable in the selection of criteria, for ‘strong’ others’ work or ideas, and to have focused in inquiry, and persistent in confidence in their judgements. seeking results which are as precise as critical thinking, (DfES 2002a http://www.nc.uk.net/ the subject and the circumstances of it is important learn_think.html) inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward to question This definition has the advantage of being this ideal. It combines developing CT skills one’s own clear. However it misses out some aspects with nurturing those dispositions which of thinking skills that most practitioners consistently yield useful insights and which assumptions and experts in the area agree are are the basis of a rational and democratic through thinking society. (Facione, 1990) important. from the The most authoritative definition of critical Philosopher Richard Paul is often perspectives thinking is that of ‘The Delphi Report’ described as the leading proponent of (Facione, 1990) which is a consensus teaching critical thinking (e.g. Weinstein, of others report from 46 leading experts in the field. 1993). He would accept the definition above This emphasises the holistic nature of but he also goes further in wanting to add critical thinking, the importance of a focus on fostering dialogue. Paul argues

5 SECTION 1 TERMS AND CONTEXT

that, for ‘strong’ critical thinking, it is bridge that collapses will involve most of important to question one’s own the same cognitive and meta-cognitive assumptions through thinking from strategies, and activate the same regions the perspectives of others. of the brain in the engineers, as building a bridge that stands. But we want to ‘Meta-cognition’ is another term often promote the skills that went into building used as a synonym for thinking skills or the bridge that stands. Thinking skills are higher order thinking. This has been therefore not just about abstract cognitive defined as ‘awareness of one’s own processes – they are about the quality of knowledge and the ability to understand, socially embedded decision making control and manipulate individual cognitive processes. processes’ (Osman and Hannafin, 1992 p83). Meta-cognition originates in an However Carol McGuinness argues information processing model of the mind in favour of retaining the term as something like a computer running both ‘thinking skills’: low-level software, to do the basic cognitive processes, and high level …the idea of thinking-as-a-skill continues software, to monitor and correct the low to have both theoretical and instructional level software. However this term is force. Firstly it places thinking firmly on increasingly used in contexts where a the side of "knowing how" rather than computer model of the mind is not being "knowing that" in the long standing assumed. It is often used to refer to any philosophical debate about the nature of conscious reflection on thinking and knowing. And secondly much of what we learning processes. Some ‘skills’, habits know about skill learning can be usefully and dispositions important to good applied to developing thinking… thinking in many contexts are not meta- (1998, p4/5) cognition in this sense. Therefore I believe that the term ‘meta-cognition’ does not McGuinness goes on to mention how well refer to all thinking skills but to that the ‘skills’ terminology fits with the sub-set of such skills that depend increasing importance of ideas of upon becoming more aware of apprenticeship to teaching and learning. I thinking processes. agree with Bailin that understanding and promoting good thinking requires working Sharon Bailin (1998) opposes the use of with shared criteria for the evaluation of the term ‘skills’ on the grounds that its use arguments. However I also agree with in psychology leads to it being taken to Carol McGuinness that the idea of imply a property of the brain. She argues thinking-as-a-skill is a useful one for that critical thinking is essentially a practitioners. In everyday language to normative and not a descriptive term. She describe someone as skilled at something means by this that critical thinking is not - say at ballet dancing or wood-carving - merely a description of how we think but is implies a public performance to which concerned with how we think well. More shared criteria can be applied. There is no precisely, it is about the quality of need to assume a more specialist meaning reasoned judgements, and this can be for the term ‘skills’. assessed by shared criteria. Building a Use of the term ‘thinking skills’ might also

6 be challenged by those who see quality ‘higher order thinking’ is often used, as by ‘higher order thinking as a more holistic or unitary Resnick referred to above, in a non- phenomenon which combines many technical way to indicate the kind of thinking’ is specific skills but is more than any of thinking that is to be particularly valued complex and them. Lauren Resnick (1987), chaired a and that educators wish to promote working party for the National Research (Resnick, 1987). I will use the term higher effortful thinking Council in the USA on teaching thinking. order thinking in this sense. that produces She concluded that ‘higher order thinking’ is complex and effortful thinking that Most approaches to teaching thinking do valued outcomes produces valued outcomes. These valued not focus narrowly on procedural skills. In outcomes are not easy to predict in fact successful thinking skills programmes advance because higher order thinking, promote a variety of apparently quite unlike computation for example, is not different kinds of things including, mechanical. Higher order thinking, she strategies, habits, attitudes, emotions, concluded, is very hard to define but easy motivations, aspects of character or self- to recognise. This is an important and identity and also engagement in dialogue interesting claim. Clearly the art of and in a community of enquiry. These thinking well is difficult to understand. thinking skills are not united by any single Nonetheless if we know how to recognise it psychological theory. Most practitioners do when it happens this implies that we do in not mind combining the promotion of fact understand it tacitly or intuitively. Guy automatic habits through positive feedback Claxton argues (1999) that the value of (learning as behaviour modification) and intuitive ‘soft thinking’ of this kind should teaching conscious meta-cognitive not be rejected in favour of more clearly strategies such as always seeking an articulated theoretical ‘hard thinking’. It alternative view (from cognitive learning seems likely that, when it comes to theory) with creating a community of questions such as the nature of thinking, enquiry in the classroom (learning as our intuitive understanding far outstrips social participation). The main concern of knowledge that we could make explicit in a most practitioners is that everything they theory. This is probably less of a problem do contributes to the goal of teaching for practitioners, who often work effectively better thinking. Thinking skills are guided by intuitive knowledge alone, than therefore essentially those things that for many academics. practitioners believe can and should be taught or encouraged in order to improve In Bloom’s taxonomy of the types of the perceived quality and/or the thinking found in education, higher order effectiveness of students’ thinking. thinking is said to build upon lower order thinking, or basic skills. Reading is seen as a basic or lower order skill, for 1.2 TECHNOLOGY example, while evaluating what one reads is seen as a higher order skill. This Technology originates in a Greek term division of thinking into higher order and meaning the systematic treatment of an lower order has been questioned by those art or craft. It has come to be used to refer who argue that thinking is holistic rather to physical and symbolic tool systems. than hierarchical. However the term Although less controversial than either

7 SECTION 1 TERMS AND CONTEXT

thinking skills or learning, the scope of the technologies (Rassool, 1999). I will term technology is nonetheless disputed. therefore not distinguish closely between Reeves (1998) and Salomon (1992) seek to new media and new technology in this make a clear distinction between review. technology and media: We do not think entirely on our own, we Computer-based technologies cannot be think with the help of tools and tool- regarded as "media," because the variety systems. These could include words within of programs, tools, and devices that can be a language, a notepad and pencil, or a used with them is neither limited to a computer network. In education the term particular symbol system, nor to a technology could refer to books, pencils, particular class of activities… In this light, television, even chalk and blackboards. "the computer" is in fact a "multifaceted I will limit it, for the purposes of this invention" of many uses, a symbolic tool review, to information and communication for making, exploring, and thinking in technologies (ICT). This means quite various domains. It is used to represent simply, computer-based technologies and manipulate symbol systems – used to handle information and aid language, mathematics, music – and to communication. The phrase ‘Information create symbolic products – poems, and Communications Technology’ was mathematical proofs, compositions. coined by Stevenson in his 1997 report to (Salomon, 1992, p892) the UK government and promoted by the new National Curriculum documents for Salomon’s distinction between media as the UK in 2000. (FOLDOC, 2002) symbol systems and technologies as tools or vehicles for sharing media is an interesting one. It makes sense if we think 1.3 LEARNING about his example of language and music as media and computers as a technology The term learning can mean a variety of serving as a conduit for these media. different things. There are obviously There is no need to invoke a shared differences between learning that the medium when I use my PC to listen to a Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, CD-ROM while at the same time using the learning how to play tennis and learning keyboard to type a letter. Although both how to love - just three examples of activities are supported by a computer they current usage. As well as there being could equally as well have been supported different kinds of learning there are also by different machines. However Salomon’s different theoretical approaches to the distinction breaks down if we consider study of learning. Four of the most hyper-media texts that are only made influential of these approaches are possible by the use of computers. I could, summarised quite neatly in a table on the, for example, compose a web-site that generally excellent, informal education combined clips of the music that I was web-site (http://www.infed.org/). I have listening to with cuttings from the letter adapted this table slightly by changing that I was writing. It seems reasonable to names and adding a row to deal with views suggest that skill at creating hyper-media of transfer. texts involves a new kind of literacy that is dependent on computer-based

8 Four orientations to learning (after Merriam and Caffarella, 1991, p 138)

ASPECT BEHAVIOURIST COGNITIVIST/ HUMANIST PARTICIPATORY CONSTRUCTIVIST

LEARNING THORNDIKE, PAVLOV, PIAGET, AUSUBEL, MASLOW, ROGERS LAVE, WENGER, THEORISTS WATSON, TOLMAN, BRUNER, PAPERT COLE, WERTSCH, SKINNER, SUPPES ENGESTROM

VIEW OF THE CHANGE IN INTERNAL MENTAL A PERSONAL ACT TO INTERACTION LEARNING BEHAVIOUR PROCESS FULFIL POTENTIAL /OBSERVATION IN PROCESS INCLUDING INSIGHT, SOCIAL CONTEXTS. INFORMATION MOVEMENT FROM PROCESSING, THE PERIPHERY TO MEMORY, THE CENTRE OF A PERCEPTION COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

LOCUS OF STIMULI IN INTERNAL AFFECTIVE AND LEARNING IS IN LEARNING EXTERNAL COGNITIVE COGNITIVE NEEDS RELATIONSHIP ENVIRONMENT STRUCTURING BETWEEN PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENT

VIEW OF COMMON ELEMENTS OVER-ARCHING CHANGES IN SELF- TRANSFER TRANSFER SHARED BY GENERAL IDENTITY AS A PROBLEMATIC DIFFERENT CONTEXTS PRINCIPLES LEARNER

PURPOSE IN PRODUCE DEVELOP CAPACITY BECOME SELF- FULL PARTICIPATION EDUCATION BEHAVIOURAL AND SKILLS TO ACTUALIZED, IN COMMUNITIES OF CHANGE IN DESIRED LEARN BETTER AUTONOMOUS PRACTICE AND DIRECTION UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES

EDUCATOR'S ARRANGES STRUCTURES FACILITATES WORKS TO ESTABLISH ROLE ENVIRONMENT TO CONTENT OF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITIES OF ELICIT DESIRED LEARNING ACTIVITY OF THE WHOLE PRACTICE IN WHICH RESPONSE PERSON CONVERSATION AND PARTICIPATION CAN OCCUR

In the 1996 Handbook of Educational school to apply generally in students’ lives, Psychology, James Greeno, Allan Collins rather than being limited to the situations and Lauren Resnick, three very in classrooms where it is acquired. That authoritative names in the field of is to say, they want the knowledge to educational research, define learning transfer. and transfer as follows: I accept this definition of learning. It has Learning is the process by which the advantage of being very broad. Greeno, knowledge is increased or modified. Collins and Resnick argue that there are Transfer is the process of applying three main schools of learning theory in knowledge in new situations. Educators educational psychology: want the knowledge that is acquired in

9 SECTION 1 TERMS AND CONTEXT

• behaviourist/empiricist: learning as to make. Plato, for example, advocated acquiring and applying associations teaching reason only to the small elite who • cognitivist/rationalist: learning as would have to take all the major decisions, acquiring and using conceptual and (and even then only when they were over cognitive structures, and thirty!) See Plato’s Republic, (1970). The majority of the population of his ideal • situative/pragmatist-sociohistoric: ‘Republic’ would be given a more learning as becoming attuned to vocational education fitted to their station. constraints and affordances through Plato saw little point in equipping them participation. with skills that they would not have an opportunity to use. Plato’s point makes These three schools are a version of three some sense in the economic thinking skills of the four traditions in the table above. In circumstances of Ancient Greece and a their detailed account of these three similar principle was applied until quite are often said to different approaches to understanding recently in the UK. be the kind of learning and transfer Greeno, Collins and Resnick demonstrate that each tradition One point of agreement running through skills that people has made a valuable contribution to almost every article that I have read on need to make understanding some aspects of learning. teaching thinking skills is that the need to Behaviourist approaches have worked well teach thinking skills now is rooted in our decisions for some basic skills learning, the particular socio-historical situation. cognitivist tradition has done some good Thinking skills are everywhere described work on meta-cognition and conditions of as ‘skills for the new century’, ‘skills for transfer while the social situationists have the workers of the future’ or ‘skills for the shown the importance of cultural tool- knowledge society’. Basically the argument systems and communities of learning. is that changes in the economy require However each approach also has more people to be more actively involved in weaknesses and this is an area of study decision making than was ever the case that is open and constantly evolving. before. It is usually also claimed that these changes in the economy are driven by the I will return to this account of the main development of new information and divisions in educational psychology in part communication technologies. The thinking three of this report in order to consider the skills literature is full of references to the impact of each of these three approaches need to produce new knowledge workers on ways of thinking about the role of new for the new knowledge economies (e.g technology in learning. Swartz, 2001). One idea behind this is that new technologies have led to increasing automation of the kinds of work that 1.4 THINKING SKILLS, TECHNOLOGY computers can do thereby forcing people AND LEARNING IN CONTEXT into jobs where they have to take more subtle decisions and solve more complex Thinking skills are often said to be the kind problems (Levin and Rumberger 1995 of skills that people need to make quoted in Rassool, 1999 p153). A second decisions (e.g. Ennis, 1996). There used to key idea is that new technology in the work be many fewer decisions for most people place has led to rapid and accelerating

10 changes in practices and that this puts a do for us, such as formal reasoning or premium on learning how to learn, since algorithmic problem solving, towards the anything more specific that children are sort of things that computers cannot yet taught in school is seen as likely to be out do. Instead of contrasting human thinking of date by the time they leave. to the thinking of animals, human thinking is beginning to be contrasted to the The aim of this review is to explore the thinking of machines (e.g Penrose, 1994: relationship between technology and Hobson, 2002). The focus of published thinking skills. One dimension of this thinking skills research is shifting away relationship is that the kinds of thinking from teaching logic and towards a greater that people value most depend on the interest in supporting complex cultural and historical context and unpredictable thinking (Resnick, 1987), particularly upon the kind of technology engagement in dialogues (Paul, 1987), that people have at their disposal to help intuition (Claxton, 1999) and creativity them think. The Ancient Greeks had very (Bailin, 1994). One way in which thinking simple technologies and they valued that skills are related to developments in kind of thinking that distinguished them technology is therefore simply that the most from the animals around them. human skills that we value most, and that Aristotle defined man as a rational animal are rewarded the most, are those skills meaning that only man could measure, that computers cannot yet imitate. judge and decide on the basis of reasons (Aristotle, 1987). Before the arrival of computers in human history it seemed 1.5 SUMMARY OF SECTION 1 natural to many to describe ‘higher order thinking’, or rationality, in terms of Thinking skills are hard to define but abstract reason on the model of formal possible to recognise and to teach. The logic or mathematics. This kind of thinking list of thinking skills in the UK National was really hard, potentially very useful and Curriculum is a reasonable one and only a few people could do it well. similar to many: information-processing, Computers, however, find formal reasoning, enquiry, creative thinking and reasoning very easy. What they find hard is evaluation. Such skills are not discrete the sort of things most people take for entities but part of larger contexts. granted like coming up creatively with new Most approaches to teaching thinking ways forward in complex, fast-changing skills include broader issues such as and open-ended contexts where there is engagement in dialogue, the formation no certainty of being right. Holding an of self-identity and the importance of a ordinary conversation is typical of what it supportive culture. is that humans find natural but computers find extremely hard. Technology is a broad term for human tool systems. I will limit it, for the It is not surprising therefore that, as the purposes of this review, to computer- use of computer-based technology has based technologies used to handle become more ubiquitous, the focus of information and aid communication (ICT). thinking skills research has shifted away The concept of learning is bound up with from the sort of things that computers can the concepts of knowledge and of transfer.

11 SECTION 2 CAN WE OR SHOULD WE TEACH THINKING SKILLS?

Learning is generally defined as the • are critical thinking skills white, male increase or modification of knowledge. and middle-class? Teachers want the knowledge that is learnt • should thinking skills be taught in school to be applied outside school. separately or should they be taught They are therefore interested in the within subjects? transfer of knowledge from the context in which it is acquired to other contexts. • are studies of the brain relevant or not? The nature of knowledge and of transfer • is there any good evidence for the value are conceptualised differently by different of teaching thinking skills? traditions in educational theory. For the topic of this review the three most I will deal briefly with each of these important schools of thought are questions in turn indicating how answers probably the behaviourist, the cognitivist to these questions relate to the use of new and the participatory. technology as means for promoting thinking skills. Much of the current interest in teaching thinking skills is prompted by technology- driven changes in the nature of work. DO GENERAL THINKING There is a consensus that new technology 2.2 is bringing about a new kind of economy in SKILLS EXIST? which the main products are information and knowledge rather than material goods. Some philosophers and some Workers in this new economic climate psychologists challenge the existence require transferable thinking skills rather of general thinking skills. than content knowledge or task-specific skills. They particularly require an ability to learn how to learn new things since 2.2.1 THE ARGUMENT AGAINST accelerating technological change is THINKING SKILLS IN PHILOSOPHY making old skills (and knowledge) redundant and generating needs for new John McPeck argued that thinking is skills (and knowledge). always thinking about something and therefore it does not make sense to talk about thinking in general (McPeck, 1981). 2 CAN WE OR SHOULD WE TEACH For McPeck the different academic subject THINKING SKILLS? areas are different forms of life with their own unique logics. Teaching general The existence, value and nature of thinking critical thinking skills is therefore a skills continue to give rise to a great deal serious mistake which will lead to of debate in academic journals and books. superficial learning. Similar arguments are Some of the key questions that emerge made by the influential US educationalist from this literature are: E. D. Hirsch (1987). In Britain something like this position appears to have strong • do general thinking skills exist? support amongst philosophers of education (Johnston, 2000) • if so are they individual or social?

12 2.2.2 THE ARGUMENT AGAINST claims of Piaget (1950), the brain learns THINKING SKILLS IN PSYCHOLOGY things embedded in a rich context and does not automatically extract general In educational psychology the argument logical rules that could be applied to other against thinking skills is much the same contexts (Claxton, 1999, p203). However as that in philosophy but presented this does not mean that we cannot be differently. Proponents of the view that taught to extract useful general rules - learning is ‘situated in contexts’ and/or is there is plenty of evidence (quoted below) always about ‘participation in communities that we can, in fact, do just that. of practice’ oppose their ‘Specific Learning Model’ (Rogoff, Gauvain and Ellis, 1991, Few experts in the field would now support p315) to the more traditional ‘Central the claim that universal thinking skills Processor Model’ of the brain. This exist outside of any context. Thinking skills few experts in Specific Learning Model follows from are not an abstract logical structure. claiming that 'thinking skills' are They are embodied practical skills that are the field would embedded in ‘cultural tool systems’, learnt in a context and then, often with the now support the especially local ways of using language to help of teachers, taken out from that get things done ('language' here is context to be applied in a new context. claim that considered a tool-system). On this model If these relatively general skills or universal what is learnt in the context of one cultural strategies are taught in an abstract form, task can only be assumed to relate to that then careful work needs to be done by thinking skills task. The implication is that teaching teachers to embed them in a context exist outside of transferable skills is just a myth. This where they can be applied. position is often supported by the claim any context that there is no real evidence for transfer Much recent research has suggested, for (e.g. Hennessy et al, 1993). example, that the development of higher order thinking, including the development of self-awareness, depends upon the 2.2.3 RESPONSES TO THESE child’s early engagement in dialogues with their primary care-giver (usually their ARGUMENTS mother, see Forrester, 1992 and Hobson, 2002). A capacity to engage effectively in The most balanced rebuttals of arguments dialogue with other people, and with tasks, against the possibility of teaching thinking appears to lie behind many of the skills point out that they fail to engage with techniques, habits and dispositions the reality of contemporary approaches to referred to in the literature on thinking practice (Weinstein, 1993: Higgins and skills. If so this capacity appears to be Baumfield, 1998). The argument that all a holistic and embodied skill that is thinking is thinking about something is a learnt in one context and applied in reasonable objection to some attempts to many other contexts. teach a pure and abstract logic of good thinking. There is little evidence for the One implication of the conclusions that automatic transfer of general thinking emerge from this debate is that learning skills that a ‘central processor model’ of how to work a complex video-game is not the mind would predict (Perkins and necessarily going to help you do better at a Salomon, 1989). Apparently, against the

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maths exam even though, logically, some people, also include objects and of the problem-solving and reasoning technologies (Salomon, 1993). strategies involved are the same in both The roots of critical thinking are not cases. A brief summary of research on the necessarily individualist. John Dewey, an use of LOGO given in part 3 of this review advocate of teaching thinking, saw thinking shows that this conclusion has been as a product of social interaction and confirmed in practice. However, this does teaching thinking as a way of contributing not mean that transfer is impossible – it to the creation of a better society (Dewey, means that some thought and effort needs 1933). Jurgen Habermas (1991), has to be put into achieving it. If, for example, a argued in a similar way that rationality video-game involves problem solving implies the ideal of a more genuinely strategies, then the nature, scope and democratic society in which all relevant limits of the strategies need to be made voices are really listened to and decisions explicit, and examples need to be offered are taken on the basis of the quality of of the same strategy used in new contexts arguments rather than on the basis of with new content. Simulations that allow coercive power. One educational learners to practice these strategies in life implication of Habermas’ argument is that beyond video games could be used to help teaching thinking skills involves changing bridge the transfer of general skills from the social context to create conditions that one context to another. at least approximate to what he calls an ‘ideal speech situation’. Experimental evidence, as well as Vygotskian theory, thinking skills 2.3 ARE THINKING SKILLS suggests that the quality of individual are often seen INDIVIDUAL OR SOCIAL? thinking reflects the quality of collective thinking and vice versa (Wegerif, Mercer as attributes of Thinking skills are often seen as attributes and Dawes, 1999: Mercer, 2000). individuals, of individuals, perhaps the property of Growing acceptance of the idea that perhaps the individual brains. However there has been a major shift in both philosophy and thinking is embedded in social contexts property of psychology towards seeing thought as can be seen reflected in the language used to discuss thinking skills. There is an individual brains. essentially social not individual. The increasing status given to the ideas of increasing use of collective terms such as However there educational psychologist Lev Vygotsky ‘thinking classrooms’ (McGuinness, 1998), ‘thinking schools’ (Wilson, 2000) and has been a major supports this tendency in psychology. Vygotsky, a Marxist, is often presented as ‘communities of inquiry’ (Lipman, 1991). shift in both providing a psychological version of Marx’s ‘Philosophy for Children’, a popular approach to teaching thinking skills, philosophy and claim that individual thought is a product of the social and historical context (e.g. already works primarily by drawing psychology Edwards, 1996, p43). In particular Vygotsky children into discussions and turning the classroom into a community that supports towards seeing claims that language is a tool-system that mediates the development of thought. This thinking (Fisher, 1998). thought as fits well with research on distributed The new field of the study of essentially social cognition, which suggests that cognition is not located in individuals so much as in consciousness might have something not individual systems that, while they may include interesting to say about this issue.

14 Consciousness is clearly important to this debate is that higher order thinking many approaches to higher order thinking, is to be found in the whole circular in particular the idea of using meta- movement of thinking and not just in the cognitive strategies to become more aware most private individual moment of it. of one’s own thinking. In some ways consciousness is inescapably an individual In the past thinking skills interventions property. But interestingly the word is have focussed on supporting the internal formed from Latin roots meaning moment of the circular movement of ‘knowledge with another’. One implication thinking and the internalisation process. from the work of Hobson (2002: 1998) However, if higher order thinking is to be quoted earlier, as well as other seen in the whole movement, then it approaches to understanding follows that it is may also be valuable to consciousness, is that individual self- improve the quality of social thinking and in other words consciousness is formed out of the quality of the externalisation process. internalised dialogue. In other words to be Technology, in various forms from thinking skills aware of something at all is to see it as if language to the internet, carries the originate in from the perspective of other people and external form of thinking. Technology so to be potentially able to express it and therefore has a role to play through conversations to share it with other people. From this supporting improved social thinking where we learn and other sources (e.g Wittgenstein’s (eg providing systems to mediate decision private language argument, 1967) it seems making and collective reasoning) and also to reason, to that there are good reasons to think that through providing tools to help individuals evaluate, to join both self-consciousness and higher order externalise their thinking and so to shape thinking are social in origin. In other words their own social worlds. in creative play thinking skills originate in conversations and to provide where we learn to reason, to evaluate, to join in creative play and to provide relevant 2.4 ARE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS relevant information. However, at the same time it WHITE, MALE, AND MIDDLE-CLASS? information is clear that all social thinking could be seen as being made up of individual Some argue that critical thinking skills are contributions and is rooted in potentially not really of general value but are a measurable individual brain processes. product of the experience of a particular There is a constant movement of the social group usually described as white, internalisation of external thinking into male and professional or managerial. individual thinking and externalisation out Ruqaya Hasan, for example, in a study that again by individuals who create and shape shows that there is more language of social thinking. To understand this vision of explicit problem solving and reasoning in thinking as a whole flowing movement it the homes of managers and professionals might help to think of the way that creative than in blue collar homes, claims that the speakers and writers (i.e. all of us) both value given to this way of using language use words and phrases that they find reflects Marx’s claim that ‘in every age the already there, external to them, in the ideas of the rulers are the ruling ideas’ language and yet also shape the (Marx, 1977 quoted in Hasan 1992). development of that shared resource of Harvey Siegel (1987) and Sharon Bailin language. One important conclusion from (1998) respond to this kind of challenge

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defining thinking with the argument that criticisms of strengthen the process of higher order critical thinking already imply critical thinking itself, if this is understood as skills in a narrow thinking and can only be assessed through essentially and originally ‘dialogue across way often the giving and evaluating of reasons. difference’ (Burbules and Rice, 1991). However this focus on explicit reasoning reflects the fails to fully address some of the concerns There is already evidence that access to experience and expressed. Feminist philosopher, Seyla technology at home enhances educational Benhabid (1992) seems to be have more achievement (Reeves, 1998) and it is self-interest of a insight into why certain groups feel acknowledged that access to ICT in homes particular social excluded by the ideal of critical thinking is patterned along socio-economic lines. If and offers what I think is a constructive teaching thinking equips children for group way forward. Her argument, based upon individual success in a competitive market Habermas, is that, if we are to bring up place and no more than that, then teaching children in peace we actually do need thinking with computers could prove to be some sort of ideal of reason or at least an another way to reproduce social inequality. ideal of ‘being reasonable’. This ideal is about how real people solve their problems It may well be that defining thinking skills without resorting to violence through in a narrow way often reflects the engaging in dialogues informed by an experience and self-interest of a particular attitude of care and respect. There is a social group. On the other hand, if, as the view that emerges from the literature evidence suggests, higher order thinking that this ‘concrete ideal’ of dialogue has a social side as well as an individual across difference is the origin of ‘higher side, then teaching thinking requires the order thinking’. promotion of more intelligent forms of collective thinking. Some writers, indeed, For Richard Paul, as was noted earlier, have brought out the connection between critical thinking in the strong sense has to teaching thinking skills with ICT and the be ‘dialogical’. What he means by this is promotion of an intelligent and responsive that the critical thinker has an obligation global democracy (e.g Cobb, 2002: to question his or her own assumptions in Rassool, 1998). order to try to understand the perspective of others. If, as Seyla Benhabid suggests, reason is situated in real dialogues then, in 2.5 SHOULD THINKING SKILLS BE the course of such dialogues, assumptions TAUGHT SEPARATELY FROM about what constitutes good reasoning will CONTENT AREAS? themselves have to be questioned and allowed to evolve. If there are different Different positions in the debate about the ways of thinking with something to offer – nature of thinking skills suggest different and claims have been made for the value responses to the question of how to teach of more intuitive and holistic feminine and thinking skills. Belief in what has been non-western ways of thinking - then this called ‘the central processor model’ of the should emerge in such genuine ‘strong’ mind tends to suggest that teaching critical thinking dialogues. But any such thinking skills directly in a separate evolution of our understanding of higher programme will automatically have a order thinking would only serve to general impact. There are many such

16 separate programmes: Feuerstein’s content area teaching. This has instrumental enrichment (Blagg, 1991) implications for the design of educational Lake and Needham’s top ten thinking software to support thinking skills. tactics (Lake and Needham, 1993), de Programmes that teach ‘problem solving’ Bono’s CORT (1976) and Lipman’s own with no particular content area are less ‘Philosophy for Children’, are examples likely to be useful than programmes that (Lipman, 1991). teach problem solving in the context of maths or perhaps in the context of sorting The argument that thinking skills are out social security benefits. specific to subject areas, however, suggests developing thinking skills within each subject area separately. McGuiness 2.6 WHAT CAN BRAIN STUDIES makes a good argument for a third TELL US? approach, which, following Swartz and Parks (1994) she calls the ‘infusion’ Much cognitive theory approaches the approach. The idea is that teaching brain indirectly, trying to infer through curriculum content is ‘infused’ with the reverse engineering what is really going on teaching of thinking skills. This approach (Pinker, 1998). It is only relatively recently perhaps follows from the claims above that that techniques have been developed that while there are general thinking skills, can allow more direct access to the teaching them needs to be carefully working of the brain. New brain imaging programmes contextualised to be effective. Some techniques (PET and fMRI) measure brain that teach examples of infusion programmes are activity by detecting changes in blood flow McGuinness' ACTs (McGuinness et al, during particular tasks in human subjects, ‘problem solving’ 1997) and Sharon Bailin’s approach to while EEG and MEG measure electrical with no teaching critical and creative thinking in and magnetic activity arising from neurons Canada (Bailin, 1994). In the UK this on the surface of the brain (Blakemore and particular approach is exemplified by ‘Thinking Frith, 1998). This new access seems to content area are Together’ (Mercer, 2000: Dawes, Mercer have prompted a tendency to appeal to the and Wegerif, 2000), Robert Fisher’s UK authority of brain studies for claims about less likely to be approach to ‘Philosophy for Children’ teaching thinking. (Fisher, 1998) and ‘Thinking Through useful than Primary Teaching’ (Higgins, 2001; Leat and Some of the ways in which brain science is programmes Higgins 2002). used to justify particular teaching that teach techniques appear to be unwarranted The consensus seems to be that hard leaps from the evidence. The newly problem solving independent evidence for the success of popular approach to teaching called in the context of separate thinking skills programmes is ‘Accelerated Learning’ (Alistair Smith, limited. (Resnick, 1987; Craft, 1991; 1996) claims to be based upon the findings maths or Greeno, Collins and Resnick, 1996). This of brain research. The success of perhaps in the consensus, in combination with the shift in accelerated learning with teachers implies educational theory towards the situated that it may have some excellent new context of sorting and the social, mean that there is a pedagogical ideas. These may well have out social direction towards thinking skills been inspired by brain research, but programmes being embedded more in claims that they are based directly upon security benefits

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brain research are exaggerated. Similarly, practice’ fail to seriously address our mind-mapping might have pedagogical everyday experience of consciousness. value but its promoters are not really able Brain scanning techniques, which get to claim, as they do, that mind maps work closer than ever before to the real brain because they duplicate the way that the processes behind thinking and mind works (Buzan and Buzan, 2000: consciousness, are therefore a valuable Jonassen, 2000). We still know very little contribution to the debate. Neuro-chemist about how the mind really works. A Susan Greenfield, for example, argues, serious expert review of the evidence by from research evidence, that the subjective Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Uta Frith of experience of depth of consciousness is the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience directly related to the size of the temporary in London finds that there are currently neuronal assembly (all the neurons linked few practical educational implications up in a co-ordinated way) around a that can be safely drawn from research stimulus and inversely related to the on the brain. strength of emotion (Greenfield, 2000). This is relevant to the question of thinking It seems most likely that the main impact skills. Both Salomon and Globerson (1987) of neuroscience on education will be felt in and Claxton (1999) argue that some forms the field of learning disorders. Research to of transfer from learning with technology date has implications for what to do when depend upon the extent of ‘mindfulness’, the brain goes wrong. The implications are by which they mean much the same as less clear for what to do when brains Greenfield’s ‘depth of consciousness’. function normally or how to improve Teaching thinking skills is not just about normal functioning. (Blakemore and Frith, mental mechanisms, verbal strategies, or 2000 p44). promoting a positive self-image – it is also about expanding consciousness. The However Blakemore and Frith report wonder of brain science is that it may well, teaching evidence for claims that are of interest to one day soon, make such woolly sounding the project of teaching thinking: claims rigorously assessable. thinking skills is not just about • that the brain can learn complex patterns implicitly without conscious 2.7 IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR THE mental awareness VALUE OF TEACHING THINKING mechanisms, • that procedural learning (know how) and SKILLS? verbal strategies, declarative learning (know that) make use of quite different parts of the brain I have already noted that several reviewers or promoting a • that the brain continues to be flexible have argued that there is little hard positive self- throughout life and can change evidence for the effective teaching of measurably as new skills are learnt. transferable thinking skills (Resnick, 1987: image – it is also Craft, 1991). However in the last decade a number of studies and reviews have found about expanding Thinking remains a deeply mysterious considerable evidence for the value of business. Both the dry abstractions of consciousness teaching thinking skills. cognitive psychology and the new orthodoxy that everything is ‘situated social

18 CASE (Cognitive Acceleration through Marzano’s findings strongly support the separate general Science Education) is one of the most success of teaching thinking skills if we successful and well-evaluated translate this to mean the teaching of study skills programmes in the UK. Incorporating meta-cognitive strategies. Marzano programmes discussion about science problems in writes that: classroom, CASE is directed towards were found to scientific reasoning for 11-14 year-olds. Specifically, instructional techniques that be much less CASE succeeded in raising pupils’ grades employed the metacognitive system had in GCSE examinations (on average one strong effects whether they were intended effective than grade) two to three years after the to enhance the knowledge domains, the teaching meta- programme had been completed (Adey and mental process within the cognitive Shayer, 1993, 1994). Recent extension of system, the beliefs and processes within cognitive the CASE programme into Key Stage 1 has the self-system, or the processes within strategies as also produced evidence of impact on the metacognitive system itself. children’s learning (Adey, Robertson and part of the Venville, 2002). Similarly, teaching that specifically focused teaching of on emotions and sense of identity (the self A recent meta-analysis of the impact of system) had a powerful effect on learning content within Feurstein’s Instrumental Enrichment found gains at every level. Implicit in this finding courses that overall, the programme had a positive is a transfer effect from teaching focussing impact (Romney and Samuels, 2001). A on attitudes and feelings to gains in total of 40 controlled studies, comprising learning measures. 47 different samples, were examined. Significant, though modest, average effect Hattie, Biggs and Purdie (1996) conducted sizes were found in all three areas - a meta-analysis of 51 study skills achievement, ability, and behaviour - with interventions. They found that ‘Despite, the most extensive improvement being perhaps, the conventional wisdom, most made in ability. Gains in spatial/perceptual intervention does work most of the time’ ability were related to the length of the (1996, p128). However separate general intervention (number of hours), and the study skills programmes were found to be impact on self-esteem was related to age. much less effective than teaching meta- cognitive strategies as part of the teaching Marzano (1998) analysed 4000 intervention of content within courses. studies in education involving over 1,237,000 subjects. Marzano found that The statistical evidence now seems nearly all interventions worked to some convincing. But another kind of evidence extent but that interventions that focussed that should not be ignored is the evidence on the level of meta-cognition, (ie teaching of experience. We all have experience as thinking and learning strategies), and the both teachers and learners. We all know level he called the self-system (ie how intuitively that it is possible for learning to students feel about themselves as change people and to become part of learners) were most effective in improving them. We also know that it is possible to measures of learning. learn skills that are used outside the context in which they were taught. That is how we can think at all when faced with a

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completely new challenge. The fact that challenge is therefore not really an these things sometimes prove hard to attack– it is a valuable part of the evaluate in a rigorous way should not lead process of higher order thinking. us to deny such obvious and everyday The consensus, supported by research experience. It is intuition based upon this evidence, is that the best way to teach kind of experience that lies behind the thinking skills is not as a separate subject interest of so many teachers in teaching but through ‘infusing’ thinking skills into thinking skills. In my view that intuition the teaching of content areas. is not misguided. Brain research is not yet in the position to act as an authoritative support for different 2.8 SUMMARY OF SECTION 2 teaching and learning strategies. However convincing research findings so far have been The existence and nature of thinking skills suggestive and may well lead to more evidence for the is contested. Few experts in the field would clear evidence in the future. Of particular value of explicitly now support the claim that there are interest is the possibility of finding universal thinking skills or completely objective correlates for previously rather teaching general strategies for learning and vague sounding notions such as the transferable problem solving. However there is expansion of consciousness. consensus that there are a range of thinking skills relatively general learning strategies that There have been several rigorous surveys can be disembedded from some contexts of the impact of different teaching methods and re-embedded again in new contexts. and programmes in the last decade. These provide convincing evidence for the Thinking is indissoluably both individual value of explicitly teaching transferable and social. There is a constant movement thinking skills. of the internalisation of social thinking into individual thinking and externalisation out again by individuals into social thinking. 3 TEACHING THINKING SKILLS WITH Higher order thinking is to be found in the TECHNOLOGY whole flowing circular movement of thinking and not just in the individual 3.1 CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF THE moment of it. Technology in various forms, ROLE OF ICT IN EDUCATION from language to the internet, carries social thinking. Technology therefore Theories of how the mind works have had obviously has a role to play in supporting a strong effect on the way that the role of higher order thinking. new technology has been thought about in education. Surveys of the use of computers Many have criticised specific ideals of to promote thinking skills by both Hughes higher order thinking and thinking skills as (1990) and by Underwood and Underwood being too western, masculine and middle (1990) draw a sharp distinction between class. However the ideal of being able to the use of computers as a tutor to teach listen seriously and empathetically to thinking skills and the use of computers as challenges and to respond to reasonable a tool in order to develop skills indirectly. challenges with reform is intrinsic to the Crook (1994), in a similar survey, argues ideal of higher order thinking. This kind of

20 that both these ways of conceptualising Underwood and Underwood, 1990) This the role of the computer in relation to criticism assumes constructivism: the thinking skills are inadequate. He develops claim that knowledge is the product of an a third approach which he refers to as the active process of construction rather than use of computers as a ‘mediational means’ a passive assimilation of information. to ‘resource collaborative encounters’ (Crook, 1994 p227). These three conceptualisations, computer as tutor, 3.1.2 THE COMPUTER AS ‘MINDTOOL’ computer as tool or computer as support for dialogue, are reflections of the three Several popular Science Fiction films show main traditions in educational psychology characters ‘downloading’ skills directly referred to by Greeno, Collins and Resnick into their brains from computers. The and quoted in the first part of this review. I implication is that human skills and will briefly consider each in turn. computer programmes are very similar. Richard Clark refers to the cause of this popular linking of computers and thinking 3.1.1 THE COMPUTER AS TUTOR skills as the reification of a metaphor: the computer metaphor of mind popular in The behaviourist tradition does not have cognitive science (Clark, 1990, p268). When much to say directly about thinking skills. the mind is seen as a kind of computer it The language of the movement is mostly seems plausible that working with about producing observable changes in computers can provide mind skills. behaviour. To educate effectively on this Seymour Papert, a student of Piaget, model requires a great deal of contingent applied constructivism to the role of individual re-inforcement. Computers can computers (1981, 1993) advocating the use provide the individual feedback needed. of programming and other active Skinner was influential in promoting the modelling environments to support use of computers as individual teaching learning (where learning was seen as the machines. Instructional technologists active construction of meaning). broke down complex tasks into learning Constructivism is now probably the hierarchies in order to produce teaching dominant paradigm in the design of programmes. The current use of educational multimedia (Boyle, 1996, p83). Integrated Learning Systems (ILSs) The implicit idea in much of the literature continues in the tradition of the computer of cognitivism and constructivism is that as an individual teaching machine. There is the mind is so much like a computer that evidence that this individualised approach teaching a computer how to think, i.e. leads to improved learning of some basic programming, is pretty much the same as skills (Underwood et al 1996). learning how to think for oneself. Jonassen (2000) outlines the significance The main criticism of the computer as a of cognitive psychology and constructivism tutor model is that directed computer for the use of technology to promote the teaching does not allow children to be development of thinking skills. creative learners, able to think and make connections for themselves, and so is Mindtools are computer applications that, unlikely to support the development of when used by learners to represent what higher order thinking (e.g. Papert, 1981: they know, necessarily engage them in

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not that critical thinking about the content they are the communicative processes of teaching studying. Mindtools scaffold different and learning. Whereas both the computer computers will forms of reasoning about content. That is, as tutor model and the computer as tool directly teach they require students to think about what model encourage the view of the use of they know in different, meaningful ways. computers as a kind of treatment leading thinking but that, For instance, using databases to organize to an individual learning outcome, the after working in students’ understanding of content socio-cultural model argued for by Crook organization necessarily engages them in (1994), Newman, Griffin and Cole, (1989), partnership with analytical reasoning, where creating an Mercer, (1994) and Saljo (1998) encourages computers, the expert system rule base requires them to investigation of the way interactive think about the causal relationships technologies can contribute to learning student will between ideas. Students cannot use conversations both in groups and in internalise the Mindtools as learning strategies without communities. thinking deeply about what they are way that studying. (Jonassen, 1998) I will use these three conceptualisations of computers think the role of ICT in education to structure a The main idea, also articulated by review of the way that new technology has as a cognitive Underwood and Underwood, (1990) and by been applied to promoting thinking skills tool for their Salomon, (1990), is not that computers will directly teach thinking but that, after own use working in partnership with computers, 3.2 USES OF COMPUTER AS A TUTOR the student will internalise the way that computers think as a cognitive tool for It is easy to see how the computer as tutor their own use. model can be adapted to teach thinking skills programmes that focus on abstract reasoning and logic puzzles. For example, 3.1.3 THE COMPUTER AS A SUPPORT Riding and Powell (1985) report on a study FOR LEARNING CONVERSATIONS which used a computer program to tutor 4 year-old children in ‘critical thinking Crook (1994, p67) argues that the skills’ using a series of graphical computer as tutor model and the more problems. Over the period of the study the constructivist model of computers as children showed improvements in score on support for developing cognitive skills, are a non-verbal reasoning test – Raven’s both based on similar individualist models Coloured Progressive Matrices. However of learning. He argues instead for a socio- the sort of problems that the children were cultural model of learning which stresses given in the tutorial program were rather the primacy of the joint construction of similar to the problems in the Raven’s knowledge through communication. Within reasoning test, leaving Riding and Powell the socio-cultural model, intellectual open, as they acknowledge, to the charge development is seen as induction into the of not teaching general skills but of simply social practices and the use of the cultural training children to perform on a specific tool-systems through which shared test. Follow up studies referred to by knowledge is constructed. This leads Hughes (1990, p125) have shown only very Crook to emphasise the use of the limited transfer to thinking in other computer as a support and resource for contexts. This difficulty in producing

22 transferable skills is to be anticipated from Diana Laurillard points out that the claims the discussion of thinking skills made for ITSs are often overstated. The programmes in general. It is related to the novel internal architecture of the ITS does main criticism of the computer as tutor not offer any novel pedagogical moves that model which is summed up by Papert’s could not be done in other ways. Despite complaint that instead of teaching children the name ‘intelligent’, ITSs seem just like how to program computers, computers are ordinary tutorial systems with a few extra being used to program children (1980). features such as a record of student Both Underwood and Underwood (1990) performance to date and adaptive and Solomon (1987) develop the criticism sequencing of educational activities. But that directed computer teaching does not she also claims, more positively, that: allow children to be creative learners able ‘the ITS is the only medium that can be to think and make connections for said to support genuine reflection on the themselves and so is unlikely to support particular learning experience the student the development of thinking skills. has undergone’ (Laurillard, 1993 p161) This potential for ITSs, or ‘expert systems’, Intelligent tutoring systems in education continues to be explored. ‘Intelligent Tutoring Systems’ ITSs Recent approaches include developing represent a link between the behaviourist ‘learning companions’ to prompt reflection approach to Computer Aided Instruction and guidance to support collaborative and the cognitivist paradigm. ITSs are a learning (Jermann, P, Soller, A., & product of Artificial Intelligence research Muehlenbrock, M., 2001). The idea of using and are said to be intelligent because they prompts and questions to stimulate embody models of the domain to be learnt, reflection and discussion has been applied models of students and a model of an with some success. expert tutor in the domain. For the most part they remain an expensive tool for AI research with few educational applications. 3.3 USES OF MINDTOOLS However they are worth mentioning since one idea of ITS has always been to teach 3.3.1 PROGRAMMING thinking skills, such as problem-solving, through modelling them. For example the Teaching programming has been promoted ITS or expert system can be used to as a way of learning general thinking challenge and question students to lead skills (Papert, 1980). Perkins and them on the path of problem-solving Salomon comment that (1987): ‘In appropriate to the area. Examples of this general programming is a remarkably kind of feedback might be: ‘have you rich cognitive enterprise that might yield specified all the things that you need to many different sorts of transfer effects.’ know to make this decision?’ ‘You appear (p154). They list some of the possible gains to have overlooked the patient’s heart including: rate’. ‘Have you checked the database for other syndromes that match these • problem solving, problem finding, and symptoms?’ and so on. problem management strategies eg breaking a problem into parts or relating it to a previously solved

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problem, planning, and the kind of Exposure to LOGO by itself does not diagnostic thinking involved in usually lead to cognitive gains; that such debugging gains are more likely to be found with • abilities of formal reasoning and structured teaching; and that the Logo representation eg thinking of all environment promotes social interaction possible combinations, and constructing amongst peers. (1990. p133) mathematical models • cognitive styles eg precision, and 3.3.2 VISUALISATIONS AND reflectivity over impulsivity SIMULATIONS • enthusiasms and tolerances eg persistence, and enthusiasm for Some kinds of powerful thinking work meaningful academic engagement. through a series of ‘leap-frogging’ manoeuvres. Scientific thinking, for The logic based programming language example, relies on turning processes into LOGO has been widely used in schools and nouns so that they can be objectified and widely evaluated. Results seem equivocal. thought about more easily (Halliday and Simon (1987) surveys a number of Martin, 1993). Representations of every evaluations to conclude that Papert’s kind allow us to objectify our thoughts so hopes that using LOGO would lead to the that we can reflect upon them. Writing, emergence of general problem solving graphs, tables and specialist notations skills were ‘pipe dreams’ and ‘techno- such as mathematics are already cognitive romanticism’. Underwood and tools allowing thought to ‘leap-frog’ to a Underwood’s survey of evaluation results higher level of understanding. Computers is much more positive (1990). Liao and can take this further through allowing the Bright (1991, quoted in Kirkwood, 1998) direct manipulation of representations. conducted a meta-analysis of sixty-five Paul Cobb argues that providing computer classroom based studies into the tools to help students manipulate complex relationship between computer data-sets enables them to understand programming and general cognitive skills, statistical arguments and therefore equips using quantitative comparisons between them to be able to participate in many treatment and control groups. Their main public debates (2002). Sharon Ainsworth using a conclusion is that programming can (1997) similarly argues for the value of computer as a provide a mildly effective approach to multiple representations for supporting the developing students’ cognitive skills in a development of understanding. Jonassen ‘mindtool’ to classroom setting. makes the same kind of case for the use solve a problem of ‘visualisation tools’ that allow learners Erik De Corte (1990) demonstrated that to visualise scientific ideas (Jonassen, and learning how using LOGO alone does not produce 2000). Many simulations of systems play to solve it for transfer but that LOGO can be a useful a similar role. They allow users to resource in teaching approaches that lead manipulate dynamic representations of oneself are to transfer. The same point is made by real-world systems. therefore Clements and Gullo (1984). Hughes (1990) sums up a balanced survey of the evidence The literature about using the computer as different things with the following conclusions: a tool sometimes blurs the distinction

24 between using external cognitive tools, eg that help to make it happen. There is no the point about computers, and developing internal good evidence that thinking skills will cognitive tools, eg thinking skills. These simply ‘rub off’ as a ‘cognitive residue’ ‘mindtools’, as are not the same things. I use a calculator (Salomon 1991 quoted in Jonassen, 2000), Jonassen calls when I change currency, perhaps it is a from using new technology. ‘cognitive tool’, but that does not mean them, is that that I learn how to do long division – I can The point about ‘mindtools’, as Jonassen they do not work do long division only because a teacher calls them, is that they do not work on taught me a pencil and paper technique their own. To learn from such tools on their own. To that I still remember and use. When asked students need to be primed as to what to learn from such to do long division in the absence of paper look for, they need opportunities to and pencil I find myself visualising the articulate what they find and they need tools students numbers and imagining the procedure. I feedback on their discoveries. One way need to be do not find it useful to visualise a of achieving this is to use mindtools as a calculator and imagine pressing the resource for small group collaborative primed as to buttons. If I were a hospital manager learning within a teaching and learning what to look for, funding the development of a computer framework (Laurillard, 1993 p137: system to diagnose patients I would want Wegerif, 2002). they need the best system possible, a system that did opportunities to not need doctors. If, on the other hand, I wanted to help teach medical students the 3.3.3 CONCEPT MAPPING articulate what complex skills of diagnosis, involving they find and reasoning, evaluation, information Concept maps or ‘semantic networks’ are processing and so on, I would want a very spatial representations of the concepts and they need different system. I would want the careful their interrelationships that are intended to feedback on their ‘scaffolding’ of skills with the rich represent the knowledge structures that presentation of case studies and lots of humans store in their minds (Jonassen, discoveries interactive feedback. Using a computer as 2000). While concept maps do not require a ‘mindtool’ to solve a problem and computers, computer-based concept- learning how to solve it for oneself are mapping software, such as ‘SemNet’, therefore different things. ‘Learning Tool’, ‘Inspiration’, ‘Mind Mapper’, and many others, enable the Jonassen claims that the best way to learn production of concept maps. Great claims about an area is to build a computer are made for the use of concept-mapping system to model the area. From my as a tool to support critical thinking and experience of building computer systems I reflection on the organisation of knowledge suspect that in reality far more time would in a subject area while also learning about be spent learning how to get the computer the area (Buzan and Buzan, 2000: tools you were using to do exactly what you Jonassen, 2000). wanted than in learning about the area. This is not a very efficient approach to The purpose of semantic networks is to teaching and learning. The evidence represent the structure of knowledge that suggests that learning skills that can someone has constructed. So, creating transfer requires someone, usually a semantic networks requires learners to teacher, to plan activities and experiences analyze the structural relationships among

25 SECTION 3 TEACHING THINKING SKILLS WITH TECHNOLOGY

the content they are studying. By collaboratively by authors and users’ comparing semantic networks created at (Jonassen, 1991, 83). The world wide web different points in time, they can also be is an example of hypertext. There have used as evaluation tools for assessing been very large claims made for the changes in thinking by learners. revolutionary nature of hypertext in (Jonassen 1998) education. The non-linearity of hypertext is meant to reflect the way that the mind is Concept maps have been used to support structured. Reading hypertext involves inquiry-based science and claims have making a path through it and so is said to been made that concept mapping is be a more constructive process than especially suited to science education. reading linear print text. External links Some research argues that the benefits of made between nodes in the hypertext are many people concept-mapping can be greatly enhanced said to reflect internal semantic links if they are used as a focus for collaborative (Jonassen 1998). A review of research on find that concept learning (Roth, 1994, Roth and hypertext use in education by Dillon and maps help them Roychoudhury, 1994) Gabard (1998 referred to in Bromme and Stahl, 2002) showed no support for the to think more Diana Laurillard (1993, p123), writing in claim that hypertext aides the teaching and clearly about the context of higher education, is critical learning of thinking skills. of the way in which concept maps reduce some topics knowledge to little chunks of information The idea of hypertext is similar to the idea and defined relationships between of a library. Those already equipped with them. Knowledge, she argues, is unitary effective thinking and learning skills can and indivisible. use libraries as a resource for learning but most students will need more guidance ‘even a simple statement such as than that. Simply having a library does net "as air rises it cools" cannot be mean that you acquire information expressed as an association between searching skills. two component fragments’ Bromme and Stahl (2002) argue that, while She is right of course but there is no reading hypertext has few learning denying that many people find that concept benefits, constructing hypertexts is likely maps help them to think more clearly to involve thinking skills (2002). Their about some topics. Educational evaluations arguments are similar to those put forward of using concept maps mostly seem for the value of using concept maps, these positive but are small scale (e.g Scanlon et are that in developing hypertext documents al 1996; van Boxtel et al, 2000). students need to think about the conceptual structure of an area and reflect on the nature of the links between content. 3.3.4 HYPERTEXT

Hypertext is a ‘computer-based software 3.3.5 HYPER-MEDIA system for organising and storing information to be accessed Hyper-media essentially means hypertext nonsequentially and constructed with multi-media content. Constructivists,

26 as their name implies, seem very keen on Organization and Representation Skills getting children to construct things. • deciding how to segment and sequence Jonassen (2000, p211) argues that making information to make it understandable hyper-media products ‘allows children to construct their own understandings rather • deciding how information will be than interpreting the teacher’s represented (text, pictures, movies, understanding of the world’. However audio, etc.) some engagement with a teacher’s • deciding how the information will be understanding is very useful, and often organized (hierarchy, sequence) and essential, for the learning of new skills. how it will be linked. Designing multimedia products, for example web-sites, is clearly a complex process that engages many skills. Carver, Presentation Skills Lehrer, Connell, and Ericksen (1992, • mapping the design onto the quoted in Reeves, 1998 and in Jonassen, presentation and implementing the 2000) list the major thinking skills that ideas in multimedia learners need as designers of multimedia • attracting and maintaining the interests presentations. These include: of the intended audiences. Project Management Skills • creating a timeline for the completion Reflection Skills of the project • evaluating the program and the • allocating resources and time to process used to create it different parts of the project • revising the design of the program • assigning roles to team members. using feedback.

That all sounds plausible but could not all no support for Research Skills of these skills equally be developed • determining the nature of the problem through designing and making a poster the claim that and how research should be organized display? While, with the right pedagogy, hypertext aides • posing thoughtful questions about designing multi-media could support the structure, models, cases, values, teaching of thinking skills, it is not the teaching and and roles obviously the easiest or the cheapest learning of way to do this. • searching for information using text, thinking skills electronic, and pictorial information sources 3.3.6 COMPUTER GAMES • developing new information with interviews, questionnaires and other Whitebread (1997) claims that playing survey methods computer games can help develop thinking • analyzing and interpreting all the skills. Even a game such as Lemmings, information collected to identify and often considered purely as an interpret patterns. entertainment game, he claims has the potential to develop skills such as:

27 SECTION 3 TEACHING THINKING SKILLS WITH TECHNOLOGY

• understanding and representing the on improving the medium of shared or problem (including identifying what social thinking rather than upon directly kinds of information are relevant to promoting individual thinking skills. its solution) However, as I argued in part two of this • gathering and organising relevant review, higher order thinking is both a information social and an individual activity. Promoting engagement in higher • constructing and managing a plan order collective thinking is also a way of action, or a strategy to teach thinking skills. • reasoning, hypothesis-testing and decision-making 3.4.1 COLLABORATIVE LEARNING there is no • using various problem-solving tools (p17). evidence that Teasley and Roschelle (1993) report a study ‘The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis’, that illustrates the role of computers in games, or any has been evaluated very highly by Steve supporting collaborative learning and other software Higgins for its capacity to promote logical thinking. Their study concerned pairs of reasoning skills when integrated with the learners using a simulation designed to for that matter, right pedagogy (Higgins, 2000). This teach Newtonian physics, called the can teach software was developed by a university ‘Envisioning Machine’. In it they argue that team in collaboration with Broderbund. the essential medium of the learning is the thinking skills talk between the learners and that the role on their own Collaboration around games seems to of the computer lies in supporting that have a positive effect on problem-solving. talk and resourcing their collaboration Inkpen et al (1995) found that when (ibid. p254). The computer screen offers a children played ‘The Incredible Machine’ shared focus, a means to ‘disambiguate’ (TIM), a problem-solving game, together on language through images on the screen, one machine, they 'solved significantly and a means to resolve conflicts by testing more puzzles than children playing alone out alternative views. Teasley and on one machine'. They were also more Roschelle write: motivated to continue playing when they had a human partner. We see the ‘computer-supported’ contribution to collaborative learning as There is no evidence that games, or any contributing a resource that mediates other software for that matter, can teach collaboration. In ordinary circumstances thinking skills on their own. They can be one cannot imagine two 15-year-olds used as a resource to help teach thinking sitting down for 45 minutes to construct a within a pedagogical framework. rich shared understanding of velocity and acceleration. But in the context provided by the Envisioning Machine activity, our 3.4 COMPUTER AS A SUPPORT FOR students were successful in doing just LEARNING CONVERSATIONS that. (ibid. p254)

Much work in the area of computer This conceptualisation of the educational supported collaborative learning focuses role of the computer as a medium

28 supporting collaborative learning is the In the most recent study of this approach this embedded view which is most in accord with the we developed ICT activities in Maths and sociocultural theoretical framework. Science to cover an entire year of the and catalytic role Teasley and Roschelle argue that it curriculum. Our evaluation demonstrated for computers throws the emphasis away from the that computer-based activities can be used computer software and on to the quality to stimulate reasoned discussion and in primary of the dialogue. focus this on curriculum-related learning. education is We used a control study to demonstrate Further evidence that the pedagogy is as significant gains in scores on curriculum distinctive important as the technology comes from tests in Science and Maths. We also found my own work with Neil Mercer, Lyn Dawes significant improvements in solving and Karen Littleton at the Open University. reasoning test problems when working In this research an approach has been together in small groups. Video analysis developed using computers that prepares has demonstrated a link between solving children to work effectively together with such problems and use of ‘exploratory talk’ specially-designed computer-based (Wegerif and Mercer, 2000). This effect activities focused on curriculum-related also transferred to significant topics. A series of 'Talk Lessons' are improvements in individual scores on followed, in which classes establish Ravens Progressive Matrices tests. Higgins ground-rules for collaboration such as (2001) argues that the findings of this listening with respect, responding to research offer persuasive evidence that, in challenges with reasons, encouraging combination with the right pedagogy, the partners to give their views and trying to use of ICT can support the development of reach agreement. These activities are not transferable thinking skills. only concerned with improving the quality of children’s working relationships, but also with developing their use of language 3.4.2 CONFERENCING as a tool for reasoning and constructing knowledge. That is, the Talk Lessons There are many claims that electronic encourage teachers to create a conferencing can be an effective support 'community of enquiry' in their classrooms for learning thinking skills through in which children are guided in their use of collaborative learning. Such claims can be language as a tool for both individual found in Mason (1989), McConnell (1995) reasoning and collaborative problem- and Harasim et al (1995). At least some of solving. Computers are used not only for the factors claimed to support reasoning stimulating effective language use but also relate to the specific way in which the for focusing children’s joint activity on medium supports discourse. For example: curriculum tasks. This embedded and catalytic role for computers in primary • the ease with which it is possible to education is distinctive (Wegerif, 1996b: ‘take the floor’ in a discussion in Wegerif and Scrimshaw, 1997; Wegerif, comparison with face-to-face discussion Mercer and Dawes, 1998: Wegerif, • the possibility of having several strands Sams and Barrett, 2002: Wegerif and of conversation simultaneously supports Dawes, 2003). more meta-cognitive reflection

29 SECTION 3 TEACHING THINKING SKILLS WITH TECHNOLOGY

with the right • the written nature of the dialogue 3.4.3 THE INTERNET combined with asynchronicity can allow pedagogy these time for refection while maintaining the Steve Higgins (2002) draws a distinction kind of resources intrinsic motivation of a conversation. between thinking through and thinking (Wegerif, 1998) with the internet. As an example of the could be used to former he suggests 'Newswise', help to These differences between CMC (http://www.dialogueworks.co.uk/) an understand communication and face-to-face internet resource aimed at primary and communication have been pointed out by secondary pupils which offers access to classification David Graddol (1989) and are reiterated appropriate texts for discussion, a forum and to think by David McConnell (1994) . The conclusion for exchanging ideas and support for from both these writers appears to be that teachers in developing strategies to help more about the CMC can support an egalitarian style of engage their pupils in different aspects of relationships communication in which everyone can the stories and texts. This uses the internet participate more easily. One possible as a medium for exchanging news stories between implication of this is that CMC might be a (accessed by teachers and pupils) and categories good medium for establishing what exchanging ideas about those stories. The Habermas (1981) calls an 'ideal speech same principle is found in OneWorldTV situation': that situation which, through the (http://tv.oneworld.net/) where video news elimination of all forms of coercion and stories are presented and debated by a through ground rules allowing all to speak, global audience. best supports the force of good arguments winning out over other, less rational, By ‘thinking with the internet’ Higgins factors. However, others have claimed, means using the internet itself as the tool by contrast, that the medium is (rather that just the medium of particularly prone to aggression and communication). For example using html irrationality (Siegal,Dubrovsky, Kiesler with hotspots and links to create non- and McGuire, 1986 quoted in Jonassen, linear texts or pictures and diagrams that 2000, 265). Laurillard’s claim that ‘the can be explored to support teaching and success of the medium is totally learning. The interactive relationship with dependent on a good moderator’ (1993 information can be used to promote p169) is therefore probably a fair thinking skills. The search engine Kartoo, assessment of the situation. for example, offers visual results and shows the results of its metasearch with Links via email or electronic conference sites being interconnected by keywords. with other schools can be used for the (http://kartoo.com). With the right joint construction of knowledge including pedagogy these kind of resources could be critical questioning and reasoning. used to help to understand classification An example might be taking a particular and to think more about the relationships topic to research together in order to between categories. develop joint multi-media resources on the web. This approach is found in Margaret Riel's 'circles of learning' (Riel, 1996).

30 3.4.4 SHARED DATABASES integrating new technology is often a chance for teachers to re-think their approach. CSILE, which stands for Computer There is evidence that new technology often Supported Intentional Learning works in this way as a catalyst for change. Environments (Scardemalia et al, 1991: A particular problem with evaluating the 1994), consists of a number of networked effects of technology is that such effects computers in a classroom where a depend completely on how the technology community database is maintained. The is used. The quality of an educational database consists of text and graphical activity is not an effect of the software notes, all produced by students and alone but of the software in context. The accessible through database search same piece of software might have quite procedures. Teachers work with CSILE in different effects if used in different different areas of the curriculum. Students pedagogical contexts. Teachers (or parents are given a question, they have to find or moderators) play a crucial role in information and record it via notes in the setting up and guiding any learning database. Other students then comment experience with ICT. on the notes and add new notes. Many claims in this area need to be Evaluations of learning outcomes in CSILE treated with caution. There are evidently classrooms are positive and reflect the many enthusiasts who love to see children development of thinking skills, including having fun playing with computer-based great comprehension of texts and deeper toys and games and making wonderful explanations of processes as well as the multi-media products. The important development of a more positive self-image question is not ‘do they display thinking as learners. skills in what they are doing? Of course they do. A better question is: ‘is there any evidence that these skills will transfer in a 3.5 HOW TO TEACH THINKING useful way to other contexts in their lives?’ the quality of WITH ICT an educational 3.5.1 UNDERSTANDING 3.5.2 THE PEDAGOGICAL CONTEXT activity is not EVALUATIONS OF THE RESEARCH The research evidence seems to suggest an effect of the that transferable thinking skills will not software alone Reeves, (1998) quotes many positive effects result unless activities are embedded in of technology use in education including teaching and learning dialogues, either but of the learning thinking skills. These findings in with a teacher or with other students. In software in the USA have been matched more recently other words the activity, however creative in the UK by the DfES Impact2 study (2002b). or fun, needs to be framed in such a way context One problem with these evaluations, and that learning goals are made explicit and others mentioned in this section of the bridges are built between contexts. report, is that all interventions seem to This suggests a need for developers to work. Enthusiastic researchers who believe consider the context of use of any ICT and in their proposed solutions can motivate to provide support for using it in a way that teachers and children regardless of the will lead to transferable thinking skills. content of the intervention. More positively, Out of his experiments with different ways

31 SECTION 3 TEACHING THINKING SKILLS WITH TECHNOLOGY

of teaching with LOGO described above, De Another effective strategy used by the Corte (1990) proposed the following features ‘Thinking Together’ approach (Moseley et of powerful learning environments: al, 1999) is a three-part structure to ICT activities. The teacher sets up issues and • learners need an explicit explanation of aims at the beginning and then returns to the cognitive components of the task (a these in a whole group plenary session at ‘thinking’ vocabulary) the end after group work by the children. • learners need to observe an expert The teacher needs to be explicit about performing the task (modelling) thinking skills aims at the beginning of the lesson – to point out that work with LOGO, • learners need to be given hints and for example, is not just about playing but is feedback on their own performance also about reasoning together to develop (coaching) effective strategies - and then to visit these • learners need to be given direct support aims again at the end of the lesson. In the in the early stages of learning a task plenary the teacher needs to draw out (scaffolding) and to move gradually what has been learnt and how this could towards self-regulation and autonomy be applied elsewhere. Linking activities (teacher-fading) showing how similar kinds of thinking skills can be applied in different areas of • learners need the opportunity to the curriculum is also a good idea. In this articulate their cognitive and case again explicit bridges need to be metacognitive strategies and to make made at the beginning and the end of comparisons with other learners each activity. (reflection) • learners need to explore, identify and define new problems in a domain and be 3.5.3 ICT DESIGN shown how strategies acquired in one domain can be used to solve problems Using computers as tutors can be an in another domain (transfer). effective way of infusing thinking skills into subject area teaching and learning. This is While group or paired work is not essential because, with the right teacher input and for learning thinking skills with ICT all the software design group work around evidence suggests that it helps. Having to computers can turn the use of reasoning articulate and explain strategies to others skills into learning outcomes. Software can is far more likely to lead to transfer than be designed to initiate, resource and frame just doing things without verbalisation. a discussion just as a teacher can, but However there is plenty of evidence that unlike teachers they are never judgmental just putting children in front of a screen and have infinite patience. Once learners and asking them to work together is not have been prepared for group work by a sufficient (e.g. Dawes, 1997). The best teacher or by the ethos of a social setting, approach is to teach children how to work then when the computer prompts them together effectively before they are asked with a challenge or a question they are to work at the ICT task (Dawes, Mercer and able to sit back from the screen and discuss Wegerif, 2000). the issue together before reaching a shared decision about what response to

32 make. In this way they can construct their changed, multiple and dynamic forms. ICT is distinct own understandings together, but in a way Data-bases, graphs and concept-mapping that is directed towards curriculum goals can all be used to support critical and from other by the computer software. Research analytical thinking about relationships educational analysing video-tapes of pairs and small within an area, as well as to bring out groups of children working around patterns that unite different areas. technologies in computers has given us some clues as to CSILE has shown that building up shared that it has the what software features help to establish data-bases can be an effective way of and sustain effective talk: teaching and applying thinking skills. Links capacity to via email or electronic conference with represent ideas • challenges and problems which have other schools can be used in similar ways meaning for the children, and which for the joint construction of knowledge and information provide a range of alternative choices including critical questioning and in easily that are worth discussing. Such reasoning. Tools to support collective challenges should engage the learners higher order thinking using these media changed, with the content of the software rather need to be designed in. These could range multiple and than its interface from the kind of templates or forms used dynamic forms • a clear purpose or task which is made in CSILE, through symbolic languages, evident to the group and which is kept in through to prompts for reflection. focus throughout • on-screen talk prompts which ask the 3.6 SUMMARY OF SECTION 3 group to talk together, remind them to reach agreement and ask for opinions The three main approaches to and reasons understanding learning that were • resources for discussion, including introduced in part one were applied to information on which decisions can be understand different ways in which the based and opportunities to review role of ICT in supporting learning has been decisions in the light of new information conceptualised. Behaviourism was linked • no features which encourage individuals to the use of the computer as a teaching to take turns, beat the clock or establish machine, cognitivism/constructivism to competitive ways of working the use of ICT as a tool and the socio- cultural/participationist school to the • audio input or multi-choice answers use of ICT as a support for learning to minimise typing (unless the conversations. These three learners have keyboarding skills). conceptualisations, ICT as tutor, (adapted from Wegerif, 1997) tool or support for dialogue, were used to structure a review of examples of ICT These guidelines can be used as a basis used to teach thinking skills. for designing software or for selecting software that can be used to support One of the first principles to emerge from collaborative learning. these studies was that the computer- based technology alone does not lead to ICT is distinct from other educational transferable thinking skills. Whether the technologies in that it has the capacity to ICT is conceptualised as tutor, tool or represent ideas and information in easily support for communication, the success

33 SECTION 4 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE, CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND THE DESIGN OF LEARNING RESOURCES

of the activity crucially depends on how cases it could easily be re-designed to it is framed. Learners need to know what support collaboration. the thinking skills are that they are learning and these need to be explicitly Three ways in which the use of ICT could modelled, drawn out and re-applied in particularly enhance the teaching and different contexts. learning of thinking skills emerged: First, thinking skills can be developed by Effective teaching for transferable thinking supporting dynamic and multiple skills with ICT contains some or all of the representations of information. Visualising following elements: patterns in data-sets, for example, allows learners to think at a higher level about • teaching a ‘thinking’ vocabulary and statistical relationships. giving learners an explicit explanation of the thinking skills that they are to be learnt Second, through a certain ambivalence of • observing an expert performing the task nature, educational software can act like a (modelling) teacher to prompt and direct enquiry but can, at the same time, act as a resource • giving timely feedback on performance while learners discuss and explore ideas. (formative assessment) Prompting reflection around a simulation • direct support in the early stages of could be an example. learning a task (scaffolding) and then a gradual move towards self-regulation Third, networks can allow students to and autonomy (teacher fade-out) engage directly in knowledge creation with others who are not physically present. • the opportunity to articulate thinking Given the apparent importance of strategies and discuss these with other collaborative learning this has significance learners (thinking together) for home education. And while it is not learners need to • the explicit demonstration of how intrinsically superior to think together with thinking strategies acquired in one those outside the classroom, than with know what the subject area can be used to solve those within, it can be more motivating. If thinking skills problems in another area (bridging). those outside the classroom, have a different perspective on issues it can also are that they Another principle to emerge was that stimulate more thought. are learning and collaborative learning improved the effectiveness of most activities. Where these need to tutorial software alone is ineffective for 4 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE, be explicitly developing thinking skills, tutorial software CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND used as a basis for discussion between THE DESIGN OF LEARNING modelled, drawn learners can be. Computer mind-tools, RESOURCES out and such as concept maps or programming languages, all appear to be enhanced re-applied in when used in pairs or groups who are 4.1 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE different contexts taught to explicitly articulate their strategies as they work together. This is The use of technology alone does not lead interesting because most software is still to transferable thinking skills. The success designed for individual work, in many of any educational activity crucially

34 depends on how it is framed. Learners • direct support in the early stages of need to know what the thinking skills are learning a task (scaffolding) and then a that they are learning and these need to gradual move towards self-regulation be explicitly modelled, drawn out and and autonomy (teacher fade-out) re-applied in different contexts. • the opportunity to articulate thinking strategies and discuss these with other A simple but effective strategy is to use a learners (thinking together) three-part structure to ICT activities. The teacher sets up issues and aims at the • the explicit demonstration of how beginning and then returns to these in a thinking strategies acquired in one whole group plenary session at the end subject area can be used to solve after group work by the children. The problems in another area (bridging). teacher needs to be explicit about thinking explicit links skills aims at the beginning of the lesson, Collaboration around ICT activities has modelling the use of the skills being been shown to have the potential to (bridges) to taught, and then these aims need to be enhance the learning of transferable thinking skills visited again at the end of the lesson. In thinking skills. However effective the plenary the teacher needs to draw out collaborative learning needs to be need to be made what has been learnt and how this could prepared. It helps if learners are explicitly at the beginning be applied elsewhere. Explicitly linking to taught how to reason and learn together further activities that show how similar before they are asked to work and the end of kinds of thinking skills can be applied in collaboratively with ICT. each activity in different areas of the curriculum is also a good idea. Explicit links (bridges) to which the thinking skills need to be made at the 4.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE thinking skill is beginning and the end of each activity DESIGN OF LEARNING RESOURCES in which the thinking skill is meant to meant to be be applied. The best software for teaching thinking applied skills comes from collaborations between developers and educators or educational 4.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR researchers. CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT Some of the guidelines for the effective Effective teaching for transferable thinking teaching for thinking skills could be skills with ICT contains some or all of the incorporated into software design. For following elements: example, being explicit about thinking skills, modelling them, designing activities • teaching a ‘thinking’ vocabulary and that use the same skills in different giving learners an explicit explanation of context and prompting learners to reflect the thinking skills that are to be learnt on thinking strategies and articulate • observing an expert performing the task them clearly. (modelling) Software can be designed to initiate, • giving timely feedback on performance resource and frame a discussion just as a (formative assessment) teacher can, but unlike teachers they are

35 SECTION 4 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE, CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND THE DESIGN OF LEARNING RESOURCES

learners can never judgmental and have infinite potential to support the development of patience. In this way learners can thinking skills with the right pedagogy. The construct construct their own understandings pedagogy needs to frame individual their own together but in a way that is directed discoveries within teaching and learning towards curriculum goals by the computer conversations. Collaboration between understandings software. An example of this is to learners, for example, has been shown to together but in a incorporate prompts for discussion around enhance the learning of thinking skills a simulation. Before running a simulation using so called mindtools partly because it way that is the prompt could be: ‘what is your encourages the explicit articulation of directed towards prediction?’ And afterwards: ‘can you thinking strategies. explain why you were right/wrong?’ curriculum goals The finding about the value of collaborative by the computer ICT has a particular role to play through learning is interesting for designers since supporting dynamic and multiple most software is obviously intended for software representations of information. Visualising individual use. There are several simple patterns in data-sets, for example, allows ways of designing software to support learners to think at a higher level about collaboration. statistical relationships. • challenges and problems which have Networks can allow students to engage meaning for the learner, and which directly in knowledge creation with others provide a range of alternative choices who are not physically present. Given the that are worth discussing. Such apparent importance of collaborative challenges should engage the learners learning this has significance for home with the content of the software rather education. And while it is not intrinsically than its interface superior to think together with those • a clear purpose or task which is made outside the classroom than with those evident to the group and which is kept in within, it can be more motivating. If those focus throughout outside the classroom have a different perspective on issues it can also stimulate • on-screen talk prompts which ask the more thought. pair or group to talk together, remind them to reach agreement and ask for Building up shared data-bases can be an opinions and reasons effective way of teaching and applying • resources for discussion, including thinking skills. Links via email or information on which decisions can be electronic conference with other schools based, and opportunities to review can be used in similar ways for the joint decisions in the light of new information construction of knowledge, including • no features which encourage individuals critical questioning and reasoning. These to take turns, beat the clock or establish forms of collaborative knowledge- competitive ways of working construction could be supported by in-built supports for thinking. • clicking, multi-choice answers or audio input to minimise typing (unless Much of the software that has been called the learners have been taught ‘mindtools’, such as concept maps and keyboarding skills). hypertext authoring environments, has

36 GLOSSARY INTERNET LINKS

GLOSSARY teach processes of thinking and learning that can be used in a wide range of real- bloom's taxonomy popular instructional life contexts. The list of thinking skills in model developed by the prominent the English National Curriculum is similar educator Benjamin Bloom. It categorises to many such lists: information- thinking skills from the concrete to the processing, reasoning, enquiry, creative abstract-knowledge, comprehension, thinking and evaluation. application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. transfer taking something, an idea or The last three are considered higher- skill, that has been learnt in one context order skills. and applying it in a different context. cognition the mental operations involved in thinking; the biological/neurological processes of the brain that facilitate INTERNET LINKS thought. (Adapted from the MAPE Pack: Focus on creative thinking imaginative activity ICT and Thinking, Prepared by Steve fashioned so as to produce outcomes that Higgins. 2002) are both original and of value. (NACCE (1999). Website addresses change regularly. If any critical thinking the process of of the addresses below are no longer valid determining the authenticity, accuracy, or try a search for the name of the value of something; characterised by the organisation or the resource. ability to seek reasons and alternatives, perceive the total situation, and change Interest in the UK in thinking skills has one's view based on evidence. Also called increased as a result of its inclusion in the ‘logical’ thinking and ‘analytical’ thinking. National Curriculum. The following web site (on the National Curriculum site) lets dialogue shared enquiry. you do a search for thinking skills dialogic informed by more than one voice objectives in the national curriculum by or perspective – the ‘interanimation’ of type of thinking, subject and key stage. more than one voice or perspective. http://www.nc.uk.net/LACcs_thinkskill.html infusion integrating thinking skills Sites and Information about Specific instruction into the regular curriculum; Thinking Skills Programmes infused programs are commonly There are a growing number of sites about contrasted to separate programs, which Philosophy for Children (P4C) and the teach thinking skills as a curriculum in Community of Enquiry such as Matthew itself. Lipman's site the Institute For The metacognition the process of planning, Advancement of Philosophy For Children assessing, and monitoring one's own based at Montclair State University- thinking. Matthew Lipman's site (http://chss. montclair.edu/iapc/homepage.html) with thinking skills ‘thinking skills’ and related links to the Institute for Critical Thinking terms are used to indicate a desire to (http://www.chss.montclair.edu/ict/ homepage.html).

37 INTERNET LINKS

The Society for the Advancement of its own web site (http://www.alite.co.uk/) Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in as does Robert Fisher Education (http://www.sapere.net/) is a UK (http://www.teachingthinking.net/). based educational charity offering resources, conferences, and training in Kings College London have developed two philosophy for children. A good starting thinking skills programmes CASE point for further P4C links is Terry (Cognitive Acceleration Through Science Godfrey's W3P4C site (http://www.p4c.net/). Education) and CAME (Cognitive For an international flavour of the Acceleration Through Maths Education). movement have a look at some of the links These are aimed at secondary schools, to work across the globe such as the though being developed for younger pupils. Federation of Australian Philosophy for Information about CASE can be found at: Children Associations (http://www. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/tea utas.edu.au/docs/humsoc/philosophy/ ching/CASE.html. And CAME similarly at: postgrads/FAPCA.html) and the http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/education/tea Argentinian branch of Philosophy for ching/CAME.html. Children (http://www.izar.net/ fpn-argentina/). Readings and Research about Teaching Thinking Reuven Feuerstein's International Centre Teaching Thinking: an Introduction to the for the Enhancement of Learning Potential Research Literature is a paper by John (ICELP) has its own website Nisbet originally published in 1988 (http://icelp.org/Pages/What_is_IE.htm). available on the web (http://www.scre.ac.uk/ There are links to examples of the spotlight/spotlight26.html). It is part of the 'instruments'. A good overview of his Scottish Council for Research in Education programme of Instrumental Enrichment (SCRE) Spotlights series - worth checking can be found on North West Regional out in its own right. Other relevant Educational Laboratory's web site which Spotlights are number 79 "Can thinking evaluates a range of school improvement skills be taught", by Valerie Wilson programmes (http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/ (http://www.scre.ac.uk/spotlight/ natspec/catalog/feuerstein.htm) used in spotlight79.html) and number 82 "Peer the US. and Parent Assisted Learning in Reading, Writing, Spelling and Thinking Skills" by Edward de Bono's catalogue of resources Keith Topping (http://www.scre.ac.uk/ (such as CoRT and the Thinking Hats) is spotlight/spotlight82.html). on-line and colour-coded like his thinking hats (http://www.edwdebono.co.uk/ Teaching Thinking magazine debono/home.htm). (http://www.teachthinking.com/), from Questions publishing, has a research Top Ten Thinking Tactics - has brief section and accessible articles. You have to information from the publisher subscribe to get full access. (http://www.education-quest.com/ catalogue/- click on the 'Thinking Skills' An ERIC digest about teaching thinking is link) about this programme, together with also available, though a little dated now other thinking skills books and resources. (http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digest Alistair Smith's Accelerated Learning has s/ed385606.html).

38 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Teaching Thinking Skills by Kathleen BIBLIOGRAPHY Cotton, (http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/ 6/cu11.html) is another entry in School Adey, P and Shayer, M (1994). Really Raising Improvement Research Series at Standards: Cognitive intervention and academic Northwestern University with information achievement London: Routledge. on a number of approaches. Adey, P and M. Shayer (1993). An exploration of long-term far-transfer effects following an The Information Literacy Place is Sheila extended intervention programme in the high Webber and Bill Johnston's collection of school science curriculum. Cognition and useful information literacy resources. Instruction. 11(1):1-29. Adey, P, Robertson, A & Venville, G (2002). Web resources for teachers Effects of a cognitive acceleration programme on Year I pupils, British Journal of Educational and pupils Psychology, 72: 1-25 Northumberland LEA's Thinking for Ainsworth, S (1997). Information technology Learning (http://ngfl.northumberland. and multiple representations: new gov.uk/) site has teaching thinking opportunities - new problems. Journal of resources developed by teachers using Information Technology for Teacher Education many of the strategies in this book. 6: 93-106. Aristotle (1987). Nicomachean Ethics, trans. The Thinking Together site J.A.K. Thomson, New York: Penguin Books. (http://www.thinkingtogether.org.uk/) Bailin, S (1994). Achieving extraordinary ends: has resources linked to the articles in this An essay on creativity. Norwood, N.J: Ablex. review and the book of the same name by Lyn Dawes, Neil Mercer and Rupert Bailin, S (1998). Education, knowledge and Wegerif. critical thinking. Education, knowledge and truth. D. Carr. London: Routledge: 204-221 Dialogue Works (http://www.dialogueworks. BenHabib, S (1992). Situating the self: gender, co.uk/) produce Newswise, an on-line community and postmodernism in resource to promote thinking through contemporary ethics. Oxford: Polity news stories and Storywise a handbook by Blagg, N (1991). Can We Teach Intelligence? Karen Murris and Joanna Haynes for A Comprehensive Evaluation of Feuerstein’s developing Community of Enquiry with Instrumental Enrichment Program. New young children. This is the updated version Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. of 'Teaching Philosophy with Picture Blakemore, SJ and Frith, U (2000). The Books' which inspired us to try out the implications of recent developments in community of enquiry with younger pupils neuroscience for research on teaching and in schools. learning, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Boyle, T (1997) Design for multi-media There are many other sources of learning. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall information if you search on the Internet. Bromme, R and Stahl, E (2002) Writing and Try terms like 'critical thinking' (which is Learning: Hypertext as a renewal of an old and often used in the US) as well as 'thinking close friendship. In Bromme, R and Stahl, E skills'. There is no guarantee you will find (eds) Writing Hypertext and Learning: what you want, but a search can provide conceptual and empirical approaches. Advances in Learning and Instruction Series. useful results. Oxford: Pergamon

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