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Education Forum on Teaching Thinking Skills Report

Welcome to the Forum

Colin MacLean, HM Inspectorate of Schools

The Forum was opened by HMSDCI Colin MacLean who explained the purpose of the meeting and the reasons why the topic - thinking skills - is important.

Welcome to the Education Forum on Thinking Skills.

Firstly - Peter Peacock has had to tender his apologies due to other commitments today and is unable to open this Forum. However, Sam Galbraith, Minister for Children and Education, is looking forward to joining you this afternoon for the final session, to listen and respond to the issues arising from your discussions, and to provide his perspective on the part played by the Forum in taking forward the Government's priorities for education.

Today's Forum is the first in a planned series of twice yearly seminars. The concept is to provide an opportunity to bring together the practical experience of teachers in the classroom, with the perspectives of those involved in research and policy development. It is encouraging to see so wide a representation from researchers, education authorities and the independent sector.

I think it is vital that the seminars are seen to be relevant and productive; and to achieve their objective of applying the evidence from educational research to the practical circumstances in which learning and teaching take place. This first Forum - on thinking skills - is at the cutting edge of educational research and lies at the core of what teachers are trying to achieve. As such, it is an ideal topic for the first of these events.

The Forum, of course, sits within a context of a range of other activities. The Executive commissions research on key topics and disseminates results. There has been a welcome recent growth in the interaction between Universities and Teacher Education Institutions - with potential benefits for teachers and learners as practical experience and academic disciplines strengthen each other. Academics from across the UK and beyond with a deep knowledge of the education system continue to make key contributions to developing thinking. I think we are seeing a growth in the awareness of the rich variety of research about education. The Forum plays two key roles in this process:

• to ensure that policy makers and researchers are tuned in to the key issues facing teachers and learners which would be illuminated by research evidence
• to help teachers keep up to date with the current state of research.

Education Forum on Teaching Thinking Skills

The choice of topics for these fora is wide. It is important that they focus on topics with strategic importance to national education policy, and with relevance to the Government's objectives of:

• enabling all learners to achieve their full potential
• promoting social inclusion
• encouraging teachers' continuing professional development.

A seminar on thinking skills is relevant to all of these criteria.

The purpose of a seminar on thinking skills

A forum such as this, draws together ideas associated with the physiological, psychological and pedagogical dimensions of learning. Our collective understanding of each of these is developing rapidly. The hypothesis to be considered today is that thinking can be taught and improved. It gives rise to a whole series of interesting questions:

• Do we have an agreed view on precisely what are the thinking skills to be taught and developed?

The background papers point us to a wide range of definitions, based on psychological and epistemological theory. I suspect we can't have a static definition, but have to take a pragmatic view - and base our thinking on a practical working premise. The explosion of knowledge, and of ways of accessing such knowledge, inexorably drives us to a position in which our assumptions about thinking skills have to be dynamic- if only to keep pace.

• How best should we put thinking skills into context? Does the context matter?

Here we need to consider some key issues about the nature of the curriculum and indeed the social functions of schooling as part of the individual's educational development.

The process of education, and more specifically of formal schooling, is more than simply cognitive. There are other equally important dimensions. Thinking skills cannot be divorced from the development of positive values and attributes :

• Effective learning has a social dimension - learning from and with others.
• Effective learners need motivation, confidence, resilience, concentration, stamina, and the will to keep on learning!
• The effects of learning arguably should benefit not only the learners but can be applied to allow participation as citizens for the greater good - socially, politically, economically, culturally.

Thinking skills alone will not provide these features. They may facilitate, but will not necessarily ensure important ingredients of education such as initiative, enterprise, flair, imagination, creativity. We just need to keep these attributes in mind during our discussions.

Welcome to the Forum

Can and should learners actively 'learn how to think'? If so, is this an abstract skill to be learned - or should they learn in the context of specific curriculum content? Do they learn how to think during their science lessons because that helps them become better scientists - or because science provides a context in which to develop generic thinking skills - or both? Lets take three topical examples: how do we prepare young people to think about the issues associated with the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), the repeal of Section 2A, their choice of post-school destination? How do we give them the confidence that they have the thinking skills, as well as the personal and interpersonal skills and the knowledge, to form well-balanced views on these complex issues? We face a series of questions:

• Do we need to develop new ways of thinking to cope with new technology and make the most of the opportunities it offers?
• If we improved learners thinking skills - would we help them get better at areas of the curriculum they have traditionally found difficult?
• How best can thinking skills be developed?
• As with all core skills - how does the school plan and manage that process to ensure coherence and consistency of approach?

The conference papers set out the classic practical problems facing those who determine and deliver the curriculum. Do we move forward with: a specific programme of study; by inserts within subjects like maths and history; or through the broad subject curriculum more generally. The simple answer is 'whatever works best'. Identifying what approach is potentially most effective for individual learners - and ensuring it is effective - is of course much harder.

• How best can thinking skills be assessed?

Again we have classic dilemmas about the focus and purpose of assessment, potential bias from cultural assumptions; distinguishing thinking skills from the context in which they are delivered; and various other tricky issues. Underlying that is another question: can we assess thinking skills - if not, how do we know we have successfully helped learners to acquire these skills - and how do we improve our teaching?

Conclusions

I believe it is unrealistic to expect definitive answers to these questions, nor should there be in a dynamic education system. What does matter is that the Educational Forum raises and debates the issues and helps us individually and collectively move the debate forward and influence educational policy and practice for the better.

While there are many uncertainties, I think we are increasingly sure of three things:

• Learners need to have greater self-awareness than perhaps many do at present, of their learning styles and preferences. Thinking skills, however packaged, are directly relevant.
• Educators need to have an equal knowledge of learning styles; the needs of learners; and the potential barriers, individual and institutional, to learning. Thinking skills, however packaged, are directly relevant.

Education Forum on Teaching Thinking Skills

• Early intervention in the broadest sense is vital to address problems in learning. Thinking skills, however packaged, are directly relevant.

I think the bottom line for us is summed up in one of the references in Valerie Wilson's conference paper when Resnick talks about 'a new challenge to develop educational programmes that assume that all individuals, not just an elite, can become competent thinkers'. I think the message needs to be applied well beyond the bounds of cognitive psychology to the national education system - and that is the key purpose of today's Forum.

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