| How can teaching ‘thinking skills’ influence my pupils’ learning? |
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Research taster
Pupils who have been taught to use thinking skills (reasoning strategies) often have better problem-solving skills and improved attainment. They are also usually better at working collaboratively to problem-solve and are able to make their reasoning more explicit than their peers. 
Your evidence
You may find it useful to investigate the extent to which your pupils can articulate their thinking. Set your pupils a task which uses tensions between two different phenomena or ideas (often referred to as ‘cognitive challenge’) to test their knowledge and beliefs. This is one way to discover their thought processes and the reasoning strategies they are using. An example of such a task would be challenging pupils’ knowledge that heavy items like plasticine sink in water. Can your pupils make it float?
The ‘cognitive challenge’ will offer you a deeper window into your pupils’ thinking and reasoning than is usually possible. So you will want to observe your pupils closely as they deal with this task and record their interactions, it will probably be helpful to pay special attention to how they articulate and discuss their ideas.
Moving forward You may find it helpful to try brainstorming with a colleague the different topics or issues containing cognitive challenge and discussing which would be appropriate to use with your pupils. This is a good way of expanding both your own and your pupils’ opportunities for deeper reasoning.  Find out moreYou can find out more about thinking skills on the TRIPS website at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/thinkingskills/?digest=all Find out more about thinking skills, cognitive acceleration, the CAME and CASE projects at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/thinkingskills/6553/ Find out more about the link between thinking skills and teacher CPD at: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/research/themes/thinkingskills/TueJun241210532003/ |
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