Thinking and learning: skills for the 21st

Century?

Professor Steve Higgins School of Education Durham University

s.e.higgins@durham.ac.uk

@stig_01

International Thinking Skills Conference 2014

Monday 16th JuneSwindon

Overview

Evidence of the benefits of teaching thinking What are thinking skills? 21st Century skills? Pedagogy versus Assessment Thinking for the future?

Sutton Trust/ Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) ‘Toolkit’

Website of research-based approaches to support teaching and learning in schools

34 approaches so far classified by: Cost estimate (additional outlay for schools) Strength of evidence Potential learning gain (months progress)

http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkitEvidence

Teaching thinking

‘Metacognition and self-regulation’

http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/

1st =

Evidence

Evidence

Evidence

Evidence

Being ‘meta-cognitive’

Solutions

Guess (or copy!)

Sophisticated guessing (trial and error) Solve for the value of the pineapple

Apple = 7; Banana = 8; Cherry = 2; Pineapple = 3 Focus on the totals

Long – difference between all the totals Short - (28 + 16 = ? + 19)

What is thinking?

What is thinking? (1): classifying Report to LSDA (2004)

Identified over 60 frameworks Evaluated 35 in-depth Published by CUP as ‘Frameworks for thinking’ (Moseley

et al. 2005)

Examples Bloom (and Anderson’s recent revision for assessment) Halpern (for critical thinking) SOLO (good for assessment)

Synthesis of key features and categories The importance of ‘productive thinking’

What is thinking?

Benjamin Bloom

Bloom et al. (1956) Anderson et al. (2000)

Bloom, B., Englehart, M, Furst, E., Hill,W. & Krahtwohl, D. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: Longmans Green, 1956.Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., Airasian, P. W., Cruikshank, K. A., Mayer, R. E., Pintrich, P. R., Raths, J., et al. (2000). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloomʼs Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Abridged Edition. Allyn & Bacon.

What is thinking?

What is thinking?

What is thinking?

S.O.L.O. Stands For:

S tructure of theO bservedL earningO utcome

Biggs, J. B., & Collis, K. F. (1982). Evaluating the quality of learning. New York: Academic Press.

Moseley, D., Baumfield, V., Elliott, J., Higgins, S., Miller, J. and Newton D. P. (2005) Frameworks for thinking: a handbook for teaching and learning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Moseley et al.’s (2005) modelMETA-COGNITIVE SKILLS

What is thinking? (2): Programmes

What is thinking?

Examples from programmes Top Ten Thinking Tactics P4C/ Storywise / Philosophy with Picture Books Accelerated Learning (ALPS)

What is thinking?

What is thinking?

Top Ten Thinking Tactics

What is thinking?

Storywise

Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (P4C)

Developed for younger children (by Karin Murris and Joanna Haynes - PwC)

Uses picture books/ videos Developing questioning and reasoning

What is thinking?

Creating a ‘Community of enquiry’

Procedure: Share a text (taking turns reading where appropriate) or

listen to a story, or watch a video Ask for questions and record them on a flip chart or IWB Identify questions for discussion Manage turn-taking in responding to the questions

“I agree with Harry because…” “I disagree with Hermione because…”

Encourage reasoning and interactive discussion

What is thinking?

What is thinking?

Some 10 year olds’ questions… Why did the pigs die when he sneezed? Why didn’t the wolf take the sugar when he

went to the first house? Was the wolf telling the truth? Why did they put the wolf in jail just for eating

a dead pig? How can pigs talk?

What is thinking?

Storywise

What is thinking?

Accelerated Learning

Nine ‘brain-based’ principles The new three ‘Rs’ Brain breaks VAK

What is thinking?

What is thinking?

Philosophical approaches

Brain-based learning approaches

Cognitive intervention approaches

ReuvenFeuerstein

Edward De Bono

Matthew Lipman

Thinking pioneers

What is thinking?

Infusion or immersion?

Critical Thinking training Infusion in subjects Immersion (implicit) Mixed/ blended

ES .38

ES .54

ES .09

ES .94

Abrami, P. C., Bernard, R. M., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Surkes, M. A., Tamim, R., & Zhang, D. (2008). Instructional interventions affecting critical thinking skills and dispositions: A stage 1 meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 78(4), 1102-1134.

Evidence

An infusion strategy: Odd One Out

What is thinking?

More infusion: living graphs and fortune lines

Making connections ‘Human’ statements and abstract

‘frame’ Connecting different representationsWhat is thinking?

Fortune line

What is thinking?

Extracts from Anne Frank’s diary

Last night we listened to England on the wireless... I was so scared.

11.7.42

I’m so miserable... I’ve become very short sighted.

11.7.43

Should a girl of fifteen be kissing a boy of seventeen and a half?

17.4.44

If I just think how we live here... it is paradise compared to other Jews not in hiding.

1.5.43

The invasion has begun! Will this year bring us victory? It fills us with fresh courage.

6.4.44

I have dreams, but we will have to stay here until the war is over. 12.7.42

Based on Peter Fisher’s ‘Analysing Anne Frank : a case study in the teaching of thinking skills’ in ‘Teaching History’, (Issue 95, May 1999 pg. 24 -31. Historical Association.)

Fortune lines: Anne FrankThe invasion has begun! Will this year bring us victory? It fills us with fresh courage.

6.4.44

Last night we listened to England on the wireless... I was so scared.

11.7.42

I have dreams, but we will have to stay here until the war is over. 12.7.42

From Swartz and Parks (1994)

Examples of thinking diagrams and prompts for thinking……..

Philosophical approaches

Brain-based learning approaches

Cognitive intervention approaches

A metaphor from Winnie the Pooh

What is thinking?

Kanga

TiggerOwl

21st Century Skills: indispensible or a distraction?

Consensus on the need for digital skills ‘21st Century Skills’ Knowledge more easily accessible Less important ‘Just in time’ from internet or through social

media

21st Century Skills

Three fallacies

1. Digital natives and the net generation learn differently now

Multi-taskers, digital experts

2. A Confusion of ‘Information’ with ‘Knowledge’ Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

3. Technology motivates children and young people to learn

21st Century Skills

Déjà vu: 1913 - Film

(Thomas Edison, reported in

The New York Dramatic Mirror in July 1913)

“Books,” declared the inventor with decision, “will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture. Our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years.”

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/02/15/books-obsolete/ Picture source: Google Images

Déjà vu: 1930s Radio

http://dhayton.haverford.edu/blog/2013/03/ http://www.pinterest.com/caturani/paleofuture-education-technology/

21st Century Skills

Déjà vu:1930sprediction for educational TV

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/2012/05/predictions-for-educational-tv-in-the-1930s/

21st Century Skills

1968Proto-Skype‘Picturephone’…

http://www.pinterest.com/caturani/paleofuture-education-technology/

Déjà vu: 1960s language lab

Source: Google Images

1958 vision of future education

http://www.pinterest.com/caturani/paleofuture-education-technology/

21st Century Skills

1950s Programmed Instruction

Source: Google Images

21st Century Skills

1900s prediction of schools in 2000

http://www.pinterest.com/caturani/paleofuture-education-technology/

21st Century Skills

Curriculum Pedagogy

Assessment

Assessment

Curriculum Pedagogy

Assessment

Assessment

Summary (1)

Teaching (for) thinking is both effective and efficient

Needs to be discrete, infused AND explicit Technology does not change this Beware the assessment ‘elephant’

Summary

Summary (2)

You need to be thoughtful about thinking - what do you want to achieve? Programmes AND infusion

It’s not (just) what you do, it’s the way that you do it Process AND content

It is the essential core of education Short term curriculum goals AND long-term

educational aims

Summary

Philosophical approaches

Brain-based learning approaches

Cognitive intervention approaches

Which one are you? Kanga

TiggerOwl

Summary

Why thinking?

We want our children and young people to think for themselves

Thinking is necessary for learning

Summary

More information

Centre for Teaching, Thinking and Dialogue, Exeter University: http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/education/research/centres/teachingthinkingdialogue/

EEF Toolkit: http://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/toolkit/

E-mail: s.e.higgins@durham.ac.uk