Get thinking

In the first of a two-part article, Shirley Pulis Xerxen talks about the thinking skills programme, which was introduced in primary state schools as part of the national minimum curriculum.

Thinking skills are now embedded in the national minimum curriculum (NMC), which regards learners as critical and creative thinkers and producers of knowledge as opposed to "passive recipients of static content", who are capable of creative thinking, reasoning, decision-making, problem solving and having a sense of curiosity.

The stimulation and learning of thinking is beneficial to learners not just to cope with their schooling, but indeed with the demands of their everyday lives. Education has never before had to prepare learners for such unpredictability and complexity. So are we as educators ready to rethink our methods of teaching? This is precisely what the measures taken in the NMC are trying to do. If one looks closely at what the document proposes, the changes are quite fundamental and point towards radical changes for education in Malta.

The current NMC has given much needed attention towards developing thinking skills in learners. This follows trends in literature that stress the importance of teaching thinking. However, different definitions of what thinking skills entail have made the term somewhat ambiguous; most writers include activities such as problem solving, decision-making, critical thinking, logical reasoning and creative thinking. A thinking skill is a competency that contributes to some kind of thinking. Thus one can speak of thinking skills involved in critical thinking, creative thinking, decision-making, and so on. All definitions of thinking skills are based on the assumption that thinking goes beyond acquiring knowledge and information and includes the process of reflecting on the patterns by which learners manage knowledge and information.

Creative thinking can be defined as a novel way of seeing or doing things that is characterised by the following four components - fluency (generating many ideas), flexibility (shifting perspectives easily), originality (generating new concepts and ideas) and elaboration (building on other ideas). Critical thinking is the process of determining the authenticity, accuracy or value of something; the learners' ability to seek reasons and alternatives, perceive the total situation and change their opinion based on evidence.

As part of the process of implementing the NMC, in September 2000 the Department of Education introduced Professor Edward de Bono's thinking methods in primary state schools in Malta. After having received intensive training, a group of three teachers, including myself, implemented the thinking skills programme that we had devised based on the de Bono tools. The following scholastic year, the thinking skills programme was introduced in secondary schools. The number of teachers currently stands at eleven.

The thinking skills programme's vision aims to create a thinking community, involving not only the pupils but extends to the whole school including the parents, reaching out to as large a section of the population as possible. The premise is that thinking is a skill that can be improved. It is not something that you either have or have not got.

The programme makes use of the de Bono thinking skills, which are simple yet powerful and effective, in order to broaden perception. Another important objective is to facilitate transfer of the thinking skills to other subjects and beyond school-life. Furthermore, the acquisition of these skills also increases teamwork and extends participation to all involved, promoting inclusion of pupils of different abilities. Besides considering thinking to be fun, the programme enables participants to become more autonomous thinkers and increase their self-esteem.

The thinking skills programme works towards motivating class teachers into using thinking skills in their classes by inviting them to attend the 14-week-long programme of 45-minute weekly thinking sessions and demonstrating the use and effects of thinking skills in a practical manner. This method minimises teacher training and, when correctly implemented, is bound to have a great deal of impact on class teachers.

Through the thinking skills programme learners are acquiring skills that help them become more fluent in their thinking by generating many ideas, other skills that help them to be flexible and original when engaged in a creative thinking process. Through discussions and learning to listen to their peers, learners are discovering how to elaborate on other ideas. All of these skills pertain to creative thinking. Other thinking skills are helping learners to become critical thinkers by developing their ability to evaluate and look at all aspects of a situation, including differing opinions. Learners are being engaged in a process which enables them to build arguments and voice their opinions and ideas.

Three stages of the learning process

Classroom interaction between teachers and learners can be divided into three stages. Each stage represents learning, and higher-order thinking skills are required as the stages progress. In the first stage, learners collect the information about the subject at hand. Even at this initial stage the interaction can promote active learning. This is determined by whether learners depend on the teacher to give them all the information, or whether the teacher helps learners to look for the information, to realise what information is missing and to have the ability to look for that missing information.

The second stage is processing that information - how is the classroom practice helping learners to process that information? Do exams perpetuate a situation where it is enough to simply produce the information gathered without actually processing it? Questioning skills on the part of the teacher help learners at this stage and also skills of observation and analysis. "Why", "how" and "what if" questions should be used more often rather than the over used and insufficient "what" questions.

The third stage is the final stage where learners, after having collected and processed the content, have the opportunity to apply the information. Opportunities of application have to be created both within the classroom and given as work for home. In the highly technological world we live in, information is expanding at such a rate that we require transferable skills to allow each one of us to address different problems in different contexts at different times throughout our lives. It is through discussion, exchange of ideas and collaboration with others that we clarify our thoughts, learn how to ask questions, to change and to elaborate our concepts and to gain exposure to different modes of thinking and action. This has become a key part of the NMC.

The national minimum curriculum regards students not as passive recipients of static content but as critical and creative thinkers and producers of knowledge". The NMC started a movement away from traditional rote learning towards what I feel is the only acceptable pedagogical practice - that of producing critical and creative life-long learners, able to produce and to be responsible for their own knowledge. Furthermore, the pedagogy of teaching thinking should not be at the expense of other school subjects and knowledge. Teaching thinking skills should not be viewed as in opposition to that of teaching conventional thinking, but as complementary to it.

The thinking classroom shifts the emphasis from a content/product orientation to a problem-solving process approach. What characterises learners who are able to think critically and creatively? How can learners be motivated to learn to think? How important is the climate within a thinking classroom?

When the focus is not on becoming active learners, learners realise that the teacher wants them to listen passively. In this context, it is no surprise that learners, when asked to analyse, sink deeper into silence. Learners get used to being told what to do and do not expect to be asked questions. Becoming active learners, on the other hands means understanding the subject matter; being able to judge critically and think creatively; rising to challenges in their everyday lives; being responsible for their own learning; being able to work and collaborate with others; having self-esteem and self-confidence; being able to communicate effectively.

Collaborative or cooperative learning occurs when learners work together to address a common challenge, explore a common topic, or build on mutual understandings to create new ideas. Collaborative learning has further benefits like fostering positive interdependence, where learners depend on each other to finish a task, and individual accountability, where pupils feel responsible, without the need for pressure from the teacher, to perform well for the good of the team or group. In a classroom environment where the teacher is the producer of all the content, learners soon get into the habit of switching off when other learners are speaking, because they assume that unless the teacher is saying something, it is not important. This, however, is not the case in a thinking classroom where one of the first skills that learners acquire is that of listening to each other and interacting. Teacher-learner relationships also change because learners feel safe to question what the teacher says and learn that questions asked by the teacher do not necessarily require one right answer.

John Dewey, 40 years ago reminded educators that one of the most important objectives of schooling is to improve thinking skills. Since learning is a consequence of thinking, "all which the school can or need do for pupils, so far as their minds are concerned... is to develop their ability to think."

Ms Pulis Xerxen is teacher of thinking skills in state schools, currently reading for an MA in Creativity and Innovation at the University of Malta, researching Maltese teachers' perspectives on creativity in education. The article is based on the Long Essay presented as part fulfilment of the requirements for the post-graduate diploma in Education (Administration & Management) at the University of Malta in 2005.

To be concluded