ENHANCING THE THINKING AND LEARNING SKILLS OF STUDENTS:
THE P.A.D.I. PROGRAMME
[Proceedings of the International
Conference on Excellence in
Thinking.
Bangi, Universiti Kebangsaan
John Arul Phillips
Fakulti Pendidikan
Universiti Malaya
Many People Would Sooner Die Than
THINK
In Fact They Do
- Bertrand Russell
Some People Study All Their Life
And
At Their Death They Learned
Everything
Except to
THINK.
- Domerque
INTRODUCTION
There is a surge of interest in
the teaching of thinking
and learning
skills in schools. In fact it is one of the main
emphasis in the Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah
Menengah (KBSM).
The quotations above reflect the concern with teaching such
skills especially in
the light of
rapid socio-economic
changes Malaysian society
is experiencing. Citizens are
called upon
to make numerous decisions whether they be in the
market-place,
place of work or the home. The problem
becomes
even more
complicated with the increasing range of
choices
and options made
available. The decisions people
may make
range from
simple issues like deciding which brand of
coffee
to buy
to deciding which candidate to
vote for in the next
elections.
In the
interest in
teaching thinking skills began in the 1980's with
the publication of `A Nation at Risk' in
1983 and the report
by The
Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a
Profession in
1986, to
name a few. The concern expressed
was the lack of
higher-order
thinking ability among students and the need for
students to
be independent thinkers. Similar concern has been
expressed in
sector regarding the
inability of university graduates
to
make decisions independently, think
analytically and be
responsible
for their thinking in the workplace.
Effective thinking and learning skills become
even more
pertinent as
state as
envisioned in the 2020 Vision. An essential pre-
requisite for
achieving the status
of an industrialised
nation is a
highly educated and versatile workforce
that is
able to adapt
to changing needs and conditions. As the nation
moves towards
the information age, its workforce will have to
be one that
is highly trainable amidst the unprecedented
changes
taking place as technology creeps into the workplace.
It has been posited that the worker of
the future will change
his or
her job more frequently and as such will be required
to acquire
new knowledge and skills at
an age previously
deemed as
difficult. The worker doing the
same kind of job
throughout
his or her life will a thing of the past.
Information and its management is
increasingly becoming
a primary form of production. As new jobs will be primarily
in the
service sector of the
economy which require
high
levels of
mathematics, science, language,
communication,
thinking and
learning skills, the deficits
in the school
system in
these areas if left unchecked may
perhaps hamper
efforts at
achieving the status of an
industrialised and
technological society. Even the low-skill jobs will
gradually
be transformed by the use of computers and the introduction
of other
technological advances in the workplace.
Given these concerns, the purpose of this
paper is
to
propose a
model for enhancing the teaching
of thinking and
learning
skills in schools. The model, P.A.D.I. stands for
`Peningkatan dan
Asuhan Daya Intelek'
or Programme for
Instruction in Learning and Thinking
Skills (PILTS) aims
for
the explicit instruction
of thinking and learning skills
through
existing content areas.
THE
DEFINITION OF THINKING
Most people
would agree that developing the thinking
skills of
learners is an important goal
of the education
system. However, while
this may be an
accepted goal the
literature on
thinking is replete with a host of nomenclature
describing thinking. Examples are,
reflective thinking,
critical thinking, lateral
thinking, analytical thinking,
logical
thinking, conceptual thinking, deductive reasoning,
inductive
reasoning, creative thinking, to name a few. The
problem is
further aggravated because of a lack of
consensus
on what
is thinking. Theoreticians, researchers and
practioners
in the field have been unable to arrive
at an
agreed upon
definition of thinking and this makes the task of
teaching such
skills even more difficult. This paper will
not get into the debate with regards to
what is thinking but
will try to
synthesise the variety of definitions
given and
arrive at
a definition that can be operationalised in the
classroom.
is filling in
gaps of information; `extrapolation'
which is
going beyond the given information; and `re-interpretation'
which is
rearranging information. Mayer (1977)
has suggested
a definition
of thinking that involves three
basic ideas;
-thinking is
cognitive (i.e. involves knowing,
perceiving
and conceiving), occurs internally in
the mind or
cognitive system
and is inferred indirectly from behaviour.
-thinking is a process which
involves some manipulation
of or
set of
operations of knowledge in the cognitive
system.
-thinking is
directed and results in behaviour which
solves or is
directed towards the solution of a problem.
Fraenkel (1980)
views thinking as
the formation of
ideas, reorganisation of
one's experience and
the
organisation of
information in a
particular form, while
Chaffee (1988) characterises thinking
as an unusual process
used in
making decisions and solving
problems. Nickerson,
Perkins and Smith (1985) look upon
thinking as a collection
of skills
or mental operations used by individuals. This
definition is
most appealing because
it suggests that
thinking may
be ineffective because of poor execution of such
skills. It also implies that these skills may be
improved by
systematic
instruction.
THE
P.A.D.I. PROGRAMME
From these definitions of thinking some
commonalities
may be
detected such as
agreement that thinking involves
manipulation
of mental operations or cognitive skills and the
goal of
thinking is decision making and solution of problems.
The P.A.D.I. programme is based
on the premise that
these
cognitive or
thinking skills can
be taught and that the
performance
of such skills can be enhanced through systematic
instruction. To
facilitate the teaching of these skills
an
operational conceptualisation of
the thinking process was
adapted and
developed (see Figure 1).
DECISION MAKING
The Process of
& Thinking
PROBLEM SOLVING
CRITICAL CREATIVE CONTENT Macro Thinking
THINKING THINKING THINKING Skills
Evaluate Predicting
Comparing Contrasting
Fact or Fact or
assumption opinion
Summarising Diagramatising Micro Thinking
Classifying Generalising Skills
Analogies Establishing
Generating connections
alternatives Recognising
Applying structure
Interpreting Observe
Testing Problem
hypothesis identification
Main idea Inferencing
comprehension
Figure 1: Components of the
Thinking Process
(Source: adaptation of
Phillips, 1993)
At the
apex of the
hierarchy is decision making and
problem
solving which has been defined as
the process of
thinking involving a series of systematic steps. The first
step is the
identification of the problem to be solved or the
decision to
be made. The second step is the generation
of
alternatives and solutions. The third step is the selection
of an
alternative/s or a
solution. The final
step is
determining the
appropriateness of the solution or decision
and acting
upon it. At each stage of the thinking process,
the individual calls upon one or more of the macro thinking
skills, namely
critical thinking, creative
thinking and
content thinking. Critical thinking is
the process of
evaluating information based
on a set
of predetermined
criteria while
creative thinking is the generation
or
production of
novel ideas, alternatives
or solutions.
Content thinking
is associated with
the acquisition,
retention, organisation
and retrieval of
information.
Execution of
the three macro thinking skills involves the
manipulation
of one
or more micro
thinking skills. For
example, in
encouraging creative thinking, the learner may be
required to
make predictions as to what might happen if a
particular phenomenon
is allowed to
perpetuate.
Alternatively, in evaluating information, the learner
may be
required to
make comparisons between two
or more events,
objects or
phenomenon.
The P.A.D.I. programme was
developed after having
examined
numerous thinking skills programmes
such as the
Philosophy for Children by Lipman,
1983; TACTICS
by Marzano,
1987; CoRT
by de Bono,
1967; the Productive
Thinking
Programme by
realised that an
indigenous programme that
takes into
consideration
the many constraints of the classroom had to be
developed.
The P.A.D.I. programme is a synthesis of different
aspects of available
programmes and is based on an integrated
approach. In other words, the teaching of thinking
skills is
integrated into existing subject areas. This is in contrast
to
`stand-alone' programmes which have been proved to be less
effective in
the classroom context compared
to programmes
that advocate
the incorporation of thinking skills in content
the learner is
currently learning (Nickerson,
Perkins and
Smith, 1985).
The P.A.D.I. programme addresses three
dimensions,
namely, the
school subjects, the learner and the teacher (see
Figure 1). The main focus of the Programme is,
a) the
identification of a core of relevant thinking and
learning
skills to be taught.
b) the
integration of such skills in the content being
learned.
c) providing
appropriate instruction, and,
d) evaluation
of the skills taught.
Dimension 1: The school subjects constitite the content
to be taught
and nearly every subject (history,
geography,
science, commerce,
economics etc.) can be
used to teach
thinking. It is the contention of the
Programme that the
incorporation of thinking and learning skills begin
with the
textbook in
the subject concerned. This is important
because
far too
often innovations in
education have been less
successful due
to the heavy
demands made on teachers to
prepare
materials. Teachers familiar with the
content of the
textbook
would find the task of teaching thinking skills much
easier. It is also believed that with the textbook as the
base, teachers
would be more confident and
inclined to try
other stimuli
such as newspapers, magazines and others.
Dimension 1
SUBJECT AREAS
Dimension 3 Dimension
2
THE TEACHER THE
LEARNER
Figure 2: Dimensions of the
P.A.D.I. Programme
(Source: Phillips, 1992a,
p.5)
Dimension 2: The focus of the Programme is the Learner
and the
types of skills
to be developed are thinking and
learning
skills. Separation of these two types of
skills is
artificial because of the interpendncy of mental operations
involved. For example, mind mapping is
classsified as a
learning skill but the thinking involved in
making mind maps
makes it also
a thinking skill. Besides the enhancement of
such skills, the learner also acquires certain
dispositions
that reflect
and encourage thinking.
Glatthorn and
Baron (1985) lists
the attitudes and
behaviours
charateristic of good thinkers and it is
the aim
of the
Programme to inculcate such attitudes.
According to
them, a
good thinker unlike
a poor thinker
welcomes
problematic situations and is tolerant of
ambiguity. A good
thinker is
self-critical and looks
for alternative
possibilities and
goals, and seeks evidence on both
sides,
while the
poor thinker is satisfied with first attempts.
The
good thinker
is reflective and deliberative
while the poor
thinker is
impulsive and gives up permaturely. While the
good thinker
believes in the value of rationality,
the poor
thinker
overvalues intuition and believes that thinking would
not help.
The good
thinker is open to multiple suggestions
and considers
alternatives while the poor thinker prefers
to
deal with
limited possibilities and is
reluctant to seek
alternatives. The good thinker uses evidence that
challenges
favoured
possibilities while the poor thinker tends to ignore
evidence that
challenges favoured possibilities.
Dimension 3: The teacher
holds the key to the successful
implementation of the P.A.D.I. programme and for
that matter
any innovation in education.
The teacher must be convinced
that teaching
thinking and learning skills is an
important
objective of
instruction. Next, the teacher
needs to be
equipped with
a deep understanding of these skills. In
other
words to be
able to define each micro skill, and
idenitify
the rules
and procedures for
the teaching of the skill.
Finally, the teacher has
to realign instruction
to
incorporate
these skills. As pointed out by Beyer,
we can do a better job than we now do of
helping
studnts learn thinking
skills.
But we
will not accomplish
this goal
simply
by spending more time delivering
the same
kind of instruction as we now
provide. Instead, we must constructively
confront
the major obstacles that stand
in the
way of effective
teaching of
thinking
skills (Beyer, 1984 p. 486).
There is a belief among some
researchers and practioners
that thinking is
innate and not subject to
improvement by
teaching. It is the contention of
the P.A.D.I. Programme
that merely
providing learners with opportunities to think is
insufficient. Teachers need to identify the individual
micro
skills and
systematically teach them.
To facilitate
instruction
of these skills, a 5-step procedure
called KADAR
is suggested
(see Figure 2).
K-enal pasti (Identify the skill to be taught)
|
|
A-jar (Teach the skill)
|
|
D-emonstrasi (Modeling of the skill by the Teacher)
|
|
A-plikasi (Application of the skill by the Learner)
|
|
R-efleksi (Reflection of the skill by the Learner)
Figure 2: The KADAR strategy of
teaching
thinking
skills
The main emphasis of the strategy is
the modeling of the
thought
processes of the teacher in the
execution of the
skill
(Flavell, 1976; Brown,
1985). The teacher is looked
upon as the
expert while the learner is the novice.
It is
hypothesised
that if novices are are given the opportunity to
observe the
`think-aloud' protocols of the expert, they would
be more
aware of their
metacognitive processes when they
execute the
skill themselves at
the application stage.
However, it should be reiterated that the
teaching of these
skills is
to be carried
out through the
content areas
(Phillips 1992b).
In addition, the
creation of a
more conducive
environment for
the inculcation of
thinking skills is
crucial. Papert (1971) has argued that an effective way to
teach learners to think is to create an environment wherein
the student
will "become higly involved in experiences
of a
kind to
provide rich soil for the growth
of intuitions and
concepts for
dealing with thinking, learning, playing, and so
on"
(p.4). An environment has to be evolved that
is non-
threatening where ideas can be expressed freely
without fear
of ridicule,
alternative hypotheses are entertained,
and the
right answer
is just not enough.
EVALUATION
OF THINKING AND LEARNING SKILLS
Efforts at
measuring whether thinking
ability has
improved is
problematic. Partly, the problem lies with what
to evaluate
since there is a lack of consensus as to what
is
thinking. In the
standardised
tests such as IQ
tests to measure
thinking
ability while
other programmes used specially constructed
tests for the
purpose. However, there
is a diversity
of
opinion as
to what constitutes an appropriate test. Since
thinking has
been observed to be multifaceted, it would be an
insurmountable
task to
develop instruments measuring
all
these skills
adequately. Also, the tests
developed are
constrained
because not all products
of thinking can be
subjected to
measurement using objective tests.
However, Nickerson, Perkins and Smith
(1986) argue that
the effectiveness of
a thinking skills
programme may be
evaluated in
a general way
relying on "evidence of the
development of thoughtful, careful work habits; ability to
see things
from another perspective or from another
person's
point of
view; evidence of
an effective balance between
inventiveness
and critical thinking, to name a few" (p. 318).
The paucity of local instruments
has prompted the writer
to adapt available instruments and develop new instruments
to
evaluate some
of the thinking
skills in the
P.A.D.I.
Programme taking
into consideration the cultural context.
For example, an Inductive Reasoning
Test (IRT), consisting of
items
measuring skills in classification,
series completion
and
analogical reasoning has been developed and tested with a
group of
12 year old learners (Phillips, in press).
The
writer has
also adapted, developed and tested
a battery of
cognitive tests
measuring such skills
such as spatial
reasoning,
mechanical reasoning and deductive reasoning.
The
Watson-Glaser Appraisal of Critical
Thinking has been
pilot-
tested with a
group of TESL undergraduates and the testing of
a translated version of the instrument is being
considered.
Similalry, a test
measuring script-based inferential
comprehension has
been pilot-tested and
at the point of
writing this
paper, data validating the above instruments are
being
processed.
CONCLUSION
To date the
P.A.D.I. Programme has been
introduced to a
small group
of teachers, teacher educators and administrators
through
workshops conducted by the Ministry
of Education,
determine the
extent to which
the Programme has
been
implemented in
schools. However, more
widespread
dissemination
of the Programme or at least some aspects of it
is expected
in the future as the
Ministry draws up
more
concrete plans
for the implementation of thinking skills
programmes in
schools.
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