4 Thinking skills

In recent years, there has been growing interest across the world in ways of developing children’s thinking and learning skills (Fisher, 2005). This interest has been fed by new knowledge about how the brain works and how people learn, and evidence that specific interventions can improve children’s thinking and intelligence. The particular ways in which people apply their minds to solving problems are called thinking skills. Many researchers suggest that thinking skills are essential to effective learning, although not all agree on the definition of this term (Moseley et al., 2005). If thinking is how children make sense of learning, developing their thinking skills will help them get more out of learning and life. This unit looks at the implications of research into ways to develop thinking children, thinking classrooms and thinking schools.