Thinking Skills
Student Benefits
Findings emerging from the thinking skills research that are directly correlated with benefiting students include:
- Thinking skills are necessary for people to have in our rapidly changing, technologically oriented world.
- Instruction in thinking skills promotes intellectual growth and fosters academic achievement gains.
- Computer-assisted instruction is positively related to intellectual growth and achievement gains.
- Many commercially available thinking skills instructional programs have been shown to bring about improvements in students' performance on intelligence and achievement tests.
- Training teachers to teach thinking skills is associated with student achievement gains.
- Neither infused thinking skills instruction nor separate curricula is inherently superior to the other; both can lead to improved student performance, and elements of both are often used together, with beneficial results.
- Student performance has been shown to improve as a result of both direct teaching and inferential learning of thinking skills.
- It is especially important to establish and maintain a positive, stimulating, encouraging classroom climate for thinking skills instruction, so that students will feel free to experiment with new ideas and approaches.
Research also highlights the following:
- Students, in general, do not have well-developed thinking skills.
- Although many people once believed that we are born either with or without creative and critical thinking abilities, research has shown that these skills are teachable and learn-able.
- Research supports providing instruction in a variety of specific creative and critical thinking skills, study techniques, and meta-cognitive skills.
- Instructional approaches found to promote thinking skill development include redirection, probing, and reinforcement; asking higher-order questions during classroom discussions, and lengthening wait-time during classroom questioning.
- In addition to program content, classroom practices, and teacher training, the success of thinking skills instruction is also dependent upon other factors, such as administrative support and appropriate match between the students and the instructional approach selected.
- Because thinking skills instruction requires large amounts of time in order to be effective, administrative support and school-wide commitment are necessary for program success.
