Part 2

Why teach thinking skills?

This section of the module helps teachers to explore the views to teaching thinking from Professors Carol McGuiness and Robert Swartz. It also challenges teachers to share their own beliefs about learning.

Watch, listen, stop and think

CarolMcGuinness-ingles.mp4

Watch the 5-minute video where Professor Carol McGuinness (QUB) outlines the key arguments in favour of teaching thinking skills and looks at the main features of teaching and assessing thinking skills in the classroom.

Professor McGuinness is at the forefront of academic research into cognition and classroom learning, specifically, how teachers can promote the development of children’s thinking skills. The Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities Framework was based upon her research and developmental work with teachers. Her publications on The Activating Children’s Thinking Skills (ACTS) project, and From Thinking Skills to Thinking Classrooms, were designed to improve children’s thinking and learning strategies, through a pedagogical approach that emphasised thinking processes in the classroom.

Her work on the Northern Ireland Curriculum influenced subsequently the curriculum design and inclusion of thinking skills in other countries from Ireland to Thailand.

For more information - view the videos from CCEA where Prof. McGuinness looks in more detail about how teachers can infuse thinking skills into content instruction at all phases from Foundation Stage onwards. The videos 1-7 are most useful at this point

Listen to the 30 minute podcast from Robert Swartz, professor at the University of Massachusetts and Head of the Centre for Teaching Thinking.

Prof Swartz is the creator of the Thought-Based Learning method (TBL), that teaches students to make decisions through critical thought and to think creatively and autonomously. He outlines how thinking is a social function, and why he believes that it is so important that students develop, share ideas, and learn by working together.

In pairs or small groups, reflect on the content of video and the podcast;


Discuss the key messages for you from the podcast. Consider, for example:

  • Why teach thinking?

  • What are the key messages about teaching thinking?

  • What are the implications for classroom practice?

  • What you find most interesting/challenging?


Teaching Thinking – the thought of it!

The idea of teaching thinking is challenging. It was part of the wider paradigm shift required by the 2007 Northern Ireland Curriculum in providing a more coherent, enjoyable, motivating and relevant curriculum for young people from 4-16. The curriculum shifted the focus from;

  1. content driven – skills enriched.

  2. subject prescription to subject flexibility;

  3. assessment of learning to assessment for learning;

  4. teacher directed to pupil centred, etc.

The focus on skills is to ensure that pupils can achieve their potential in a rapidly changing economy amid an information revolution.

Consider the 3 statements below and individually or in pairs/groups respond to the questions that follow.


  1. Which opinion do you agree with most?

  2. What are your beliefs about learning?

  3. In your department/school, when do discussions take place about how pupils learn?

  4. How well are beliefs about learning outlined in the department’s/school’s learning and teaching policy? E-learning policy?

  5. What do you think would be a useful action point or area for development in your school/department in relation to conversations about learning?

Links with other professional learning opportunities in NI

While the NI Curriculum was first introduced in 2007, it was the first of its kind, and its guiding principles have been replicated globally. The Mike Hughes Magenta Principles project aligns closely with the principles and perspectives of the curriculum. The Barry Carpenter 'Recovery Curriculum' is built on the premise that the learner is the starting point for learning, not the content to be learned. This does not dismiss the importance of the content, but underlines the realism that it is engagement with content and not just exposure to it that results in learning.