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Tools for pedagogical inquiry: theimpact of teaching thinking skills onteachersVivienne Baumfield aa University of Newcastle , UKPublished online: 18 Aug 2006.

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Oxford Review of EducationVol. 32, No. 2, May 2006, pp. 185–196

ISSN 0305-4985 (print)/ISSN 1465-3915 (online)/06/020185–12© Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/03054980600645362

Tools for pedagogical inquiry: the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachersVivienne Baumfield*University of Newcastle, UKTaylor and Francis LtdCORE_A_164512.sgm10.1080/03054980600645362Oxford Review of Education0305-4985 (print)/1465-3915 (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis322000000May 2006VivienneBaumfieldviv.baumfield@ncl.ac.uk

This paper explores the idea of thinking skills approaches as tools for pedagogical inquiry and in sodoing seeks to develop the link between the promotion of inquiry-based learning, which is a centraltenet of thinking skills, and inquiry-based teaching as an approach to professional development andschool improvement. The first part of the paper examines the impact of teaching thinking skills onteachers by drawing upon a systematic review of research evidence. The second part of the papersets the characteristics identified in the context of research into teachers’ development and considersthe contribution of a pedagogy based on thinking skills approaches to continuing professionaldevelopment.

Introduction

I think I notice things more. I notice how much children don’t listen to instructions. […]It’s made me far more aware of their learning … but … you can’t tell if it’s affected yourteaching really. I don’t think it has but it’s certainly affected the way I see their learning.(Baumfield & Oberski, 1998, p. 49)

The teacher speaking here was responding to a question about the effect that pilotingthree general thinking-skills programmes in her classroom for a year had on her teach-ing in other areas of the curriculum. In educational discourse, definitions of thinkingskills are contested but can be broadly conceptualised as, ‘courses or organised activ-ities which identify for learners translatable [as opposed to directly transferable]mental processes and/or which require learners to plan, describe and evaluate theirthinking and learning’ (Moseley et al., 2004, p. 4). McGuinness (1999) distinguishesbetween general approaches to teaching thinking, which focus on developing genericthinking skills independently of the subject-based curriculum, and infusion

*School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastleupon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK. Email: viv.baumfield@ncl.ac.uk

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approaches, which work within and across subject disciplines. The pilot was not asuccess to the extent that the teachers involved experienced problems working withthe published, general thinking-skills programmes, particularly finding the time tointegrate them into the existing school timetable. Nevertheless, for this teacher andher colleagues, although they found implementing thinking-skills programmesdifficult, there were benefits and not least of these was insight into the learning of theirstudents. As we can see, the experience has not led to a confident assertion that herteaching has been transformed, and on first impressions tends to confirm what weknow about the conservative nature of teachers’ classroom practice (Hardman,1998). However, even this early, flawed attempt to implement thinking-skillsprogrammes had given the teachers access to their pupils’ thinking in ways that previ-ous experience of teaching had not (the participating teachers each had a minimumof 15 years experience) and enabled a better understanding to emerge of how theywere approaching learning. The question of what actually constitutes the practice ofteaching and how that might relate to pupils’ learning has been raised, if notaddressed.

In the years since this early classroom-based research project, researchers in theCentre for Learning and Teaching at Newcastle University have continued to workcollaboratively with teachers implementing and evaluating thinking skills strategies inthe classroom. Increasingly, we have been interested in infusion approaches toteaching thinking promoted through subject teaching rather than through the imple-mentation of published, general thinking-skills programmes. Interest in the infusionapproach does not reflect a view that the idea of general thinking skills is philosophi-cally untenable; we have argued elsewhere that there is as yet insufficient empiricalevidence to support or deny such a position (Baumfield & Higgins, 1998). Rather itis a recognition of the potential of the infusion approach to raise more fundamentalquestions about teaching and learning. From the beginning, we were struck by theimpact of the infusion of thinking skills into the curriculum on teachers as well as ontheir students. It seemed that the necessity of integrating thinking-skills approachesinto existing schemes of work required teachers to focus on the key concepts in thesubject or topic and on the learning processes as well as on the coverage of content.Teachers were also able to identify and discuss issues in teaching and learning acrosssubject disciplines and across phases of education. Our experience led to the descrip-tion of thinking-skills approaches as ‘powerful pedagogical strategies’ (Leat &Higgins, 2002) to express their potential to effect change in teaching and learning.Two aspects of thinking skills approaches have been suggested as key factors in theirrole as powerful pedagogical strategies: the access they give to positive, if sometimesdisconcerting, feedback from students that stimulates teacher inquiry, and theirsupport for curriculum planning.

This paper explores the idea of thinking skills approaches as tools for pedagogicalinquiry and in so doing seeks to develop the link between the promotion of inquiry-based learning, which is a central tenet of thinking skills, and inquiry based teachingas an approach to professional development and school improvement (Schaefer,1967; Stenhouse, 1975; Rudduck & Hopkins, 1985; Wells, 1994). The first part of

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Tools for pedagogical inquiry 187

the paper examines the evidence for the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachersby drawing upon a systematic review of research evidence funded by the Evidence forPolicy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI) (EPPI-Centre,2001; Baumfield & Butterworth, 2005). The intention of the EPPI initiative is toenable policy and professional practice to be based on sound evidence of effectivenessand so emulate in education developments in the health sector and other areas ofsocial intervention. Systematic reviews are conducted in specific areas/themes ineducation and produce an accessible electronic library of quality assured systematicreviews of research in education. Each systematic review includes a synthesis of theresults from the research examined and includes an assessment of the quality of thestudies reviewed. The second part of the paper sets the characteristics identified fromthe review of impact on teachers in the context of research into teachers’ developmentand considers the contribution of a pedagogy based on thinking-skills approaches tocontinuing professional development.

The evidence for the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachers

The impact of thinking skills on teachers is explored in the work of a number ofresearchers who have included the dimension of professional development in theirinvestigations of thinking-skills interventions. The evidence discussed here is drawnfrom 13 empirical, classroom-focused studies covering all phases of compulsoryeducation (five primary focused, eight secondary focused) and across a range ofcurriculum subjects. The synthesis of evidence from the studies does not indicate anysignificant differences regarding the phase of education. One of the studies (Crumpet al., 1988) includes an examination of the applicability of an approach used success-fully in elementary (primary) schools in a secondary context. The conclusion reachedis that although there are some differences in teacher responses, notably in theirattitude to the usefulness of some of the training in enabling them to integrate partic-ular thinking skills into their subject teaching and in the frequency with which theyuse particular thinking skills, the impact on teachers and students in both phases iscomparable and positive. The systematic review was restricted to studies published inEnglish and of the 13 included, six are from the USA, four from the UK, two fromAustralia and one from Israel. Data on the impact of the thinking skills approacheson teachers were gathered using a range of methods, the most commonly used beingobservations of teacher behaviours and teacher-pupil interactions in lessons throughthe analysis of transcripts of audio or videotapes. Impact was measured in terms ofthose aspects of classroom interaction known to support conceptual understanding inlearners such as the quantity and quality of pupil talk, pupil to pupil mediation andtypes of teacher questions (Newton & Newton, 2000). Teacher self-reporting alsofeatured in the form of diaries or logs, self-rating questionnaires and semi-structuredinterviews in order to probe teacher responses to the intervention and the effect ontheir attitudes and beliefs about teaching and learning. All of the studies includedused more than one measure of teacher impact as well as data on impact on studentachievement so that links could be made between improvements in students’ learning

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and changes in teachers’ practice. The studies also had mundane realism (Coolican,1996) in that they were carried out with teachers working with their usual classes innormal school settings.

The studies report that the ability of teachers to develop a classroom climate inwhich student contributions in discussion are encouraged and valued is increasedwhen using a thinking-skills approach. The inclusive climate created benefits pupilswith learning difficulties (Ferretti et al., 2001) and the gifted and talented (Naisbett,1997) and can address the needs of both in the same classroom setting. One key factorin the change in classroom dialogue reported in studies is the impact of teaching think-ing skills on teachers’ questioning. Teachers tend to ask more questions when usinga thinking skills approach and a higher proportion of the questions used are open-ended (Wilks & Emery, 1997; Donnelly et al., 1999; Koufetta-Menicou & Scaife,2000; McGregor & Gunter, 2001). Studies frequently report impact on questioningas one of the first tangible changes in practice and one that occurs early in the use ofa thinking-skills approach. This is an example of how the structure of thinking-skillsapproaches to teaching and learning supports changes in practice; the nature of theactivities means that the teacher is not able to predict outcomes as the situation is moreambiguous and so the context changes the kinds of questions that can sensibly beasked. By legitimising higher-order questions in their practice, teachers establish aframework for dialogue in which students are encouraged to probe into the underlyingreasons, the ‘why’ behind the answer, to make judgements and justify their conclu-sions. Asking more open-ended questions was also linked to increasingly focusedquestions (Ferretti et al., 2001), allowing more time for students to think beforeanswering and encouraging them to extend and develop responses. Teachers also facil-itated more pupil questioning (Naisbett, 1997). In some instances changes in patternsof classroom dialogue were accompanied by changes in how the students were groupedwith greater use of mixed ability groupings and more consideration being given to theoptimum group size for a particular activity (McGregor & Gunter, 2001).

The change in practice reflects the shift in focus for the lessons as the emphasis ison exploring the processes of learning and developing underlying concepts and thisrequires the teacher to be a facilitator rather than an instructor. The tensions this shiftin role can create and the threat to existing competence are also explored in the studiesand eloquently expressed by the following teacher who becomes ‘stuck’ when tryingto plan a ‘thinking skills’ lesson on a topic she has taught many times before:

Now I am thinking that before each lesson I must think what is my purpose in each ques-tion I intend to ask. (Zohar, 1999, p. 425)

However, the benefits are also clearly articulated by the teachers in a number of studies:

I’ve learned a lot just from listening to some of these kids. I’m thinking, WOW, I neverfigured it out that way. (Franke et al., 1998, p. 78)

It’s exciting to see the ‘light bulb’ go on. (Hojnacki & Grover, 1992, p. 8)

Access to the students’ thinking and positive feedback on the lessons was powerful inpromoting teacher self-esteem as well as that of the students (Wilks & Emery, 1997;

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Tools for pedagogical inquiry 189

Zohar, 1999). Teachers were able to use the classroom conversations to monitorlearning (Ferretti et al., 2001). Consequently, they were able to identify the relativeabilities of the students in their classes more accurately and this led to some unex-pected and surprising results as students demonstrated abilities previouslyundetected; or in some cases students labelled as gifted and talented appeared to beunexceptional (Naisbett, 1997; Wilks & Emery, 1997; McGregor & Gunter, 2001).Other changes mentioned in the studies include:

● increased flexibility and adjustments to the long term planning to accommodatespending more time on building on the students’ responses (Hojnacki & Grover,1992) and to secure better progression (McGregor & Gunter, 2001);

● a refocusing of priorities so that more attention is paid to the underlying conceptsand processes rather than factual content and shifts in assessment practices(Hojnacki & Grover, 1992; Koufetta-Menicou & Scaife, 2000; McGregor &Gunter, 2001).

One common thread running through all the studies is the way in which teachingusing a thinking-skills approach brings about a shift in the teachers’ attention so thatthey focus on different aspects of the teaching and learning process. They are able tolearn more from their students and describe the classroom as a positive environmentwhere they are able to respond and develop their practice to facilitate greater studentresponsibility and autonomy (Fennema, et al., 1996; Zohar, 1999; Ferretti et al.,2001). The importance of the teacher being a learner in the context of the classroomis stressed and in one study they talk of the teachers developing greater empathy withtheir students (McGregor & Gunter, 2001). What appears to be particularly powerfulis the combination of positive reinforcement for teachers from the enthusiasticresponse of their students combined with a degree of cognitive dissonance as theirperceptions of the capabilities of their students are subverted. Dissonance in itself isnot necessarily a novelty for teachers who may frequently experience the unexpectedin the complex world of the classroom. However, the surprises are usually disconcert-ing and unwelcome and much energy goes into reducing complexity and any scopefor subversion in the often arduous transition from novice to expert practitioner(Brown & McIntyre, 1993). The value of thinking skills approaches in the classroomis that they have characteristics which engage and motivate learners whilst supportingteachers in effecting a pedagogy that promotes social constructivism in an open-ended but structured and manageable environment (Baumfield, 2004). As learnersarticulate and discuss their ideas, and understanding is negotiated, the teacher gainsnew insight into the thinking of their pupils. It is this positive dissonance and thesubsequent adjustment of perceptions and expectations that stimulates teacherinquiry and is the basis for growth.

Whilst there is evidence that teaching using a thinking-skills approach is beneficialin promoting teacher inquiry and promoting changes in pedagogy, the process can bedemanding and not all teachers benefit to the same degree. A longitudinal study ofteachers using an approach called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) to teachmathematics in elementary schools in the USA found that not all teachers followed

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the same trajectory of inquiry and change even though they implemented the CGIapproach in their classrooms (Fennema et al., 1996; Franke et al., 1998). For someteachers it seemed to be enough to try out the approach and confirm that it workedin their classroom; this did not then lead on to further inquiry about how and why theapproach was effective. So that whilst CGI with its focus on students’ mathematicalthinking has the potential to engage teachers in inquiry, the authors suggest that theexperiences may not be sufficient, as it is the meaning that the teacher constructs thatacts as a stimulus for what they term self-sustaining generative change (Franke et al.,1998).

In the reports of the impact of CGI and in other studies there are some indicatorsof the components needed to facilitate pedagogical inquiry once normal practice hasbeen interrupted by the experience of positive dissonance. The studies highlight theneed for support for teachers in extending and deepening their reflections on experi-ence and grounding this in an emergent pedagogy by having access to a wider criticalcommunity. The importance of practical tools, such as the use of video and audiorecording of classroom interactions to enable teacher reflection on their practice, isemphasised (Wilks & Emery, 1997; Franke et al., 1998). The use of student learninglogs was another method of providing structured feedback on the teaching andlearning process that helped teachers to construct new mental models to guide theirpedagogy (Naisbett, 1997). The keeping of teacher diaries noting the progress of theintervention is also mentioned as a useful tool for supporting pedagogical inquiry(Crump et al., 1988; Taverner, 2001). Highlighted across the studies is the impor-tance of close and sustained collaboration between the teachers and the researcherswho have designed the approaches and/or are responsible for the in-service training.Joint planning of lessons and team-teaching feature in a number of the studies(Crump et al., 1988; Donnelly et al., 1999; Ferretti et al., 2001) as does the need toactively engage teachers in discussion about the impact of the approaches during theproject so that they have the opportunity to compare and contrast their experienceswith those of their peers (Hojnacki & Grover, 1992; Wilks & Emery, 1997; Zohar,1999; Taverner, 2001).

Two studies focusing on mathematics, Cognitively Guided Instruction (Fennemaet al., 1996; Franke et al., 1998) and the Thinking Maths project (Hojnacki & Grover,1992) have a highly developed understanding of the relationship between theresearchers and the teachers and argue for the importance of collaboration to promoteinquiry in order to create and share knowledge about teaching and learning. Theresearchers working on the CGI approach in mathematics develop their model of self-sustaining generative change through the promotion of ‘practical inquiry’, which theydefine as inquiry conducted by practitioners to help them to understand theircontexts, practices and, in the case of teachers, their students (Franke et al., 1998).The catalyst is the explicit focus on the analysis of students’ thinking and theconstruction in workshops of opportunities to challenge the notions of both the teach-ers and the researchers about how that thinking develops. The partnership isdescribed as one of mutual respect for different but complementary areas of expertise:‘We tried to communicate that they had certain unique knowledge and so did we’

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(Fennema et al., 1996, p. 408). The CGI model enabled the classroom to become a‘learning laboratory’ in which knowledge about teaching and learning was dynamicrather than static but which was also firmly grounded in the teaching of mathematics;in fact, the study suggests that this can only happen within a subject discipline and ina classroom setting (Fennema et al., 1996).

The Thinking Mathematics Project is a thinking-skills approach developed in theUSA, not to be confused with the programme with a similar name developed in theUK at King’s College, London (Adhami et al., 1998), and was founded on the prin-ciple of developing a practitioner–researcher collaboration to develop an instructionalapproach based on current research findings interpreted by the, ‘clinical wisdom ofclassroom teachers’ (Hojnacki & Grover, 1992, abstract). The primary objective ofthe collaboration was to develop more efficient means of disseminating new knowl-edge about maths education and to address the three factors identified as inhibitorsof change:

● lack of personal experience of the new approaches to learning maths;● insufficient institutional support to take the risks inherent in an experimental

approach to pedagogy;● lack of conviction about the validity of the proposed reforms.

The study identifies substantive interaction with researchers and evidence of aprogramme’s effectiveness in actual classrooms with actual students as the remedyand is able to report significant impact on pedagogy within one semester andsustained change in approaches to teaching and learning after one year. Again, it isthe impact of student feedback on the teachers that proves to be a trigger but it is thesupport for professional development and collegiality that support more profoundchange. The indications are that thinking skills approaches facilitate an initial andsignificant shift in teacher behaviour in the classroom but may not in themselves leadto a more considered reorientation of a teacher’s approach to pedagogy withoutencouragement to question how and why the new approaches are working.

Finally, a study of a Thinking in Science intervention in Israeli schools (Zohar,1999) affirms the importance of collaboration, particularly the opportunity for jointplanning and review with fellow teachers and with the researchers, whilst also high-lighting the role of professional development workshops in enabling the teachers tomove from implementation to analysis of the function of thinking skills in the class-room. The researchers describe the implementation aspect as pedagogical knowledgeof thinking skills as opposed to a more analytical metacognitive declarative knowledgeof thinking skills. Whilst this use of pedagogy seems too narrow and much of what issaid about metacognitive declarative knowledge would be adequately covered bydefinitions of pedagogical content knowledge (Schulman, 1986), the substantivepoint that teachers require support in moving from using to analysing the impact ofthinking skills in the classroom is endorsed.

Studies which have sought to investigate the link between thinking skills andprofessional development point to the significance of such approaches in stimulatingpedagogical inquiry. Caution still needs to be exercised given the relatively narrow

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range of studies and the fact that the teachers participating were largely volunteerswho already had an interest in teaching thinking. Nevertheless, the indications fromthe studies are in accordance with the experiences gained through our own research(Baumfield & McGrane, 2003); the combination of factors, including the focus oncurriculum development, pupil feedback as a stimulus for change, a social construc-tivist model for learning being shared by pupils and teachers as learners and member-ship of a critical community, would appear to be powerful in supporting theinteraction and integration of practice and theory. However questions remain aboutthe dynamics and uniqueness of the relationship between thinking skills, pedagogicalinquiry and professional development.

Thinking skills, professional development and school improvement

It is teachers who, in the end, will change the world of the school by understanding it.(Lawrence Stenhouse, 1981)

The connection between teacher inquiry, professional development and schoolimprovement was recognised 30 years ago by Lawrence Stenhouse, who alsoemphasised the importance of curriculum development as the most productive areain which to work. Control of the school curriculum has shifted from teachers tocentral government since the introduction of the National Curriculum in England in1988, but although this specifies what is to be taught, teachers retain some controlover pedagogy in terms of how it will be taught (although this is also under threatfrom accountability procedures such as OfSTED inspections and strategies forLiteracy, Numeracy and Key Stage 3). Teachers working on the infusion of thinkingskills into the curriculum often cite the regaining of a sense of professional autonomyas they take control of teaching and learning in the classroom as an important moti-vating factor (Baumfield et al., 2002). Stenhouse contributed many valuable insightsinto the role of practitioner inquiry in creating and utilising knowledge about teachingand learning, much of which is still to be applied systematically in teacher educationand professional development. For the purposes of this current discussion, one of themost intriguing but potentially fruitful ideas he has left us is the following comment:

pedagogy may be an acceptable alternative to theory. Such a pedagogy would suggestpatterns of classroom action that enable the pursuit of educational aims to be a means ofcapturing an understanding of educational process. (Stenhouse, 1984)

The studies in the EPPI systematic review endorse this view by indicating how theinfusion of thinking skills into the curriculum offers a focus for developing peda-gogy that stimulates and supports practitioner inquiry. The classroom interactionsengendered and supported by these particular pedagogical strategies not only makethe process of learning more explicit and accessible to the learner, as is their statedintention, but also enable teachers to move beyond surface detail as the process ofteaching is opened up to critical inquiry. Stenhouse (1975) highlighted the poten-tial of curriculum innovation as a means of professional development by exposingideas, expressed as curricular specifications, to testing by teachers. The process is

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Tools for pedagogical inquiry 193

perhaps best understood as one of enactment where teachers engage with anddevelop theories and evidence in the context of authentic classrooms where simplis-tic distinctions between theory and practice are transcended in the creation ofknowledge in a community of inquiry (Dewey, 1997). Whilst this process is notunique to thinking skills approaches, it is these approaches that have, through theirpursuit of a pedagogy to promote pupil inquiry, been seen to be particularlyproductive in engendering forms of classroom interaction that trigger and supportteacher inquiry.

Philip Adey, who with Michael Shayer developed CASE (Cognitive Accelerationthrough Science Education) one of the most widely used thinking skills approachesin UK schools, provides one of the most recent explorations of the link betweenthinking skills, professional development and school improvement in his evaluationof the impact of the professional development programme that he and his colleagueshave devised for teachers (Adey et al., 2004). He demonstrates how the CASE in-service education (INSET) programme is consistent with the three essential strandsin the theoretical framework for professional development identified in the litera-ture. CASE INSET promotes conceptual change about teaching and learning,encourages reflection and shapes teachers’ intuitive understandings of practice suchthat they improve the quality of daily classroom reactions. The linking of these keyprinciples with their experience of CASE results in a model with four maincomponents, each of which is interdependent and must be positive if professionaldevelopment is to be successful:

● Nature of the innovation—sound theory of teaching and learning and goodresources;

● Quality of the INSET programme—length, intensity (two years duration with 30hours direct input has proven to be most effective for CASE) and coaching in theclassroom are all important elements if any permanent effect is to be made onpedagogy;

● School senior management—commitment, unity of vision, structural change tosupport teachers;

● Teachers—promotion of an ethos of collegiality with communication (both formaland informal) to stimulate mutual reflection and enable practice to become estab-lished and intuitive.

It is clear that there is close correspondence between this summary of theexperience of the CASE team and the previously cited research into the impact ofteaching thinking on teachers. Where there is a divergence between the interpreta-tion put forward by Adey and the argument for the potency of thinking skills as atool for professional development through pedagogical inquiry is in the emphasisgiven to the capacity of the strategies to elicit responses from pupils that providethe catalyst for change. Whilst student change is incorporated into the CASEmodel, it is seen as an outcome and not as driving professional development byimpacting on teachers’ intuitive understanding, encouraging reflection and requir-ing new conceptions of teaching and learning. Whereas this paper argues that

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thinking skills strategies enable and support professional development, Adey offersthe following analysis:

Cognitive acceleration is a ‘hard case’: if PD [professional development] for cognitiveacceleration can be shown to be effective, then it must be doing quite a lot right and manyof the same methods of PD may be abstracted and applied to any professional develop-ment programme which aims at changing more than simple technical capability. We claim,therefore, that the lessons we have to offer on PD can be generalised far beyond the contextof teaching for higher level thinking. (Adey et al., 2004, p. 6)

The evidence from the studies reviewed suggests that thinking skills approaches havea significant effect on teacher behaviour and in some areas, notably teacher question-ing, can achieve change in a relatively short space of time. The potential for such anapproach to curriculum development to stimulate teacher inquiry endorses the viewtaken by Stenhouse and suggests that rather than presenting a ‘hard case’, thinkingskills approaches offer a fruitful means of stimulating and supporting teachers’ profes-sional development. However, the particular characteristics of professional develop-ment stimulated by thinking skills approaches may not be as easily abstracted as Adeysuggests; the forms of professional development are not in themselves unique tothinking skills approaches but it is the successful triggering of teacher interest and thecommitment to collaborative inquiry that is crucial and may prove to be contextspecific. The stance taken in this paper is to be more emphatic about the role ofthinking skills strategies as tools for professional development through inquiry; theymay in fact make the process easier, but consequently, to be less sanguine as to thegeneralisability of the model.

It is regrettable that pedagogy has not been a focus for either initial teacher educa-tion or continuing professional development in the UK (Mortimore, 1999). Appealsfor a better understanding of that translation between the practice and theory (andtheory and practice) of education which constitutes pedagogy recur and yet westruggle to achieve in the daily reality of the classroom the integration and applica-tion argued for since Dewey set out his plans for teacher education in the early 1900s(Dewey, 1904). The studies included in the EPPI systematic review demonstrate aviable level of agreement as to the components of an approach to pedagogicalinquiry stemming from curriculum development based on the infusion of thinkingskills. The conclusions reached resonate with the experience of teachers andresearchers who have been closely involved in thinking skills and professional devel-opment. Such an approach appears to offer scope for significant improvements inteaching and learning in schools but we have yet to achieve an understanding of thevalency of the components. Research into the impact of thinking-skills approacheson teachers is limited and tends to be conducted by enthusiasts with teachers whovolunteer to be involved in the projects. Whilst this does not necessarily negate anyfindings, it does require us to subject the emerging theories to further rigorous test-ing and analysis. If this is to be achieved, we need to pursue the inquiry in order togain greater conceptual clarity; the focus and direction of that inquiry requires cali-bration against previous knowledge and understanding and participation in thewider critical community.

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Notes on contributor

Vivienne Baumfield is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Newcastleand is a member of the Centre for Learning and Teaching, where she works ondeveloping collaborative research partnerships with teachers.

References

Adey, P., Hewitt, G., Hewitt J. & Landau, N. (2004) The professional development of teachers:practice and theory (London, Kluwer Academic Publishers).

Adhami, M., Johnson, D. & Shayer M. (1998) Thinking maths: the programme for acceleratedlearning in mathematics (London, Heinemann).

Baumfield, V. M. (2004) Thinking for yourself and thinking together: the community of inquiry asa pedagogy for self-regulated learning, in: A. E. Chang, Thinking about thinking: what educatorsneed to know (Singapore, McGraw Hill).

Baumfield, V. M. & Butterworth, A. M. (2005) Systematic review of the evidence for the impact ofteaching thinking skills on teachers (London, EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Insti-tute of Education).

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