“Thinking” taught as a separate “subject” has been shown to improve the cognitive skills of children but to have little long-term effect or tranferability. But there have been few attempts to pass on those same skills through school subjects, PM Scheinin of the University of Helsinki told the conference.
His project had attempted to integrate the teaching of skilful thinking across the curriculum. It was hoped that students taught in this way would learn to apply their skills in specific and relevant contexts and perhaps gain greater advantage from the approach.
The results, he said, were encouraging. While scores on general intelligence did not improve, skilful thinking clearly did.
Improving thinking skills, PM Scheinin, University of Helsinki.
