To encourage students to think, teachers should fill their class with the language of thinking. Teachers can do this by labeling cognitive behaviors in the classroom (Fogarty, 1994). The label provides important information about the behavior that has transpired or will transpire. It will help both the teachers and the students to monitor their thought processes. This awareness of their thinking encourages the student and teacher to identify and understand what thinking process they are using.

According to Fogarty, this awareness of the thinking, or metacognition, also tends to encourage the teachers to seek out new thinking processes which they have not used in the classroom. Just as by looking at the labels on the cans in our pantry that certain types of canned food is absent, that assists us in our decision to purchase fresh new stocks, labeling our thinking processes makes it easier for us to be aware of not only what we have used but also what has not been used in the classroom.

Fogarty says that teachers therefore must develop a cognitive vocabulary for the classroom so that they and their students recognise clearly what thinking skill is being used. When a student demonstrates a thinking skill without realizing it, the teacher must draw the attention of the class to the correct cognitive label for that thinking skill. If for example, a student is sorting out the different kinds of fruits according to some criteria, then the teacher should tell the class that the stduent is classifying the fruits.

A common cognitive vocabulary or label for thinking helps to avoid confusion about the different thinking skills. In addition, the creation of a common cognitive vocabulary will help students to recognise the cognitive skills being used and also allow them to eventually generalize and apply these labels in other situations. This is essential for transfer of learning to take place. The teacher who wants a class that thinks must create a class that uses cognitive vocabulary for in the words of Vygotsky:

“…thinking is embedded in the language of the classroom.”

Many years ago, when I was a teacher in a secondary school in Singapore, I used to teach my students some basic skills that I thought were important. These included mind mapping and the various memory systems. These are among the well-known accelerated learning techniques. Most of them were skills I had picked up through reading after I had left the university.  I remember then feeling that I wish I had known how to use them when I was in the university. It would have made life a lot easier for me as a student.

Even after I had taught them, I found that the students found it difficult because they would apply these skills only for my classes but not for the others.  The other teachers in the schools would still do things the traditional “school fashion” way. Only a few really determined students would actually use them fully and it was heartening to get messages from them about the usefulness of these skills later at the tertiary level.

Today schools in Singapore, for example, have as part of their enrichment programs, exposed students to these accelerated learning techniques. However, as in my experience above, it is almost never followed up by the teachers in the classrooms. Teachers still dish out prepared traditional, linear notes to the students and students become addicted to these notes. To be fair to the teachers, quite a few feel pressured by their supervisors to provide prepared notes to the students.

I believe accelerated learning techniques work. In addition to mind mapping, and memory systems, students should also be taught speed reading and even some Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to help students get a better mind set for learning. These skills should be taught as core skills in any school.  Teachers too should be taught such skills.

But perhaps more importantly, these skills should be made the core of the study approach of the school. There is no point that these skills are learned and not put into practice. The school leaders must insist on their use by both students and teachers. In an earlier post, I had talked about note-taking skills as a fundamental skill of the independent learner. I will like to add here that all these accelerated learning techniques that I have outlined here are essential for the independent learner. Schools should shed their stodgy teaching and learning approaches and embrace these techniques. The usually heavy school curriculum demands it. The information explosion demands it. The new work place of the future demands it too. Most of all, do it for the sanity of the students immersed in an overloaded school curriculum.

What then produces top performing schools systems? The conclusions (of the McKinsey report) are crucial. First, instruction counts. In practical terms, it means that: “when a teacher enters the classroom, he or she has the materials available, along with the knowledge, capability and the ambition to take one more child up to the standard today than she did yesterday. And again tomorrow.” Second, good school systems set clear and high expectations for what the students achieve. Here the report does not seek to be politically correct – it is quite frank: “Examinations have a powerful effect in driving the performance of any school system.” In the words of one Australian educationist: “What gets tested is what gets learnt, and how it is tested determines how it is learnt.” School reviews or inspections are also useful, especially to drive complex outcomes which are difficult or impossible to measure in examinations.

- Opening Address by Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Education & Second Minister for Defence, at the Teachers’ Conference 2008 on Wednesday, 28 May 2008, 10.10am, at the Suntec City Ballroom

I am not too sure if the Minister is aware of what he said when he quoted an “Australian educationist” saying, “What gets tested is what gets learnt, and how it is tested determines how it is learnt.” All educationists will agree with this statement. But I wonder if the Minister understood fully what has been said as I believe that he is not an educationist himself. The quote was used to justify Singapore’s high stakes examinations system. But anyone who knows about teaching and assessment will know that the quote is not meant to only justify a high stakes examinations system.

There is truth in using this quote to justify the high stakes examinations system in Singapore but it is not as the Minister has intended. The key phrase is perhaps “how it is tested determines how it is learnt.” Precisely because if the manner (the how) it is tested is nothing more than the usual examination format traditionally found with its heavy reliance on standard answers and mechanical procedures, then the way it is taught will be geared towards ONLY answering such questions. Drill-and-practise and rote-learning will be the feature of an education system that relies on testing students by such out-moded examinations. So the Minister is right.

But only partially. The Minister may not realize that this is at best a half-truth. Somebody probably failed to advise him properly on this. This is because the Minister and the Ministry of Education (MOE) wants to move Singapore’s students towards acquiring new skills and literacies of the 21st century environment. These skills and literacies will not be taught seriously as long as high stakes examinations are the keys to further education in Singapore. These skills and literacies cannot be assessed by just these old-fashioned examinations. New skills like collaboration, the higher order thinking skills, creativity and resourcefulness, independent learning and must be assessed in a very different way, not the traditional examination format.

So to justify a high stakes examination system by quoting this unnamed Australian educationist in this manner is inaccurate. The Minister quoted a McKinsey report that said that “Examinations have a powerful effect in driving the performance of any school system.” This is correct but the question is what kind of performance? Singapore schools do well, extremely well in fact, acting as high stakes examination preparation centers. The teaching is excellent with regards to teaching to the examinations. The teachers work very hard to give students tons of homework and go well beyond the working hours to conduct lots of extra classes to get their students to do well in the examinations. Singapore’s education system is excellent at monitoring how well the students perform in the examinations. Singapore students learn well. So Singapore schools have performed well but as glorified examination preparation centers. The McKinsey report is right but again only partially.

Don’t forget that from that statement, it also means what is not tested is also not learned! What is not tested in Singapore’s high stakes examinations are all the new skills and literacies of the 21st century environment that I mentioned above. Therefore they are also not learned. So can we conclude then that all the MOE claims to be its learning goals in its new Teach Less, Learn More initiative (TLLM) is just a pretence? Sop for the rest of the world (and parents in Singapore) about its supposedly wonderful education system?