Recently, I went to a local hospital where I heard an officer try to explain or convince the audience that there is no real loss to potential kidney donors if they ever decided to donate one of their kidneys. The officer said that on average, kidney donors live longer than the average person. She went on to explain that this is because the kidney donors are usually people who are already fit because otherwise they would not be considered as donors.

Of course the audience seemed convinced by her arguments and no one seemed to be able to detect the flaw in her argument. To put it simply her comparison was invalid. If the goal of her argument was to convince potential donors that their life will be least affected by the transplant, then she should compare the lifespans of those who actually donated their kidneys against those who are at the same level of fitness as these donors but who do not have their kidneys removed. This would show if there is a shortening of the lifespan of the kidney donors.

What is striking is that most (if not all) in the audience couldn’t spot the error in the comparison made by the officer. As someone who is very interested in the teaching of thinking skills, I am both amused and saddened by this error going undetected. I doubt that the officer concerned did it maliciously. I am in fact quite certain she herself didn’t realize the error in her argument. But this episode does point to the importance of teaching our students to think.

I will not elaborate at length why it is important to teach thinking skills as I have discussed it in some of my other postings about the economic reasons for teaching thinking and I believe the example above is sufficient to illustrate its importance in life in general. However, perhaps we ought to consider seriously about how the teaching of thinking skills is to be done. I will try and illustrate the issues concerned with teaching thinking skills with some examples from my experience in Singapore.

In Singapore, the teaching of thinking skills has been going on for quite awhile. Officially, the powers that be here, recognized the importance of teaching thinking. De Bono‘s CoRT was once a staple in Singapore schools until it went out of fashion. Today one is more likely to see the approach taken by Robert Marzano
and others which is basically to infuse the teaching of thinking skills into the subject content area in the school curriculum. However, even then I will argue the way that is implemented means that Marzano’s framework for teaching thinking skills has been sacrificed at Singapore’s altar of Pragmatism. While the thinking skills advocated by Marzano is used officially, the manner in which it is being used leaves a lot to be desired (see my comments here).

Furthermore, in practice, Marzano’s framework seems to be used only for the teaching of social studies, history and geography (they are separate subjects in Singapore). Little is heard about it being used for the other subjects like Maths, Science, Art and others . Why is this so? This is because only in this three subject areas, there are what is known as the thinking skills type questions in the examination papers. Even in the three subjects, the use of this framework for thinking becomes somewhat of a joke (see same link above for my comments).

If teachers in Singapore are cynical about the teaching of thinking skills, some of the blame perhaps can also be placed on the shoulder of the Curriculum Planning and Development Division (CPDD) of Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE). I have attended courses and briefings organized by the CPDD in the past. In their attempt to allay the fears of a tired and overworked teacher audience who is going to be asked to accept another “initiative” to their teaching load, quite often it is heard from CPDD officers that the then “new initiative” pertaining to the teaching of thinking skills is not new (duh!) and something that the teachers have been doing. If you are in that audience, you too would feel then there is no real need to change the way you teach since you have been teaching thinking already!

So what happens here is that although the MOE has officially accepted the idea of teaching thinking through infusion into the subject content areas, in reality, what is practised is very different. Thinking skills still exists in silos in Singapore’s education system.

The other issue that has to be considered with teaching thinking skills is the type of thinking skills that is to be taught. The post, “Coaching Critical Thinking to Think Creatively” by Zaid Alsagoff, illustrates, among others, the dilemma that is faced by educators pertaining to the teaching of thinking skills. What teaching skills should be taught? Should we teach critical thinking or creative thinking or problem-solving (though they all may not necessarily be separate entities)? I think we are in this state of flux with regards to the teaching of thinking because we are not clear what end-product (kind of students and adults) we want. The economic needs seem to define the kind of “education” that ought to be given but are we clear how to get to the end product.

Personally, I see two approaches. At the tertiary level perhaps, the approach has been more focused on the kinds of workers we want in the future workplace. This leads to thinking courses being focused on perhaps problem-solving and creative thinking or the more specific stuff like SWOT etc. At the school level, educators tend to focus more on the more “generic” thinking skills as suggested by the Marzano model. I think there is a place for all these different approaches but in my view, they should be integrated or infused into the core curriculum and not taught separately.

The different subjects anyway will lend themselves quite differently to the different kinds of thinking skills. They should reflect the kind of thinking that is done by professionals in the subject areas, which means if they are taught thinking in history, they must be taught how a historian thinks. The thinking skills demanded by a scientist is quite different. Having said that, there are also thinking skills that overlap in the different disciplines. For example, the inquiry approach is common to both the historian and the scientist.

There are also the “thinking skills” that more reflect perhaps cognitive habits that must be inculcated in everyone. For example, the “Habits of Mind” as proposed by Costa and Kallick comes to mind. In short there is a whole range of thinking skills to be taught.

In my mind, the teaching of thinking skills should, therefore, not be done in a one-size-fits-all manner. To do so would be wrong even if it is in the name of teaching thinking skills. To use an analogy, very often at the tertiary level, the IT Department would conduct almost the same ICT course across the disciplines found in a tertiary institute. So a student studying accountancy would be given the same course as an engineering student (see this example). This is done usually out of administrative convenience or intellectual laziness, or perhaps also more likely, because the various departments do not know what ICT skills are really essential for their very different student requirements.

So the teacher of science should know what thinking skills lends itself best for the teaching of science. The teacher of History should know what thinking skills goes well with his discipline and so on for the other subject areas. This requires the teachers of the various disciplines to be clear themselves about what they think a product of their department ought to be able to do with his head.

Lastly perhaps,  the teaching of thinking skills should be explicit in the sense that students ought to know what thinking skills is being used or taught. Thinking skills should be taught explicitly because stduents must be made aware of the thinking that goes on in their heads. They have to be more conscious. Teachers too will be made more conscious that they ARE teaching thinking and that it is not done by some hidden osmosis-like and accidental processes. The teaching of thinking should also be done explicitly while the “content” is being taught instead of just dishing out “facts” from the textbooks. Teachers who are not familiar with the the infusion of thinking skills in their subject content areas should therefore seriously undergo professional training in this area.

Many educational institutions are in favor of incorporating the use of ICT in education. However, not many have a good understanding of the appropriate use ICT in education. In a series of articles, I will illustrate this through some examples that I have come across. I will then suggest why these approaches are inappropriate.

One of these examples occurred when I was a teacher in a secondary school in Singapore in 1999. My school principal decided one day that the school together with the other schools in its cluster should hop on a web-based video conferencing system to be shared for use among the schools in the cluster. He told me it would cost S$40 000 which was quite an investment then and I think it still is even now. He was the Coordinator for the cluster’s ICT program. He had heard the sales pitch from the salesperson of the system and he he felt it was a great idea. He also added that the vendor had told him that another cluster of schools had already bought the system and had begun using it. He wanted to know what I thought of his idea.

I asked him how did he envisage using the video conferencing system? He told me that it would be a useful thing to have as principals of the schools in the cluster would not have to drive to a meeting place for their regular meetings. The same would apply to the head of departments and teachers. Bear in mind that we are talking about Singapore, a very tiny nation state. The schools in the cluster are also grouped geographically so they are not too far off from one another.

He also gave another example of the use of the video conferencing system. He said that if a teacher for Tamil Language is absent in one school, the students would in that school would be able to “attend” through video conferencing another lesson by a Tamil language teacher elsewhere (note: Not all schools in Singapore have resident Tamil language teachers).

After hearing his response, I asked him was it really necessary to get all the principals to move to video conferencing since the distance and time involved in traveling to the meeting place was not far at all. I knew it would at most take 10-15 minutes for them to get to any of the member schools. So I asked him if the benefits of using video conferencing really justifies the costs of the system?

Secondly, it may seem easy to just connect students from one school to another lesson through videoconferencing. However, this assumes among other things that the same lesson would be conducted at the same time in both schools. How likely is this going to be? Furthermore, the difference in preparing lessons for videoconferencing and for a typical classroom setting is not considered yet. As I pointed these out to my principal, I could see that he was still not able to see my point of view. I was always seen at the teacher who is keen on using IT for teaching. I think it surprised him that I didn’t share his enthusiasm for the videoconferencing system.

Anyway, he felt that the cluster should acquire the system. I thought that buying the system would be waste of money and would not bring about the benefit as he saw it. I suggested then that he and his team visit the other cluster who had already bought and used the system to ask them how it was used, how regularly it was used and what were the problems they faced using it. My principal agreed to it and said they would do what I had suggested soon.

Weeks went by and I did not hear any news about the planned study visit. In the mean time I had not head anything further about the video conferencing system. I then asked my Head of Department if the visit had been done. She told me that they have visited the other cluster and asked them about the video conferencing system. She seemed reluctant to go further so I probed and asked what was the feedback that they had received. She said that they were told that it was “challenging” to use the system. When I heard that, I dropped the subject. It was never broached again by anyone and I assume that the idea was dropped.

There are a many lessons that can be gleaned from this example but I will only highlight a few points here. School administrators should not be taken in by the latest technology available that is being peddled to them without thinking through carefully how it would be used in school. Many vendors of ICT products will try and sell their product to schools by highlighting only the positives of the product. However, it would be good for those involved in ICT implementation to always try to see from the school administrator’s point of view and also from the point of view of the teaching process. The vendor or salesman is unlikely to know much about how teaching actually takes place. The school administrator responsible for procuring ICT products or systems for a school must be more critical about how these products or systems are to be used.

There is also a tendency to try and fill schools with ICT hardware and software in an ad hoc manner because schools are under some pressure to show their stakeholders, like parents of their students, that the school is not outdated. ICT implementation in schools must always conform to the school’s need for good administration and also good teaching and learning. This implies that a school must have a clear plan about ICT use for an educational institution. ICT must help the school to be run better and also help better teaching and learning to take place. If it does not then it should not be used.

During my stay in Indonesia, many schools are in a race to achieve the status of “school of international  standards” (Sekolah Berstandar (Bertaraf or Berwawasan) Internasional or SBI). Very often these schools see a need for the use of ICT for teaching and learning. However, often, in Indonesia, what usually happens is that the school only will make a plunge to purchase computers. these computers would then be placed in computer laboratories and vendors or some in-house trainer will be hired to teach the students of the school various software,and usually Microsoft-based ones too. Other than these, often the investment in the hardware is the only serious thing done with regards to ICT use in the school.

It is still rare for schools in Indonesia aspiring to be SBIs to think seriously about how the hardware that has been invested is to be put to serious use by all involved in the school. For example, how often is planning done to prepare the teachers to use this hardware to help them in their main preoccupation which is teaching? Teachers are somehow expected to be able to use ICT through some invisible osmosis-like process. Where or who that osmotic process is to begin from is often unclear.

What framework is there for the use of ICT in such schools? Usually if ICT is used it is not planned and the IT tools in the school will be used in a random and sporadic manner. Often the learning of software like Dreamweaver, CorelDraw and other applications, for example, will be touted as examples of how the students of these schools are moving forward into the ICT era. Few stop to ask if this is indeed the way to go. Indeed the truth is many schools are groping in the dark with regards to the use of ICT for education. Even fewer see a need to do have a bird’s eye view of how ICT is implemented for the betterment of the whole school.

I believe that Indonesian schools need assistance with an ICT framework for their schools. This is important because not only can ICT give the schools a push up in their drive to be schools of international standards but also because the investment in an ICT infrastructure and hardware is usually very high. It would be criminal if the investment is done in ad hoc manner. It will have to be relevant to the needs of schools aspiring to become major players in education. It will be a framework that will allow for the involvement of all the stakeholders of the school. It will also be a very realistic approach to the use of IT that considers the changing roles of the work force of the future.