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Bringing CASE in from the Cold: the Teaching and Learning of Thinking

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Abstract

Thinking Science is a 2-year program of professional development for teachers and thinking lessons for students in junior high school science classes. This paper presents research on the effects of Thinking Science on students’ levels of cognition in Australia. The research is timely, with a general capability focused on critical thinking in the newly implemented F-10 curriculum in Australia. The design of the research was a quasi-experiment with pre- and post-intervention cognitive tests conducted with participating students (n = 655) from nine cohorts in seven high schools. Findings showed significant cognitive gains compared with an age-matched control group over the length of the program. Noteworthy is a correlation between baseline cognitive score and school Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA). We argue that the teaching of thinking be brought into the mainstream arena of educational discourse and that the principles from evidence-based programs such as Thinking Science be universally adopted.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council (DP1093877). The ideas presented in the paper are those of the authors and not the funding institution. We acknowledge the late Professor Philip Adey whose wisdom and encouragement over the years of this research was invaluable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, The University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham, NG8 1BB, UK

    Mary Oliver

  2. Graduate School of Education, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia

    Grady Venville

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  2. Grady Venville
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Correspondence to Mary Oliver.

Appendix

Appendix

Further reading and information about the Cognitive Acceleration programs can be found:

Adey, P. (1999). “The Science of Thinking and Science for Thinking: A Description of Cognitive Acceleration Through Science Education (CASE).” UNESCO, International. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/innodata/inno02.pdf.

Adey, P., Shayer, M., & Yates, C. (2001). Thinking Science -The Materials of the CASE.

Project. Nelson Thornes, Cheltenham, United Kingdom.

Adey, P., Adhami, M., Harrison, C., Hewitt, G., Hewitt, J., Larkin, S., et al. (2008). Let’s Think! Handbook: A guide to Cognitive Acceleration in the primary school. In P. Adey (Ed.). London: GL Assessment.

The newly formed “Let’s Think” consortium supports teachers working with the cognitive acceleration materials, available at http://www.letsthink.org.uk/.

Teachers TLearning Skills available at http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Teachers-TLearning-Skills-Cognitive-Acceleration-6043665/.

Thinking Science Australia available at http://www.education.uwa.edu.au/tsa.

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Oliver, M., Venville, G. Bringing CASE in from the Cold: the Teaching and Learning of Thinking. Res Sci Educ 47, 49–66 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-015-9489-3

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