Because workers need more than job-specific skills, vocational education should emphasize self-management skills (setting goals, planning, adjusting, and evaluating); knowledge extension skills (composing, problem solving, decision making, and inquiry); and enabling skills (comparing, classifying, deducing, analyzing, supporting, and abstracting).…

At the national level there is growing agreement that direct instruction in higher order thinking skills should be a major educational focus. The concern for teaching thinking is also reflected at the local level. To satisfy this growing awareness and perceived need, a number of programs have been developed. Given the widespread interest in…

Examines 17 national standards documents from 12 key subject areas, to identify six critical thinking and reasoning skill areas that cut across core subject areas. Discusses to what extent different subject areas place different emphasis on the various thinking and reasoning skills. Discusses how thinking and reasoning should be taught. (SR)

At the heart of the matter of restructuring American education is the goal of enhancing students' abilities to process complex content in cognitively sophisticated ways. To accomplish this goal, two sub-goals must be met: infusing knowledge application tasks across the curriculum; and changing the interaction patterns between teachers and…

This report summarizes and describes the findings for a number of studies which assess the effects of "Tactics for Thinking," a program designed to teach and reinforce 22 tactics (strategies) for enhancing specific cognitive operations (thinking skills) that aid in the processing, retention, and extension of content-specific information.…

The Marzano thinking skills model (emphasizing learning preparation, content thinking, and basic reasoning skills) will enhance learning opportunities for students whom the present system overlooks or labels unteachable. Schools can restructure teaching and evaluation methods to educate all young people for a successful future in the information…

This book draws on recent theory and research to suggest ways teachers (grades K-12) can raise the levels of thinking involved in classroom activities and give students practice in higher mental operations. Taking the position that helping students understand their own mental processes also helps them function at higher levels in the English…

Acknowledging a growing national awareness of the need for direct instruction in higher order thinking skills within public education, this paper describes an instructional model for reinforcing thinking skills in the classroom, kindergarten through grade 12. Following an introduction justifying the model's reliance on the processing of…

Classroom teachers frequently use various programs, strategies, and techniques to enhance student thinking, including questioning, writing, and general information processing (meaning construction, encoding, matching, analyzing, representing, and abstracting). The paper notes other strategies not used or underutilized by teachers. (SM)

Teachers' actions are thought to produce certain types of student thinking. To devise effective inservice programs, educators must understand four learning principles and five thinking dimensions enabling students to develop positive learning attitudes and acquire, integrate, and extend their knowledge. A new "curriculum" of preservice…

Organizing and clarifying research and theory from diverse sources, including philosophy and cognitive psychology, this book provides a framework intended to help educational practitioners (principals, supervisors, curriculum directors, and teachers) plan programs for incorporating the teaching of thinking throughout the regular curriculum.…