This paper uses a case study approach to investigate what happened to a well established Thinking Skills programme, ACTS (McGuinness 2002) for primary aged pupils, when it was introduced into schools in one area of Scotland over a 3 year period. In particular, this evaluation focused on what impact the programme had on pupils, teachers and schools and how transferable the skills were when pupils transferred from primary to secondary schools.  Data comes from project documentation, a questionnaire completed by teachers involved in the project and interviews with local authority staff, teachers, headteachers and pupils. The pupil interviews included the use of Pupil Views Templates (Wall and Higgins 2006) with both current primary pupils and pupils who have transferred to secondary school. These templates have been shown to enable the exploration of pupils’ thinking about learning and thinking (metacognition) (see Wall 2006).  The teacher interviews included eliciting responses to videos of ACTS lessons in this project.  The analysis shows that there are substantial differences in pupil outcomes between schools, not least in terms of the metacognitive skilfulness evidenced by the pupils. The paper explores the range of factors that have influenced the response of pupils, teachers and headteachers, which broadly reflect the culture of the schools and some teacher characteristics.  The primary schools all show varying degrees of ‘meshing’ ACTS with other initiatives and interests, a form of organisational social construction, which means that ACTS is slowly merging into a wider pedagogy, blurring its identity.

There is much international concern about reform of pedogogies and curriculum for the 21st Century with its particular economic, social and technological demands.  Thinking skills (Kuhn 2005) active learning (Kimonen & Nevalainen, 2005), authentic teaching, productive pedagogies (Lingard, 2005) and learning to learn (Higgins et al., 2006) are all variants of the response to this concern.  Yet schools and classrooms appear to be inherently conservative places.

This paper is a case study of a pedagogic innovation in thinking skills, ACTS - Activating Children’s Thinking Skills (McGuinness 2002), which was funded by the Scottish Executive and carried out in the West of Scotland.  The authors were part of a team from the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT), Newcastle University, who evaluated the project.  The aims of the evaluation were to:

·          Assess the overall impact of the project, highlighting any factors which have contributed to the impact;

·          Assess the impact on the teachers involved in the project: teaching approaches, attitudes to learning and learners, and changes to the learning environment;

·          Identify what, if any, impact it has had on those pupils whose teachers have been involved in the project; and

·          Assess the impact of the project on transferable skills and ideas (i.e. those of pupils).

The paper presents some findings in relation to all these aims, but also takes a wider view to explore the socio-cultural complexity of the schools, which in turn reflects the policy and accountability landscape of Scottish education.  Comparison is also made with other innovative pedagogic projects with which the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching have been involved, for example the Learning to Learn Phase 3 Evaluation (Higgins et al. 2005; 2006).

The project manager and project officer at local authority level were interviewed and a large amount of documentary evidence and teaching materials gathered.  A questionnaire was administered to all the teachers involved in the project at the end of the third year; fifteen (71 %) were returned.  Site visits were made to eight schools, six primaries and two of the secondary schools which had received ‘ACTS’ pupils from the primaries.  Data gathered at the primaries included:

a)      An interview with the headteacher;

b)      An interview with the one or two ACTS teachers ;

c)      Reflective commentary from the teachers on video of ACTS lessons to elicit views of significant features of pedagogy;

d)      Interviews with an average of six pupils using Pupil View Templates (PVTs) (Wall and Higgins 2006).

Data gathered at the secondary schools comprised

a)      An interview with teacher responsible for the new intake of pupils;

b)      Interviews (using PVTs) with 13 pupils in one school and 55 in the other.

Data analysis has been largely thematic driven by the aims of the original evaluation. Findings show that class teachers and headteachers interpreted or ‘constructed’ ACTS differently, depending on the context of the school and individual beliefs.  In each school ACTS has been connected to other programmes or developments, these include critical skills, assessment reform or speaking and listening. It has been possible to see that ACTs has become ‘meshed’ with a broader pedagogy. However, common features of practice development across schools included greater use of collaborative group work, the acceptance of a broader range of ideas and responses from pupils and greater emphasis given to pupils presenting ideas in whole class plenaries.   The impact on pupils was varied, with pupils in some schools showing greater evidence of developing metacognitive thinking, both knowledge and skilfulness (Veenman and Spaans 2005).  There is no clear pattern in the data to explain this variation.  Further the impact on pupils appears to fade by the time they get to secondary school, although there must be caution in this respect given that the data derives from self report.

The outcomes of this study are critical in relation to understanding how pedagogic and curriculum innovation is framed and supported.  There is considerable evidence as to the difficulties facing such reform (House, 1979, Leat, 1999), but also an emerging picture of the factors of the professional learning environment (Cordingley et al., 2003) needed for substantive change. 

References

Cordingley, P., Bell, M., Rundell, B., Evans, D. & Curtis, A. (2003) The impact of collaborative CPD on classroom teaching and learning, London: EPPI-Centre, Institute of Education, University of London.

Higgins, S., Wall, K., Baumfield, V., Hall, E., Leat, D. and Woolner, P. with Clark, J., Edwards, G., Falzon, C., Jones, H., Lofthouse, R., Miller, J., Moseley, D., McCaughey, C., and Mroz, M. (2006) Learning to Learn in Schools Phase 3 Evaluation: Year Two Report. London: Campaign for Learning. Available at: http://www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/projects/L2L/The%20Project/phase3/year2.htm

House, E. (1979), Technology versus Craft: a Ten Year Perspective on Innovation, Journal of Curriculum Studies,  Vol. 11, pp. 1-15.

Kimonen, E. & Nevalainen, R. (2005) Active learning in the process of educational change, Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 21, pp. 623-635.

Deanna, K. (2005) Education for Thinking, Harvard University Press.  

Leat, D., (1999) Rolling the Stone Uphill: Teacher Development and the Implementation of Thinking Skills Programmes, Oxford Review of Education,  pp. 387-403.

Lingard, B. (2005) Socially Just Pedagogies in Changing Times, International Studies in Sociology of Education, 15 (2), pp. 165-186.

McGuinness, C. (2000) ACTS: A methodology for teaching thinking across the curriculum. Teaching Thinking, 2, 1-12.

Moseley, D., Baumfield, V., Elliott, J., Gregson, M., Higgins, S., Miller, J., and Newton, D.P. (2005) Frameworks for Thinking: a handbook for teaching and learning,  Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Veenman, M.V.J. and Spaans, M.A. (2005) Relation between intellectual and metacognitive skills: age and task difference, Learning and Individual Differences, 15: 159-176

Wall, K. and Higgins, S. (2006) Facilitating and supporting talk with pupils about metacognition: a research and learning tool, International Journal of Research and Methods in Education, 29(1): 39-53

Wall, K. (2006) Understanding Metacognition through the use of Pupil Views Templates: Pupil views of Learning to Learn, European Association for Research into Learning and Instruction (EARLI) SIG 16 (Metacognition) Conference, Cambridge University, July 2006