Stimulating the development of thinking abilities

How can we stimulate the growth of general thinking? In the 1980s, Piaget’s idea that thinking develops through distinct stages fell into some disrepute because it was occasionally misused to identify what pupils could not do. The idea can also be used positively, however, understanding the type of thinking that individual pupils are using enables us to design activities that will move them on towards higher levels of thinking. This is the process that is described as ‘cognitive acceleration’.

There are three main drivers of cognitive acceleration — three conditions that work together to maximise the intellectual growth of pupils. These are described below.

Cognitive conflict

Piaget suggested that experiences that are puzzling to a child, and cannot be easily explained, may stimulate the development of more powerful ways of thinking. It can therefore be worthwhile to provide pupils with activities and experiences that challenge their current understanding and are somewhat difficult for them to solve at the moment. Of course, each activity has to be well managed and pitched at the correct level of difficulty, neither so easy
that it provides no challenge, nor so difficult that it alienates the pupils.

Social construction

Faced with a problem, the natural human instinct is to talk about it — this is why, in the adult world, we frequently set up committees or ‘think tanks’ to solve problems. Our assumption is that ‘many heads are better than one’. In some school settings, however, collaboration is viewed less positively; it may even be construed as ‘cheating’. In cognitive acceleration, we actively encourage pupils to work together to solve problems. This process — ‘social construction’ of understanding — is recognised in psychology, the most well-known proponent of the idea being Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934).
4 I Let’s Think through Science! Developing thinking with seven- and eight-year-olds

Metacognition

The third driver for cognitive acceleration, derived indirectly from both Vygotsky and Piaget, is conscious ‘thinking about your own thinking’ – which is known as ‘metacognition’. Active reflection on progress in solving a particular problem, on difficulties encountered, on wrong turns taken and how they were corrected, can stimulate the development of improved thinking.

Three pillars of cognitive acceleration

This approach to the stimulation of intelligence in pupils can be summarised as follows:
• provide a challenging activity (cognitive conflict);
• encourage a social approach to tackling it (social construction);
• help pupils to think back to the thinking they employed (metacognition).
Cognitive conflict, social construction and metacognition are collectively described as the ‘three pillars of cognitive acceleration’.