Theme(s): Thinking skills
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‘Philosophy for Children’: deepening learningfor10 to 12 year old pupils
Author(s):
KJ Topping and S Trickey
Publisher:
British Journal of Educational Psychology (2007), 77, pp. 271-288
[Original title: Collaborative philosophical enquiry for school children: Cognitive effects at 10-12 years]
How can a collaborative thinking skills approach improve pupils’ learning?
The idea that intelligence is a fixed entity, that children are either good at learning a particular subject or not, has long been challenged. The work of people like Howard Gardner (1999) and Daniel Goleman (2005)have helped to widen ideas aboutintelligence to see itas multifaceted and dynamic.
This Scottish study exploredthe impact of a thinking skills intervention (Thinking through Philosophy), based in collaborative, interactive dialogue,on primary pupils’ learning. In particular the authors aimed to investigate whether learning gains made by pupils during work on verbal tasks could be transferred to learning in non-verbal areas. The study was based in four primary schools in Clackmannanshire Education Authority, Scotland, and included pupils from very disadvantaged backgrounds. The positive results of the programme for young people’s learning were wide ranging. The study found that children who participated in Philosophy for Children lessons improved their numeracy, verbal and non-verbal skills to a greater degree than those who did not.
The research is relevant to practitioners in primary and secondary schools and curriculum designers who are interested in thinking skills approaches to enhance pupils' learning. Practitioners interested in classroom talk for learning will also find the study informative.
Keywords:Scotland; primary schools; secondary schools; pupils; classroom teachers; whole class teaching; collaboration; questioning; thinking skills; cognitive development; teaching methods
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Contents
What impact did ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons have on pupils’
learning?Page 3
What does a ‘thinking through philosophy’ lesson look like? Page 4
What professional development did teachers need to deliver ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons? Page 5
Where does the evidence come from?Page 6
What are the implications?Page 7
Where can I find out more?Page8
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What impact did ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons have on pupils’ learning?
Differences in test scores before and after the intervention showed significant gains for pupils who took part in the programme compared to those who did not.
Specifically the findings demonstrated:
- improvements on number tasks, verbal and non-verbal reasoning tasks;
- largest improvement was on performance in non-verbal reasoning tasks;
- pupils of all abilities benefited from the intervention - middle level performers benefited most. The ones who benefited least were the ones who were high performers at the start of the programme;
- gains were consistent across schools and pupils – both boys and girls showed significant gains in post-tests; and
- post-test scores for the control groups were lower than their pre-test ones.
Classroom observation revealed that teachers delivering the programme increased their use of open-ended questions. Pupils also increased their participation in classroom discussion and demonstrated a greater use of critical reasoning.
The authors suggest the evidence supports the idea that pupils were able to transfer thinking skills learnt through dialogue to non-verbal and numerical reasoning tasks.
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What did the ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons look like?
The intervention was based on ‘Philosophy for Children’ (Lipman, 1981) but used more contemporary materials than the original approach (Cleghorn, 2002). Teachers built the one-hour lessons on core elements including:
- a focusing exercise to relax the children and engage their attention;
- linking to previous work to establish a starting point for thinking;
- introducing a stimulus for the new activity, usually a teacher reading a poem or story with visuals;
- pair working to enable children to familiarise themselves with the subject of enquiry;
- dialogue in groups of six in which the teacher encouraged the children to stick to a number of rules for dialogue (see below);
- closure, where the children were encouraged to reflect on their thinking; and
- thought for the week, where the children followed up the activity by relating what they learned to other situations.
The core feature of the approach was developing a community of enquiry. This is characterised by open-ended questioning by the teacher, challenging the children to think independently and promoting teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil dialogue.
To create and maintain the community of enquiry approach the teacher encouraged the children to follow a number of rules:
- being willing to communicate their views about the topic;
- supporting their views with reasons;
- listening respectfully to others;
- indicating politely their agreement or disagreement with the views expressed by others;
- providing alternative viewpoints;
- reaching a shared conclusion.
(The rules for dialogue are similar to the rules of dialogue in Wegerif and Mercer's Exploratory Talk which we have featured in other digests, see Where can I find out more?)
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What professional development did teachers need to deliver ‘thinking through philosophy’ lessons?
In order to ensure that the programme was implemented accurately the teachers undertook an extended professional development programme. This was led by the headteacher of a local primary school and two senior teachers experienced in classroom enquiry. During the first 12 months of the initiative the teachers who implemented the programme in their classrooms received 10-12 hours of professional development. This included:
- one day of training prior to the intervention; and
- observation of specialist teachers using the strategies, followed by debriefing with the specialists.
Each term the participating teachers explored their experiences collaboratively in a two-hourafter-school professional development session. The specialist teachers offered further support on a call-out basis.
The authors believed the costs in terms of money and resources for the programme were low,when weighed against the gains the pupils made.
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Where does the evidence come from?
The study participants were 105 intervention pupils in four schools in one Scottish educational authority. The pupils were of mixed socio-economic status but the sample contained some very disadvantaged pupils. The schools were not randomly selected but the actual participants were. The study used a non-intervention group of 72 pupils in another two schools in the same authority as a control group that was matched with the intervention group.
Both groups were pre- and post-tested with a pre-validated Cognitive Abilities Test (see Where can I find out more?). The tests covered the areas:
- verbal skills – verbal classification, sentence completion and word relations (e.g. old and new);
- numerical skills – identifying links between pairs of numbers, working out rules that link numbers in a series and building simple equations linking numbers; and
- non-verbal reasoning skills – classifying figures, recognising how figures are related to each other and predicting shapes of disguised figures.
Video-recording and analysis of classroom interactions was used to supplement the test data. The difference between the two groups was that the intervention group received one hour per week collaborative enquiry for 16 months while the control children followed normal classroom experiences during that time.
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What are the implications?
In completing this digest the authors began to ask the following questions about implications for practitioners:
- in order to guide children in creating a productive community of enquiry the teachers set out explicit rules of engagement, including the need to provide alternative viewpoints and to reach a shared conclusion. How explicit are you with your pupils about how best to communicate during group work? It might be useful to discuss with them the things that make for a good discussion, and then display the results on reference cards or a poster.
- An important element of the ‘thinking through philosophy’ lesson was the time teachers gave children to reflect on how their thinking had moved on, and to link their learning with other situations. These activities helped children understand the contingent nature of knowledge and the importance of being open to new ideas and arguments. In what ways could you support this kind of reflection among your pupils? You could, for example, ask them to note down their beliefs and/or knowledge about a particular topic at the beginning of a session/term, and use this as a reference point later on.
School leaders might like to consider some of the following implications:
- the extended nature of the CPD provided teachers with the opportunity to embed the new practice, reflect on and refine their approach through termly meetings, and draw on specialist support as it was needed. When planning CPD for your own staff, what are your expectations for how quickly they will be able to adopt new practice? Is there more you can do to provide support mechanisms over time to ensure they have the opportunity for sustained and deep professional learning and to embed new practice?
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Where can I find out more?
Other digests
Widening access to educational opportunities through teaching children how to reason together
Talk, talk, talk: Teaching and learning in whole class discourse
Improving the quality of pupils’ talk and thinking during group work
Other research
GTC RoM summary Effective talk in the primary classroom, accessible at:
GTC RoM summary Raising achievement through group work, accessible at:
National Teacher Research Panel summary How can we encourage pupil dialogue in collaborative group work?accessible at:
Resources
Clackmannanshire Council - For updates on the extensive Philosophy with Children programme.
Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC)
Philosophy with Children
Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education.
Thinking Together
References
Cleghorn, P. (2002)Thinking through philosophy Blackburn, England: Educational Printing
Services.
Gardner, H. (1999) Intelligence reframed. New York: Basic Books.
Goleman, D. (2005) Emotional intelligence (10th anniversary edition) New York: Bantam Books.
Lipman, M. (1981). Philosophy for children. In A. L. Costa (ed.), Developing minds: Programs forteaching thinking(Vol. 2, pp. 35–38). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision andCurricular Development.
K. J. Toppingand S. Trickey (2007) Collaborative philosophical inquiry for schoolchildren: Cognitive gains at 2-year follow-up. British Journal of Educational Psychology (2007), 77, 787–796
K.J. Topping , S. Trickey (2007) Impact of philosophical enquiry on school students’ interactive behaviour. Thinking Skills and Creativity 2 (2007) 73–84