| dc.description.abstract | Teaching Thinking is a series of motivating and exciting teaching strategies that are based on activity amongst pupils as well as directions given by the teacher. The social-constructivist view on knowledge production becomes apparent through the fact that pupils always work together in groups, debating and discussing the learning material. Reflection and consciousness of the learning process develops a metacognitive awareness, which helps the students become independent and structured learners. This thesis is written with the intention of examining whether the strategies contributes to the development of such metacognitive skills, reflection, argumentation and team-work, and how they should be used to maximize the learning outcome. Former research has shown positive results, as teachers and students have given mostly positive feedback. The relevance of this thesis will therefore be the recommendations I present. I wish to make the strategies easily available so that teachers do not consider it a lot of work to use them.
The methods are conducted in a qualitative manner, mainly using interviews, observations and a qualitative questionnaire. I observed a geography class in a upper secondary school in Trondheim for three hours while they were working with these strategies, whereupon I conducted a short questionnaire and group interview with the students and the teacher. I also interviewed two major contributors on the subject by telephone, using a recorder and transcribing the interviews afterwards. This was also done in the other interviews, and the material was coded and categorized with a qualitative approach. Given that the data material is limited due to the small number of informants and the use of qualitative methods, the results have to be considered as limited.
Nevertheless, I will argue that the use of Teaching Thinking-strategies do contribute to the development of skills such as argumentation, team-work, reflection and argumentation, and that it has great impact on the students learning outcome. It is very well suited to operationalize the aims given in the latest reform of the curriculum Knowledge Promotion from 2006. Teachers should use it in a structured and deliberate manner and in combination with other teaching methods, to get the best results possible. | nb_NO |
