The Somerset Thinking Skills Course

We have produced a set of materials specifically designed for classroom use, as a direct outcome of the
practical experience of using Feuerstein's more clinical programme. Naturally, some of the goals and
theoretical principles of STSC overlap with Feuerstein's original work. At the same time, many other
theoretical and curricular influences have affected the final shape and style of our programme.

Details of the working model underpinning STSC have been discussed earlier (page 2). Readers may like
to revisit this section when considering the general aims of STSC recorded in Figure 4.1. The teacher
guidelines for each module explain how the teacher can realise these eight aims. An introduction to the
style and format of the teacher guidelines is provided in a later section (page 56).

Structure and organisation of pupil activities within each module

Like IE, the Somerset Thinking Skills Course consists of a series of visually based materials which serve as
springboards for each lesson. The materials are arranged in modules around themes in much the same
way as IE, although the themes in the two programmes do not entirely correspond. Whereas IE tends to
focus almost exclusively on reducing impulsivity and overcoming 'deficient functions', STSC concerns
itself with wider issues of learning style and cognitive strategy as well as the cognitive resources
underlying these areas.

In Instrumental Enrichment the majority of the tasks are highly abstract. The repetition within each
instrument tends to reduce the emphasis on the need to recognise and define problems in all but the
earlier activities. Furthermore, the consistent use of particular modes and styles of presentation within
each instrument offers relatively little chance to assess anything more than 'close transfer of skills within
the programme and can lead to boredom for some pupils. In contrast, STSC offers a wider range of
activities and contexts within each modular theme. This provides greater novelty, encouraging and
maintaining interest and motivation. It also results in a more consistent emphasis on problem solving
generally. The pupils are constantly required to recognise and define different types of tasks and to
generate, monitor and evaluate different methods of working. In addition, the wide variation in the
activities provides the opportunity both to assess and to encourage transfer of skills and strategies
across more 'distanced' situations. Further, the use of some more naturalistic problem-solving situations
and discussion tasks stimulates the generalisation of skills and ideas to fresh contexts. Teachers will
notice that some of the STSC tasks are open ended in that they are open to many possible
interpretations and do not have prescribed 'correct' answers. Other tasks are more focused and closed
and do require specific solutions. In either case, emphasis is placed upon children being able to justify
their interpretations and to evaluate and communicate clearly their solutions and methods of working.
Whether the tasks are open or closed, we have deliberately made much use of ambiguity. Many of the
tasks do not have written explicit instructions. Those that do, still require very careful interpretation as
well as close attention to many implicit instructions. There are a number of reasons for this:

1 We wish to break down the familiar pupil expectation that they will be told exactly what to do. From
the early stages of the work pupils are required to think for themselves in defining the tasks.

2 Use of ambiguity allows for many justifiable interpretations, Prompting much debate and discussion
amongst the pupils.

3 The range of viable interpretations provokes close attention to detail and encourages comparative
behaviour in evaluating the most adequate and logically consistent task definitions.

4 It reduces impulsivity by communicating to the pupils that the tasks are rarely straightforward and
have to be thought through.

5 It gradually encourages many more reticent pupils to risk a contribution in group or class discussion
work, in the knowledge that teacher is not looking for set answers to the tasks.

6 It sharpens pupil awareness of the need for precision and accuracy in many everyday communications
to avoid unintended ambiguity. It is interesting to note that children who come from families where
ambiguous communications are noticed and challenged from an early age, develop better language skills
than those whose parents regularly give and receive confusing messages without question.

7 It encourages pupils to read between the lines’ when faced with any kind of problem, ie it establishes
a routine wherein the child searches for implicit clues and information and for what is not implied as
well as analysing the obvious details. This is an important aspect of successful academic performance,
Many children fail in examinations because they have not appreciated the subtleties of the questions.
More importantly than this, everyday interactions with peers. Family and others require us to recognise,
interpret and manage ambiguity, noticing for instance disparity between someone’s body language
and/or tone of voice and the content of their message.

………………

Thus within each module there are open-ended and closed tasks of varying complexity, presented in
different modes. These tasks can be separated into three types: Stimulus activities, Artificial tasks and
Naturalistic tasks. We will consider each of these in turn.

Stimulus activites

Stimulus activities establish a meaningful context and theme as a backcloth to the rest of the activities in
each module. Moreover, they broaden pupil learning by offering numerous opportunities to explore
connections and associations between many different areas of experience that may otherwise remain
unrelated. The stimulus mterials are quite complex and in themselves pose particular kids of problems
that require particular styles of strategic thinking. They are designed as open-ended activities that foster
and encourage imaginative and divergent interpretations with the proviso that they can be justified by
reference to the information provided. In general this type of activity is intended to develop confidence
and to facilitate small group and class

Discussion work, promoting oracy skills and shared working. Ant example of this type of activity is shown
in Figure 4.2.
This introductory stimulus page shows a picture of a living room with many people involved in various
activities. There are no explicit instructions but the bottom frame shows cartoon figures that provide a
key to understanding the nature and purpose of the activity. There are many ways in which this activity
can be used. For instance, pupils can be helped to scan the main picture and the key frame before being
put into groups to consider questions like, What is the main picture all about? What does the key frame
represent? What is the relationship between the two? The task is intended to motivate pupils to explore
the ways in which we obtain information from one or more of our senses. It offers the opportunity of
considering a wide range of related issues, eg the use of technology to heighten sensory information;
communication (or lack of it) in the picture; the effects of losing one or more of our senses.

The cartoons In the bottom frame depict the usual five senses (touching, seeing, smelling, tasting and
hearing) but in addition, there are two more ambiguous background figures. One could be taken to
represent the ‘6th’ sense (in common usage, intuition, ESP or in the psychological world, the monitoring
of one’s bodily processes like hunger and emotion). The other could be interpreted as the ‘7 th’ sense (in
common usage thinking, imagining or, in the psychological world, ‘metacognition’ – the conscious
awareness of one’s own thoughts and problem-solving processes, knowing why you are succeeding or
why you are failing).

The activity Is open ended and full of intentionally ambiguous detail to encourage pupils to share ideas
and recognise the diversity of justifiable interpretations.

Artificial tasks

The artificial tasks have a similar purpose to activities in the IE programme, being designed to expose,
teach and offer practice in particular cognitive resources (concepts, vocabulary, skills and conventions).
Here, however, the use of many different tasks in varying modes offers the teacher the opportunity of
exploring the extent to which resources learned in one context are spontaneously transferred to a range
of related but different contexts. The STSC materials also lend themselves to more interactive forms of
learning than the IE materials in that many of the artificial tasks have been designed for paired and
group work rather than solely independent work. Some of the tasks are ‘closed’ and require a very
focused, serialistic approach to find one particular solution; other tasks are more ‘open ended’ and
ambiguous, with many alternative interpretations and solutions. The open-ended tasks require pupils to
make assumptions about the meanings of the tasks and to analyse the basis of their assumptions. Figure
4.3 illustrates a ‘closed’ artificial task.

This example is taken from a series of highly abstract search tasks that become increasingly complex as
the programme progresses. In the early stages, various conventions are established. Thus, pupils will
recognise that the top left emphasised frame illustrates two model figures that can be found in exactly
the same size and form in each of the subsequent 16 frames. The stars and the tips of the lines in the
later frames are used to construct the corners of the model figures. The shapes may overlap or change
in orientation. However, the first frame (1.1) always allows for the model figures to be reproduced in
exactly the same position as shown in the model frame.

The top right emphasised frame forms part of an up-turned key and contains an anagram (strategy)
which emphasises key vocabulary associated with the programme and the task itself. The dotted line
provides space for the pupils to record the correct version of the anagram. The small frame at the
bottom of the page contains a cloze procedure activity prompting pupils to discuss strategic issues
related to the more difficult frames.

Naturalistic tasks

The inclusion of more naturalistic tasks within each STSC module enables the teacher to check for
spontaneous transfer of cognitive resources to problem-solving situations that simulate real life
experiences. In these tasks the pupils need to apply a comprehen- sive range of problem-solving
strategies which in turn are dependent upon the possession of certain cognitive resources. Pupil
difficulties with these naturalistic problem-solving tasks offer the teacher the chance to mediate at a
macro and a micro level. Some pupils can demonstrate knowledge of numerous cognitive resources but
remain unable to select and deploy them in appropriate problem-solving contexts. In contrast, other
pupils may experience strategic difficulties because they still have major gaps in their cognitive
resources requiring intensive help. Figure 4.4 illustrates a naturalistic task.

This open-ended activity presents a familiar type of problem- solving situation. The main picture shows a
woman who has lost her key and is locked out of the house. The pupils are implicitly required to
consider alternative options and decide the most appropriate actions to take according to the four
situations depicted in the bottom frame. The activity lends itself to small group work enabling
comparison of different solutions generated to deal with the various scenarios. Generalisation issues
include the need to consider consequences before selecting actions appropriate to circumstances. The
activity offers the teacher the opportunity of assessing pupil ability to transfer strategies and resources
used in earlier pages.

In summary, teachers should note that within each module the difficulty level of pupil activities is
gradually increased by making the tasks either more abstract (more removed from concrete experiences
with greater use of symbolism) and/or more complex (involving greater amounts of information from
many different sources). Each task uses a mixture of different styles and modes of presentation
(pictorial, numerical, diagrammatic, verbal…). The tasks can be broadly grouped into stimulus, artificial
and naturalistic activities. However, some involve elements from one or more of these categories. We
can express this visually as shown in Figure 4.5. Here, the square represents stimulus activities, the circle
depicts artificial tasks and the triangle naturalistic tasks. The concentric shapes within each of these
areas represent the different levels of difficulty.

Figure 4.6 provides another way of representing the relationship between the various features of each
pupil activity within any one module. Here, the diagram can be taken to represent a section of tree trunk
in which the concentric rings indicate the varying levels of difficulty, the slices depict different modes
and the different layers of the trunk represent types of task (stimulus, artificial and naturalistic).

The nature and content of each module

The modules within STSC have been organised to suit a spiralling linear model graded in difficulty. Each
module revisits and builds on ideas, principles and strategies established earlier and continually checks
for pupil knowledge and use of important cognitive resources. There are eight modules in the complete
course although additional ones may be added later.

1 Foundations for problem solving

This is the first module in the course, which sets the scene for all subsequent modules. It establishes the
aims of the course and its meaning and relevance to the pupils. It concentrates on reducing impulsivity,
developing self-esteem, improving oracy skills, and fostering the ability to work independently and in
small groups -enabling the teacher to establish the right kind of working environment for learning to
learn. The module places a heavy emphasis on the early stages of any problem-solving process.
Highlighting important resources and strategies involved in gather- ing and organising relevant
information and recognising and defining problems. Pupils are encouraged to recognise and analyse
implicit as well as explicit information: to generate and select strategies for working on the different
tasks; and to develop systems for recording and checking information. The need to hypothesise and deal
in probabilities is inherent in many of the activities. In common with later modules, a variety of modes is
ased (pictorial, figural, diagrammatic, numerical and verbal) with activities becoming progressively more
complex so that pupils are Increasingly encouraged to handle several sources of information
Simultaneously.

2 Analysing and synthesising

This module develops important vocabulary, concepts, skills and strategies introduced in the
Foundations module but focuses more specifically on the nature of analysis and synthesis and
applications to everyday life. As in the previous module, the materials include increasingly difficult
overlapping stimulus, artificial and naturalistic tasks that develop pupil understanding of part-whole
relationships in both structures and operations. The final stages of the module lead on to an
appreciation of the interrelationship between structure, function and aesthetic/cultural considerations.

3 Positions in time and space

This third module heightens pupil awareness of the way in which temporal and spatial considerations lie
at the heart of planning and anticipating. The module exposes and integrates key concepts and
vocabulary relating to reference points in time and space. Analytic behaviour is now enhanced with
specific spatial labelling systems and given a past-present-future dimension.

4 Comparative thinking

Comparative thinking focuses on the distinction between describing and comparing before developing
the nature, meaning and purpose of comparison utilising a wide variety of contexts and problem- solving
situations. It explores the contribution spontaneous com- parative behaviour makes to all kinds of
decision making. The later stages of the module demonstrate how comparison forms the basis of
classification. The nature and purpose of classification is explored and related in a variety of ways to
both subject matter and social organisations.

5 Understanding analogies

This module follows on naturally from Comparative thinking. It shows how analogy, metaphor and simile
can all be reduced to a sequence of comparisons. The module begins with a series of tasks centring
around different types of transformations (pictorial, figural and cartoon) requiring careful comparative
behaviour. It then goes on to show how transformations form the basis of understanding different kinds
of analogies. The role of analogy, simile and metaphor in everyday communication is emphasised by
activities demonstrating some of the different functions of language.

6 Patterns in time and space

Patterns in time and space extends the work of the previous time and space module. It explores the
kinds of predictions one can make from understanding patterns and relationships in time and space, like
cyclical rhythms, speed and momentum. The later stages of the module broaden the activities beyond
physical issues into ‘mental’ issues. In particular, the module considers how different people come to
adopt very different ‘mental positions’ or view- points. This involves exploring the nature of empathy
and prejudice.

7 Organising and memorising

Organising and memorising revisits many of the ideas and resources emphasised in previous modules,
with an explicit focus on techniques and strategies to facilitate recalling, organising and memorising
different types of information. The module emphasises flexible strategic thinking through tasks which
prompt pupils to consider which types of organising and memorising techniques and resources should
be used for different purposes.

8 Predicting and deciding

This final module integrates and sums up aspects from all of the previous modules in the context of a
wide range of social, domestic and academic decision-making activities. It highlights the fact that most
decision making is based on probabilities rather than certainties. It encourages pupils to consider how
different kinds of evidence and information contribute to probabilistic thinking.

The overall modular structure of the course is depicted in Figure 47. The diagram illustrates how
Foundations for problem solving acts as an anchor for the programme by exposing and teaching
essential cognitive resources underpinning many aspects of prob- lem solving. The linear nature of the
programme is emphasised by the sequenced arrangement of the modules in the tree trunk Finally, the
implications of the work for decision making and problem solving in everyday life is symbolised by the
branching foliage