Fieldwork and the development of thinking skills

3 Fieldwork and the development of thinking skills

Recent research in science education has emphasised the role of teaching using tasks that challenge children to think and problem solve in enhancing pupils’ ‘cognitive gain’. The Cognitive Acceleration in Science Education (CASE) Project (Adey and Shayer 1994) has developed activities which challenge pupils

Fieldwork in the school Geography curriculum 173 Table 12.2 Opportunities for using IT to support coursework

Software/hardware One potential application Word processing

In any enquiry to support pupils’ intended writing where they can draft and redraft reports.

Drawing, painting and Tools for illustration in any type of material, e.g. combining text DTP packages

and images to provide a high-quality method for designing survey sheets.

Spreadsheets To provide a tool for evaluating and modelling a range of decisions, e.g. evaluating routes in an enquiry on the location of

a new bypass. Using a weighting scheme, the spreadsheet provides opportunities to evaluate many different options effectively.

Databases To provide access to data, explore patterns and relationships and display results effectively. For instance, in an enquiry on tourism a database of questionnaire results would enable the pupils to explore links between gender, age and holiday location.

CD-ROM To provide access to a wide range of information and deepen understanding of spatial relationships; e.g. a census CD-ROM can support an enquiry into the contention that quality of life can be low in urban and rural areas.

Mapping and To explore spatial relationships by querying a database and geographic information displaying the results spatially. For instance, a GIS can support systems (GIS) software investigations into the link between the economic and social

factors and regional inequalities in India.

Portables in the field Using portables in the field enables direct entry of information from a questionnaire or observations. This enables initial analysis to determine whether further measurements or questionnaires need to be carried out, e.g. checking that mistakes have not been made in the collection of river data.

Data logging To record data accurately over a period which could not be achieved manually, e.g. to explore the link between local facility use and daily weather. Data from automatic weather stations can be exported to a spreadsheet or database for comparison and analysis.

Remote sensing To provide access to richer images of an area which can illustrate change over time and be manipulated. For instance imagery of the local area can be used to support an enquiry into the actual and potential loss of urban green space.

Internet The Internet can provide access to a wealth of resources. For example, people’s views and information on issues related to the Kobe earthquake can be obtained when investigating the impact of physical processes.

Source: Hassell, D. (1996).

174 Teaching Geography in secondary schools to question, theorise and hypothesize, to work beyond simple ‘knowing’ and

‘understanding’ in areas of thinking that include analysis, evaluation and problem solving. Adey and Shayer suggest that such thinking skills enhance achievement in science, but also raise standards more broadly by equipping children with transferable skills.

‘Thinking skills’ include a wide range of ‘skills’ such as ‘choosing’, ‘deducing’ and ‘applying logical thinking’. At a simple level we can distinguish ‘creative skills’, which are constructive and involve drawing information and ideas and imagination together to generate a new perspective, and ‘critical skills’, which are deconstructive and involve reducing ideas to their component parts. Sternberg’s (1985) ‘triarchic classification’ of thinking skills distinguishes three components of thinking skills. Knowledge components involve inputs to the mind – ‘seeing’, ‘hear- ing’, ‘scanning’, ‘analysing’. Performance components involve outputs from the mind following intellectual processing that the child has undertaken, and include ‘remembering’, ‘reflecting’ and ‘decision-making’. Metacomponents relate to the control of thinking and the notion of ‘metacognition’ – in simple terms, ‘thinking about thinking’, and include skills such as ‘planning’ and ‘evaluating’.

Important within the development of thinking skills is the idea of ‘transfer’. Transfer is essentially the extent to which current learning enhances subsequent learning, and can be seen in two ways – as ‘lateral transfer’ in which the ideas and skills are used in a different but no more challenging situation, and ‘vertical trans- fer’ in which they are used in a more challenging or complex situation. Leat (1998) describes this process of transfer as ‘bridging’ and emphasises that it provides a ‘mul- tiplier effect’ in the pupils’ learning.

The development of thinking skills has also been applied in geographical educa- tion by the ‘Thinking Through Geography’ Project (Leat 1998). This has developed approaches using a wide range of strategies, each focusing on a generic concept important within Geography but having great utility for transfer to other arenas, such as ‘classification’, ‘cause and effect’, and ‘systems’, using teaching strategies that are innovative and varied. By using such ‘thinking activities’ pupils start to develop analytical and reasoning skills which support ‘transfer’, metacognition, and increasingly independent learning through questioning and thinking.

Foskett (1999) has suggested that the potential benefits of a thinking skills approach can be subject to a further multiplier effect if conducted through fieldwork. Much of the empirical research into fieldwork in schools and colleges has emphasised the cognitive and affective gain that it generates for students. Mackenzie and White (1982), Kern and Carpenter (1986), Harvey (1991) and Nundy (1998;1999) all suggest that fieldwork stimulates the enhancement of higher-order thinking skills, and that this gain is further enhanced by the interaction of affective and cognitive development processes. Foskett (1999) shows how such developments might contribute to each area of Sternberg’s triarchic classification.

Firstly, all fieldwork is based on observation, recording and data collection and the process of ‘monitoring’ and evaluating that data. The thinking skills involved in this process exemplify Sternberg’s ‘knowledge’ components. Secondly, although ‘perfor- mance’ has traditionally been restricted in fieldwork to data presentation, recent

Fieldwork in the school Geography curriculum 175 growth in the use of problem-solving and decision-making in relation to issue-based

fieldwork has emphasised the role of performance. The role of ‘talk’ in developing such ‘performance thinking skills’ is stressed by Adey and Shayer (1994), Nundy (1999) and Leat (1998). Thirdly, the notion of building in progression in fieldwork experience for pupils such that they develop the skills of ‘independent enquiry’ requires the develop- ment of metacognition skills through the planning, reviewing, evaluating and reflection skills which such enquiry necessitates.

Beyond Sternberg’s three components thinking skills lies the notion of transfer, which is evidence of high-level thinking skills. In fieldwork the opportunity for classroom to field to classroom transfer of knowledge and ideas is large, whether through testing theories from classwork by hypothesis testing or by generating theo- ries from field observation. Both vertical and lateral transfer can be integrated into planning fieldwork enquiry by emphasising ‘transfer’ issues in the objectives for the work.

The potential of fieldwork for enhancing thinking skills is clearly considerable – and indeed, it has always done so, albeit without the explicit intent of teachers. Table 12. 3 exemplifies the ways in which thinking skills can be planned into field- work. This represents a starting point for planning, for each stage will require careful management to optimise the learning processes that enhance cognitive gain, such as groupwork or pupil talk, while ensuring appropriate affective domain aims are integrated to reinforce cognitive gain.

Table 12.3 Integrating thinking skills development into fieldwork planning Stage Thinking skills

Example processes

Fieldwork planning process

1 Lateral transfer

Set up ‘enquiry’ into impact of from classwork

Developing enquiry

questions or setting up

tourism on e.g. a local beauty

spot 2 Knowledge

hypotheses

Reflective and critical data Consider litter survey, erosion components

collection

of footpath measures, visitor interviews as data methods; monitor data as collected

3 Performance Decision-making, problem- Present alternative models for components

managing tourism 4 Metacomponents

solving, hypothesising

Evaluating group/individual Evaluate data collection and knowledge/performance

evaluate group/individual role

components

5 Transfer – lateral Integration of findings and Re-visit environmental principles into classwork or management topic and apply other subject areas

findings to different cases 6 Transfer – vertical Construction of higher

Draw out big concepts of

levels of model

‘cause and refinement’. Linkage to ‘big concepts’, ‘effect’, ‘planning’, ‘decision- making’, etc.

176 Teaching Geography in secondary schools