The ‘Thinking Through School’ project
Building a Learning Community
I would like to put forward a proposal for an interactive
workshop in which delegates will learn about and
experience an innovative new approach developed by
the Thinking Through School project in the UK.
Developed by Anne de A’Echevarria and Dr. David Leat
in 2005-6 and backed by the University of Newcastle
and Electric Word plc, the Thinking Through School
approach is currently being trialed in schools across the
UK. It involves using story to help pupils tell their stories –
their experiences of learning – and to explore as a
community of enquiry, what it really means to be a learner.
The pupils’ stories provide the stimulus for teachers, and the school more generally,
to start a conversation with pupils about learning. Teachers are often taken out of
their comfort zones but at the same time, if carefully handled, much energy is
generated for curriculum and pedagogical transformation.
To encourage young people to speak about their learning experiences you need
something a bit different and we believe that Thinking Through School has two
special features:
Firstly it uses a specially commissioned story as an organizing framework. Stories
have a unique power to engage our interest and make new and often complex
ideas accessible.
By engaging with the different characters, students
find themselves embarking upon an exploration into
learning and what it means to be a learner. In
doing so, the necessary language, thinking skills
and ‘habits of mind’ that all good learners need
are put under the spotlight – the skills and
dispositions that can provide coherence to an
often disconnected, subject based curriculum.
Secondly it takes an enquiry-based approach to
Learning to Learn. Students are invited to tell their stories and
enquire into and report on their learning experiences in and out of school, in a way
that opens up a new universe of understanding for teachers. Key areas of enquiry
are as follows, but the young people who take part in the project are encouraged
to influence the agenda and suggest their own lines of enquiry.
Enquiry focus
Key idea
What’s school for?
Students explore their own motivations and
attitudes towards learning.
What do I think of myself?
Explores issues of self-concept and confidence.
What is learning anyway?
Think on your feet!
What’s wrong with the way I talk?
Encourages students to think about how they
learn, including issues such as memory.
Students think about whether ‘good thinking’
can be taught; they begin to collect together
their own thinking toolbox.
Students explore different types of talk and
examine the value of using Exploratory talk to
think together
Students figure out how to keep a positive
attitude in difficult situations; pupils to
experiment with Reframing.
Investigates Visual thinking, introducing students
to the important skills of reading images,
visualisation and representing thinking visually.
Flipped?!
Picture this!
What’s the big idea?
Just listen to yourself think!
Recycle it!
Hunting for the big concepts and skills that
underpin learning in different subjects and
helping students to find connections between
subjects.
Allows students to focus on the ‘how’ not the
‘what’ of learning, to make learning more
accessible to them.
Introduces students to the concept of learning
for transfer; making connections between
school and everyday life.
Examples of students’ questions inspired by the story – and by
each other’s stories – have included:
Do you have to be confident to take risks?
Could be survive without an imagination?
What’s wrong with right answers?
Can you watch yourself think?
If you lose your memories are you no longer human?
As the students are challenged with (and learn to challenge
each other with) searching questions such as ‘What is school
for?’, ‘What do I think of myself?’ and ‘What is learning?’ their
answers, in turn, raise searching questions for teachers and
schools. The Thinking Through School project is serious about
engaging young people as genuine partners in changing
educational experience and outcomes. The students’
enquiries, their insights and conclusions provide a rich source
of information that has already begun to transform learning
in several school – and teaching too. It is a learning
experience for all involved. Many of the participant schools
had been using various teaching thinking pedagogies and
learning to learn approaches for a long time but felt that
they had reached a plateau and were unsure how to help
students and teachers move on to a deeper level of
understanding. They wanted to move from a situation in
which there were isolated pockets of good practice in
individual classrooms, towards developing the ethos and
attributes of a thinking and learning community. The
Thinking Through School project represents a significant step forward for
them in that direction. For them, in a very real sense, it has involved encouraging
minds to ‘think and learn by exploring the unknown’.
Many thanks for reading this submission. A brief biography is also included below.
Anne de A’Echevarria
December 2006
Author of Thinking Through School
Director Thinkwell Consultancy
Anne de A’Echevarria
Anne took up teaching in 1993 after a year of youth and street theatre work in the
north Parisien suburbs. She taught for 10 years in secondary schools in England and
France, and also as a visiting lecturer at Newcastle University in the UK, before
helping to establish Thinking for Learning in 2002, a research and development team
partnered with Newcastle University. This organisation focuses on the development
of thinking in educational contexts and takes Anne all over the UK and overseas,
providing training and consultancy support for schools, LEAs, and other educational
organisations. In 2004 she began exploring the value of writing stories to make
complex ideas to do with thinking and learning accessible to young people. This led
to the development of the Thinking Through School project, and the publication of
‘eLfi’ in 2006. She recently established Thinkwell Consultancy in order to provide
support for the increasing number of UK schools involved in the project.