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Thinking skills
A range of approaches to teaching thinking skills, for example the use
of mysteries, are advocated in the foundation subjects strand of the Key
Stage 3 Strategy (PDF 42Kb).
Mysteries, which had their origins in David Leat's early work on thinking
skills, enable pupils to develop their skills in sorting information,
much like a detective. By interpreting different pieces of information
and discarding irrelevant pieces, pupils can make links to construct their
own theories and hypotheses on an issue. During the process, pupils might
even change their minds, but most importantly they are encouraged to think.
As a pair or group activity, mysteries foster active collaborative learning
as well as encouraging pupils to come to grips with issues in a stimulating
way. Examples of mysteries are provided below.
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More developed ideas
| Development indicators
This year 9 activity uses a series of questions and statements
to enable pupils to think about, explain and discuss issues
of poverty. The pupils use a series of sort cards to explore
the situation in which Grace finds herself.
[Haley Couper]
PDF 24Kb
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29Kb | Help
Odd one out
The ‘Odd one out’ year 9 activities are useful
as plenaries, starters or homework and can reinforce new terminology,
assess understanding and get pupils to think about the links
between different elements of geography. For more guidance
on running this activity and its rationale, see Thinking
through geography by David Leat (Chris Kington Publishing,
2001). Difficulty levels can easily be adjusted by choosing
sets of words where the connections are more, or less, obvious.
[David Beresford, Coleridge Community
College, Cambridgeshire]
Odd one out - volcanoes PDF
10Kb | RTF
21Kb | Help
Odd one out - earthquakes PDF
10Kb | RTF
21Kb | Help
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Predicting with video
- a changing village
Predicting with video is a thinking-skills strategy. This
idea can be carried out using a variety of video topics. Instead
of predicting what might happen in the future, pupils predict
what is happening now based on video clips of people being
interviewed.
Although the pupils watch the video clips with the sound
off, they can make judgements on the character’s concerns
based on the context and the visual clues provided by the
video. This draws on their existing geographical knowledge
and helps them to engage with what is happening on the video.
This exercise aims to develop pupils’ understanding
of people’s views on rural depopulation, based on programme
2 in the BBC France 2000 series.
[David Beresford, Coleridge Community
College, Cambridgeshire]
PDF
8Kb | RTF
6Kb | Help
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Montserrat mystery
This task was carried out by a year 9 mixed-ability class
with a wide range of ablity, but could easily be adapted for
a key stage 4 class. The task was undertaken at the end of
a unit of work on plate tectonics and volcanoes.
The mystery is set after the volcanic eruptions on Montserrat.
The pupils have to piece together information to decide who
or what was responsible for the death of Jean, a farmer. To
enable pupils to perform well in this task some prior knowledge
of volcanoes is beneficial. The task used guidelines to teach
this activity from Thinking through geography by David
Leat (Chris Kington Publishing, 2001).
[Nicola
Gamble, Comberton Village College, Cambridgeshire]
PDF
23Kb | RTF
46Kb | Help
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| Mediterranean vegetation
This is a one-hour year 8 lesson that uses pupil’s prior
knowledge of what a Mediterranean climate is like. The lesson
was adapted from an idea featured in Thinking through
geography (Chris Kington Publishing, 2001) and can be
used to foster thinking skills through geography.
The lesson aims to help the mid-achieving pupils understand
the idea of plant adaptation, give examples of how plants
are adapted to their climate and then use what they have learnt
about plant adaptation to design a new Mediterranean plant.
[Dawn
Price, Katharine Lady Berkeley's School, Gloucestershire]
PDF
64Kb | RTF
328Kb | Help
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| An asylum seeker mystery
This key stage 3 mystery activity explores issues of migration
and asylum at both a local and global scale as part of a unit
on ‘exploring England’. The activity may require
some modification for pupils whose reading level is not high.
[Daniel Ford, Edenham High School,
Croydon, (now at the John Fisher School, Sutton)]
PDF
22Kb | RTF
44Kb | Help
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Housing mix’n’match
In this activity, pupils work through a PowerPoint
presentation to structure their discussion of different
types of housing in their local area, in this case, Chelmsford.
This is followed by a ‘mix ‘n’ match’
exercise in which they group cards that give characteristics
of houses and likely residents. (With access to a computer
suite, the activity could be completed as a cut and paste
activity, rather than with cards.) The activity is based on
stereotypes. These can be questioned and explored as part
of the exercise.
[Stephen Smith, King Edward VI Grammar
School, Essex]
PDF
36Kb | RTF
11,510Kb | Help
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Where is the Patel's
new house?
A mystery about housing areas in cities
PDF
46Kb | RTF
14Kb | Help
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| Why did the eruption
of Nevado del Ruiz claim so many lives?
A mystery about a volcanic eruption
PDF
49Kb | RTF
18Kb | Help
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Other information
Further examples of mysteries (and other thinking skills approaches)
can be found at:
Fieldwork and the development
of thinking skills a Teaching geography article by Nick Foskett
on incorporating a thinking skills approach into fieldwork.
Concept mapping in geography
a Teaching geography article by Gilly O’Brien on using concept mapping
to make learning more meaningful for year 9 and year 10 pupils. |
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