1. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners
Literacy
Toolkit
HGIOS 4
Where does it link to How Good is Our School?
2.2 – Curriculum
2.3 – Learning, teaching and assessment
2.4 – Personalised support
The notes section in each presentation is primarily for the facilitator, indicating additional requirements or information.
Developing Thinking – Thinking Skills for 21st century learners
The objective of this PPT is to explore the research and views around Developing Thinking, in particular higher order thinking, and to generate professional dialogue and action relating to this with a view to improving experiences for the young people in school.
This PPT will address the following Quality Indicators from HGIOS 4:
QI: 2.2 – Curriculum – Themes:
Rationale and design
Development of the curriculum
Skills for learning, life and work
QI: 2.3 – Learning, teaching and assessment – Themes:
Learning and engagement
Quality of teaching
Planning, tracking and monitoring
QI: 2.4 – Personalised support – Themes:
Universal support
Removal of potential barriers to learning

2. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
Agenda
Activity 1 – Introduction / Starter Activity (5 mins)
Activity 2 – How’s it going / feedback (10-20 mins)
Activity 3 – New Learning (25-40 mins)
Activity 4 – Personal Action Planning (10 mins)
Activity 5 – Summary of Learning (5 mins)
This agenda is fixed and is the same for every presentation in the toolkit.

3. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 1: Voice on the table
In a maximum of 30 seconds, share your thoughts on the image below.
To start the session choose an activity which is non-judgemental and everyone can contribute.
“Think of something that happened in a lesson that made you smile. You have 30 seconds per participant to tell the group what it is. No participant can ‘pass”
The role of participants when it is not their turn is active listening
You may use a stopwatch
Guided questions may be required to facilitate discussion and sharing, e.g. What is happening in the picture?
Where is this taking place?
Choose respondents to share their opinion -everyone must be involved in this activity
Max 5 Minutes for this activity

4. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 1: Higher Order Skills – Developing Thinking
This video introduces the work of the Curriculum for Excellence - Higher Order Skills group in developing the use of taxonomies to develop Thinking Skills.
Higher Order Skills: Developing Thinking
The following video is from the Education Scotland website and can be accessed on:
– Video 1
The video details how the Curriculum for Excellence - Higher Order Skills group have used taxonomies to develop Thinking Skills.
The question ‘How do you currently promote Thinking Skills within the curriculum?’ can then be posed by the facilitator, and discussed as a group.
5 minutes

5. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners
Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 2: How’s it going?
Reflecting on your answer to the last question, independently complete the ‘Thinking Skills Across Learning’ audit.
Where are we?
What evidence do we have?
The facilitator should have one copy per person of the Thinking Skills Across Learning audit which can be accessed on:
This is a double-sided document. Staff, during this slide, should only concentrate on the side which houses the audit i.e. side with the audit table.
Staff may work individually or with a partner, before sharing their responses to the activity – what can they see from the exercise?
Where are we?
What evidence do we have?
For School Improvement through Self Evaluation (SISE), collating the information for the group would be deemed good practice.
If this is the first time you meet, the purpose of this activity is for
staff to share experiences in relation to the issue.
If staff have met before and completed Personal Action Plans –
this should be referred to now.
15 minutes

6. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 3: New Learning
It is important that all learners are given appropriate opportunities to develop their thinking skills. These skills can be developed across a range of contexts including through more practical or applied learning opportunities:
Remembering  
Understanding  
Applying  
Analysing  
Evaluating  
Creating
CfE: Building the Curriculum 4
Following the Thinking Skills Across Learning audit, allow staff to read the flipside of the document which contains the information from the above slide, [originally from Building the Curriculum 4] and includes an overview of each skill.
Ask practitioners to highlight the actions (or verbs) from the definitions which suggests what learners will do or demonstrate when developing the given skill.
Remembering involves such activities as recall, recognition or locating information
Understanding might involve activities such as describing, explaining, summarising and translating
Applying requires the learner to use or apply their knowledge and understanding in different contexts
Analysing requires learners to break down information into component parts and search for relationships
Evaluating involves making an informed judgement about something, for example an issue or method. Activities such as comparing, appraising, prioritising, rating or selecting, could involve learners in evaluating
Creating happens when learners are required to generate new ideas and products through activities such as designing, creative writing, planning, reconstructing, inventing, formulating, producing and composing
minutes

7. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners
Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 3: New Learning
CfE: Building the Curriculum 4
Where do the skills in the previous slide feature within the above CfE Experiences and Outcomes?
In pairs/ as a group, highlight:
Where do the skills in the previous slide feature within the above CfE Experiences and Outcomes?
Participants will require a printed version of the outcomes. You may wish to print copies of this slide.
Facilitator to collect responses from each pair/group.
10 – 15 minutes

8. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners
Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 3: New Learning
Using the template titled Thinking Skills Across the Curriculum, begin to plan where each of the 6 Thinking Skills detailed within Building the Curriculum 4 could take place in your programmes of work.
Primary: Literacy programmes and literacy across learning Secondary: Subject-specific learning and literacy across learning
Each participant to be given a copy of Thinking Skills Across the Curriculum. You may only want to provide them with a copy of the table only, omitting the overview page for your own notes.
Guide practitioners to work with colleagues (across their stage or CfE Level) to begin to plan where each of the 6 Thinking Skills detailed within Building the Curriculum 4 could take place in your programmes of work.
Primary: Literacy programmes and literacy across learning Secondary: Subject-specific learning and literacy across learning
This could be the beginning of developing a progression for Thinking Skills. Further details can be found:
At this point, you may also feel it appropriate to direct practitioners to the Bloom’s Taxonomy Question Fans available on:
10 – 15 minutes

9. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 4: Personal Action Planning
Over the coming weeks, look for opportunities to prioritise Thinking Skills in your teaching.
Choose one or two elements that you are going to explore and evaluate.
Bring back your findings to the next session
Using the Personal Action plan sheet each teacher chooses one or two elements s/he is going to explore and use during the next month. This may involve doing more of some things and less of others and teachers may need pushing on this.
Activity 4: Personal Action Planning
Have copies of My Personal Action Plan ready to distribute
Pair-share: two minutes sharing your
plan with your partner then swap.
Randomly choose two or three
teachers to share with the group
what their partner is planning
5 – 10 minutes

10. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
Activity 5: Summary of Learning
Write your name on the card or post-it and one example of where you will develop Thinking Skills with learners.
Leave your card or post-it on your way out.
EXIT CARDS
Distribute exit cards( pieces of card or post its) and ask each member to write their name on the card and one thing that they learned in the workshop on the card.
Collect in the exit cards.
Read through the cards so that you can feedback to the group at the start of the next workshop.

11. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
FOLLOW UP LINKS:
Education Scotland - Thinking Skills
FOLLOW UP LINKS
The facilitator should refer participants to the follow up links which can be accessed independently for further information.
Scottish Government - BTC4

12. Developing Thinking Thinking Skills for 21st century learners Literacy
Toolkit
FOLLOW UP LINKS:
CfE - Developing Skills
FOLLOW UP LINKS
The facilitator should refer participants to the follow up links which can be accessed independently for further information.
Bloom's Question Fans