Postgraduate Module Descriptor

EFPM315: Teaching Thinking in the Internet Age

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Aims

This module will enable you to develop your own understanding of what teaching thinking is, how best to teach thinking and how teaching thinking relates to communication technologies. It will equip you with knowledge and understanding of a range of different theories and contemporary approaches to teaching thinking. It will also introduce you to research on teaching thinking. It will be an excellent preparation for either developing and applying your own approach to teaching thinking in your own educational context or for continuing to further research.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here - you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. Demonstrate the ability to reflect on and critically evaluate claims that have been made about teaching thinking; 2. Demonstrate the ability to examine and critically evaluate various accounts of the relationship between cognition, communications technology and culture; 3. Demonstrate a systematic conceptual understanding of theories of social and meditational aspects of learning; 4. Demonstrate the ability to relate this knowledge in a critical and self-aware way to the practice of teaching and learning and furthermore of thinking as a subject in its own right; 5. Demonstrate the ability to evaluate and critique the arguments and the ideas around the development of dispositions, habits, skills and strategies in the context of the Internet Age (or 21st Century skills) in order to form their own original synthesis; 6. Demonstrate their originality and self-direction in dealing with complex issues by identifying dispositions, habits, skills and strategies for the knowledge age and applying these to other curriculum areas and to 'real-world' problems 7. Demonstrate the ability to recognise and demonstrate the importance of cultural mediation in teaching children and students to be effective thinkers and problem-solvers;
Discipline-Specific Skills	8. Demonstrate the ability to review and evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship relevant to the module content through close analysis of practice and theory; 9. Demonstrate awareness of ethical issues in relevant areas of the study and be able to discuss these in relation to personal beliefs and values; 10. Demonstrate the ability to critique theory, policy and research orally and in writing, drawing on relevant reading and research; 11. Demonstrate the ability to apply research-informed knowledge to evaluate ongoing school-based programmes.
Personal and Key Skills	12. Demonstrate the ability to make sound judgements in the absence of complete data based upon critical reflection; and 13. Demonstrate the independent learning ability required for continuing professional development.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

The first cluster of sessions will focus on the theoretical background behind the idea of teaching thinking in the context of the Internet Age. You will engage with theories of thinking and teaching thinking including theories linking communications technology and mentality. In particular you will be asked to reflect on ideas from Piaget, Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Dewey as well as more contemporary theorists.

In these sessions, you will begin writing a formative assessment in which you are asked to reflect on the relationship between modes of communication and education, forming part of a literature review. You will also begin work on a collaborative wiki about approaches to teaching thinking which will focus on the role of social media in education.

In the second cluster of sessions, you will be introduced to a range of approaches to teaching thinking and you will be asked to consider the relationship between thinking and the use of cultural artefacts and media of communication. There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss ideas with peers, both through online media and face-to-face (campus students only).

In the final sessions of the module, the teaching for thinking and creativity movement will be explored in its historical context. This will be related to the ideas from the early sessions about the link between technological mediation and cognition and to the theories of thinking taught in the second set of sessions. These final sessions will relate more closely to the practice of teaching and learning Internet Age skills and you will get the opportunity to present practical projects to peers, relating your experience and learning to the identified aspect of professional practice and the literature. The focus will be on critical reflection and evaluation. Each of you will have one peer who will be detailed to give focused feedback, using common prompts, on the work so far and how the critical reflection and associated reading has informed current and future practice. The feedback will form the basis for the redrafting of the written work in the form of an essay.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
30	270	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	20	10 sessions of 2 hours each. Face-to-face seminars (Campus) and online moderated seminars or webinars (Distance)
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	10	Commenting online in response to specific tasks given in sessions.
Guided Independent Study	10	Reading or viewing tasks given as preparation before sessions
Guided Independent Study	100	Supervised research for the essay task
Guided Independent Study	40	Supervised research for the presentation to peers
Guided Independent Study	50	Participation in wiki
Guided Independent Study	70	Guided online research and discussion

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Brown, John Seely and Douglas Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.

Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential. London: Constable & Robinson Limited.

Flynn, J. R. (2009).What Is Intelligence: Beyond the Flynn Effect(expanded paperback ed.). Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Larkin,S. (2010).Metacognitionin Young Children. London: Routledge

Lucas, B. and Claxton, G. (2010) New Kinds of Smart; How the science of learnable intelligence if changing education. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Littleton, K. and Mercer, N. (2013). Interthinking: Putting talk to work. Abingdon: Routledge.

Perkins, D. N. (1995). Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence. New York: Free Press.

Salomon, Gavriel (1997).Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations. Cambridge University Press.

Trilling, B & P. Hood, (2001) “Learning, Technology and Education Reform in the Knowledge Age, or ‘We’re Wired, Webbed and Windowed, Now What?’”, in C. Paechter, R. Edwards, R. Harrison, & P. Twining, (Eds.), Learning, Space and Identity, Paul Chapman Publishing & The Open University, London, UK, 2001. Also at: http://www.wested.org/cs/we/view/rs/654

UNESCO (2005). Towards Knowledge Societies: Unesco World Report. [www.unesco.org/en/worldreport]

Wegerif, R.B. (2011). Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), 179-190.

Wegerif, R. (2013). Dialogic: Education for the Internet Age. London and New York: Routledge.

Wegerif, R, Kaufman, J. C. & Li , L., (2015) Routledge International Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking. Routledge.