256 Frameworks for Thinking

Evaluation

Although Romiszowski provides clear definitions for most of the key concepts, he does not try to pretend that real-life learning is easy to analyse. He recognises that a lot of mental activity is subconscious or unconscious and that teachers have little influence on many aspects of learning (especially abilities and attitudes).

Romiszowski uses four knowledge categories where Bloom used three, since he identifies conceptual knowledge as a separate category, distinct from knowledge of principles. Apart from this and his treatment of metacognition as a process rather than a distinct type of knowledge, Romiszowski’s categories closely resemble those used twenty years later by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) in their revision of Bloom’s taxonomy.

The expanded skill cycle provides a coherent conceptual framework for understanding thinking and learning. It is comprehensive in scope since it deals with knowledge content (under recall), with experiential learning processes, and with mental and physical activity in all skill domains. Cognitive, affective and conative aspects of thinking and learning are covered, and the emphasis on a cycle of planning, acting, monitoring and evaluating shows that metacognitive processes are seen as very important (although Romiszowski uses different terminology). It is worth noting that what Romiszowski terms reactive and interactive skills correspond closely to what Gardner (1983; 1993) called ‘intrapersonal’ and ‘interpersonal’ intelligence; and to what Marzano calls the ‘self system’.

The skill cycle perceive, recall, plan, perform is not unlike Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, active experimentation. It has the advantage of using simpler terms and expanding each category into three subcategories. However the distinction between perceive and recall is one that is often not easy to make, since the terms have overlapping meanings and individual differences and learning histories come into play.

It is interesting that Romiszowski places Bloom’s analyse, synthesise, evaluate under the single heading of planning skills and in fact subsumes the whole of Bloom’s taxonomy under only half of the skill cycle: recall and plan. This makes good sense in that planning is

for a purpose and results in action (mental or physical performance), while the inclusion of a perceive quadrant usefully allows for instructional objectives which depend on learning to see, hear or feel things differently, in academic as well as in practical and social activities.

While there is no unifying principle underlying Romiszowski’s categorisation of knowledge, he does see skilled performance as depending on the availability of prerequisite knowledge. His skill cycle schema is consistent with conceptions of problem-solving, learning and instruction as goal-directed exploratory processes which arrive at solutions through successive approximations as well as by using linear algorithmic procedures.

So far as values are concerned, no list of appropriate or desirable competencies, attitudes or dispositions is provided. However Romiszowski makes it clear that he believes that instructional technology can help more people reach high levels of skilled performance, although this is limited by whatever constraints are imposed by time and money.

Like many other instructional designers, Romiszowski adopts a rationalist technological approach derived from systems engineering. However he is eclectic in seeing value in psychological and pedagogical theories from behaviourist, humanistic and cognitive traditions. He settles for a mix of algorithmic and heuristic approaches and for ‘guided discovery’ in preference to solely expository or discovery pedagogical approaches. The mix and balance will depend on the type of task, on situational factors and on learner characteristics. When he applies his conceptual framework in the design of group as well as individualised learning experiences, Romiszowski (1984) takes a learner-centred stance.

By linking planning with the productive quality of a skill, Romiszowski is giving pride of place to constructive and creative mental processes inside the ‘black box’. He thereby acknowledges the limitations of the behavioural ‘performance type’ approach of Mager and Beach (1967).

The great strength of Romiszowski’s analysis is its simplicity and avoidance of idiosyncratic terminology. It should certainly be meaningful and useful to teachers and other educational professionals and it is also readily accessible to learners. Of all the classification systems we have examined, this one ranks highly in its potential relevance for

258 Frameworks for Thinking

lifelong learning, since Romiszowski draws on literature and extensive consultancy experience in post-compulsory contexts. There are many examples provided in the 1981 book to show how the analysis can be applied to ‘diagnose’ inadequate performance in real-life situations, in the workplace and in educational and training settings.

The concept of a skill cycle is an attractive one, as it sustains the idea of meaningful goal-directed activities rather than of isolated components, even though in practice thinking and learning may consist of a large number of cycles (some of them incomplete) arranged in many different ways.

One possible weakness of an all-embracing analysis is that it may not be sufficiently detailed for specific areas of application, but Romiszowski readily acknowledges this. He does, however give considerable importance to knowledge and skills in the psychomotor and affective domains.

Romiszowski has provided a flexible classificatory framework which is highly compatible with variations on a ‘plan-do-review’ instructional model. It would be a fruitful exercise to examine its goodness of fit with key skills as identified in the UK and many other countries.

Summary: Romiszowski

•building understanding

•information-gathering

Wallace and Adams’‘ Thinking Actively in a Social

Context’ (TASC)

Description and intended use

This framework was developed by Adams and Wallace (1990) to support curriculum developers, teachers and parents in enhancing the ‘thinking capacity’ of pupils in primary and secondary schools. It is described as a problem-solving framework and was first used in the context of disadvantaged communities in South Africa. It was intended to have wide applicability, irrespective of age and culture.

By identifying and formulating problems which are relevant to themselves, children should be explicitly taught that problems occur when there are obstacles to achieving goals. They should then be introduced to the TASC problem-solving model, but not to the exclusion of all others.

The TASC model is presented as a cyclical process, represented by a wheel with eight sectors (figure 6.2).

Each of these eight areas of thinking is then broken down into 5–10 subskills or ‘tools’, which are supported with a rationale and examples of questions for parents or teachers to ask to support that kind of thinking. An abbreviated version is given in table 6.3.

TASC is supported by a thoroughly worked out set of pedagogical principles, extensive K–12 resource materials (Wallace et al., 1993) and

260 Frameworks for Thinking

Fig. 6.2. The TASC problem-solving model.

suggestions for teacher development. It also incorporates an extended analysis of ‘basic thinking skill categories’ which are said to be especially relevant for work with less successful learners in all areas of the curriculum. These are grouped under the broad headings:

•knowledge

•attitudes and motivation

•metacognition

•skills and processes.

As there is a considerable amount of overlap between the extended analysis and the original, we present here only the more elaborated components. The elements included in table 6.4 are not intended to provide a comprehensive coverage, nor to be entirely original.