Webliography: e-Learning to Build Thinking Skills

The purpose of this blog entry is to discuss some of the key concepts found in chapter 14 of the book, E-learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning, by Clark & Mayer (2008).

Can creativity be trained? This is one of the poignant questions concerning creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Clark & Mayer (2008) believe that success in solving problems relies on both cognitive and metacognitive skills. Most people are familiar with cognitive skills. But what are metacognitive skills? A person who is high in metacognitive ability not only focuses on completing a given task, he or she is consistently analyzing the process and the steps involved in fulfilling that task while also making adjustments along the way. The employee who can take her daily responsibilities and basically streamline herself out of a job is most likely high in metacognition.

Clark & Mayer (2008) outlined three types of thinking skills training programs and discussed which of the three is most effective. The three types include: 1) non-verbal (e.g. puzzle problems, “right-brain” thinking), 2) general cognitive and metacognitive skills (i.e. cognitive conditioning without a specific domain or job), and 3) specific cognitive and metacognitive skills (i.e. job-specific training and specific domain focus). Of the three, thinking skills training programs that focus on specific cognitive and metacognitive skill development achieved the highest return on the investment. Applying cognitive and metacognitive training that is directly related to one’s field of practice or job tasks provides the most benefit to learners. For me personally, and for many others, one of the hardest tasks when learning new material at a conference, for example, is identifying those skills that can be applied to my current job needs and then actually applying that new knowledge in a productive manner. While non-verbal and general cognitive training are certainly beneficial, specific training is most easily applied to real-world job-related tasks.

I believe that creativity and critical thinking skills can be learned. Some people have these skills naturally, and others have to work twice as hard to learn and apply them, but I believe that anyone can benefit. One idea I want to apply in the future from the Clark and Mayer chapter is to define job-specific problem-solving processes by interviewing/analyzing an expert in any given field to develop case-based learning material. For example, perhaps you have an expert that is really great at copywriting for businesses. He may be able to tell you what he is doing when he write copy, but it is much harder to capture what he is thinking during the process. To develop solid training for other copywriters, I can share a case study client with the expert and have him share the actions he would take to research and write great copy for the client. As he explains the actions, I would ask for his reasoning behind each action decision. This gets into the tacit knowledge that is so often missed in learning valuable skills. From this type of interview, start to finish, one can really glean valuable information that can be categorized and developed into solid learning lessons.

What do you think about creativity and critical thinking skills? Do you think they can be trained? Is it possible to learn and do consciously what others can do subconsciously? I welcome your thoughts.

References
Clark, R.C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning (2nd.ed.). San Francisco, CA: Wiley & Sons.