The Dilemma of Implementing Thinking Skills Programs: A tingle factor or strategic learning?

It is widely argued that there is an increasing community concern about the content and effectiveness of learning programs, resulting in calls for greater transparency and tacit understandings of learning to be made more readily available so that they are more accessible to public scrutiny.

This paper examines aspects of the teaching and testing of thinking skills. It highlights the dilemma for teachers in having to choose between those who posit the view that such skills are an essential and universal facet of learning and those who prefer thinking skills to be available to a small number of academically talented students.  

It is suggested that the successful implementation of, and community support for, thinking skills programs relies on the provision to teachers of a more coherent, developmental and strategic model of teaching and testing the desired skills.