ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how we can support learners in developing their high-level thinking skills to enable them to become independent, expert learners able to transfer learning to different contexts. The role of the memory in learning and the difference between surface and deep learning is investigated. Before directly examining the ways in which learners can develop their thinking skills the ways in which other factors such as language and social learning can influence learning is acknowledged. An understanding of these factors leads the reader through to the use of different ways of developing learners’ thinking and understanding of subject matter through dialogic teaching and the use of collaborative and co-operative groupwork. In addition to discussing the more traditional forms of groupwork the use of IT as an alternative method of promoting collaborative learning is investigated.
