The intention of these case studies is to provide some illustrations of the way that thinking skills programmes and approaches are used in schools to develop teaching and learning. The case studies provide some concrete examples of how teachers have applied teaching thinking or teaching thinking skills approaches and techniques in their classrooms.

In some examples the teacher adopted an approach which can be used with a wide variety of learners. One example of this is the use of stories to promote thinking. The key features are a whole class setting where a stimulus is used (a children's story) to generate questions from the learners which they can discuss and reason about together. In the another example the teacher used a particular technique or teaching strategy, Odd One Out, as part of a mathematics lesson. The aim was to probe and reveal children's thinking about key concepts or ideas in a particular area of the curriculum. In thinking together, the children learn to collaborate more effectively and this enables the to work together to undertake curriculum tasks. As they work together they support and correct each other and learn to internalise their group's thinking which improves their own. In another example the teacher used accelerated learning techniques to target particular aspects of learning which the children were finding difficult and used the VAK strategy to help her plan a range of activities to focus on her learning objectives. In each of the examples the teacher had a particular goal in using a thinking skills approach to develop aspects of teaching and learning in their classrooms. Other examples of the ways that teachers have used thinking skills approaches to develop teaching and learning in their classrooms can be found on the Best Practice Research Scholarships site in the summaries submitted by teachers.