Cognitive Acceleration

Cognitive acceleration (CA) is based on two premises: (1) that children develop mentally as well as physically as they grow older; (2) that their rate of development with some mental processes, such as cognitive skills, can be accelerated. CA draws on the theories of learning of both Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget suggested that there are three main stages of development: from ‘pre-operational’ to ‘concrete operational’ to ‘formal operational’.

Each stage has certain cognitive skills and abilities associated with it. Advocates of CA argue that learners’ progression through these stages can be ‘accelerated’ by certain means. The goal is usually seen as the learner reaching the ‘formal operational level’ of thinking. At this stage, they can cope with problems involving many variables, as opposed to ‘concrete operational’ when only a limited number of variables can be dealt with.

The underlying drive from CA advocates is that all children should reach their true mental potential—at present, given the existing curriculum and current styles of teaching and learning, many children are not fulfilling the potential that they have for reaching higher levels of development and using ‘higherorder thinking skills’. The theory underlying CA is that everyone can develop a general way of thinking that is applicable in many different contexts. This has been called a ‘general cognitive processing capacity’ (Shayer and Adey, 2002) that is not context-dependent (in contrast, see situated cognition and situated learning).

This general ability or ‘general intellectual function’ develops with age and maturity, but it can also be enhanced and accelerated by the right learning/teaching environment and intervention. Various models of teaching and learning (pedagogy) have been put forward to bring about cognitive acceleration, e.g. observing a peers successful performance; ‘scaffolding’ learning; working in the learner’s zone of proximal development or ZPD. One strategy which uses these and other tactics is the model of pedagogy put forward by the CASE
project (Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education), based on five pillars or stages:

• Concrete preparation: a task is introduced, the context is set, it is related to previous experiences and the language involved is explained.
• Cognitive conflict new information or a new event is presented that does not fit the learner’s existing conception—it poses an element of surprise, a ‘mental hurdle’. The learner’s existing mental structures (their schemata or the schema in the singular) are challenged. Equilibrium is upset—their schemata need to accommodate (adapt, adjust) as a result of these new events or observations, in order to assimilate or make sense of them (Piaget’s terms). This is rather like human vision: our eyes ‘accommodate’, as the muscles adjust the lens, so that we can see or ‘make out’ things nearby or at a distance. For cognitive conflict to be valuable, it must be within the ZPD (Vygotsky’s term)—this is the region between what a learner can achieve or understand unaided and what they can achieve with help from their peers or the teacher (a mediator).
• Construction: pupils develop the ability to make sense of what is going on—this is the difficult step (from conflict to construction). Careful input from the teacher, within the ZPD, is needed in this stage. New concepts and strategies are developed. Small-group discussion can help this process, the ‘social construction of meaning’, provided that it is guided and supported by the teacher (as a golfer once said, it is no good practising your faults). In short, construction requires both support and scaffolding.
• Metacognition: learners think about their own thinking and reflect on the strategies and actions they have used, e.g. how they solved a problem. After doing a task or solving a problem, they should become conscious of their own thought processes—they should make them explicit and bring them out into the open in some way.
• Bridging: this is the final pillar. The way of thinking developed in the lesson is linked to other contexts and situations in the curriculum and to real-life contexts. This should enhance transfer of learning. The teacher’s role is to challenge pupils to suggest links and to make them clear and explicit. For example, after a lesson involving, say, classification of animals, the same skill could be applied to classifying plants or better still the learner’s CD collection, hard disk files, stamp collection or personal documents.

Several large-scale programmes have been active in schools in the past few decades: for example, CASE, GATE and CAME (Cognitive Acceleration in Science/Technology/Mathematics respectively). Programmes for CA in the Arts area have also been developed. Programmes have been applied with a range of ages, at primary and secondary level. Advocates of CA put it forward as a new pedagogic model, i.e. a teaching and learning strategy, with far-reaching positive effects. It requires a shift in teaching and curriculum time away from content and towards general intellectual development. This is sometimes said to be a better preparation for a knowledge, ICTbased society than the traditional curriculum emphasis on content. Another suggestion is that motivation is improved. Evidence has also been collected suggesting that cognitive acceleration of this kind can accelerate pupils’ development and even produce better results in national tests and examinations (Adey and Shayer, 1994; Shayer and Adey, 2002).

An idea related to cognitive acceleration is that of Instrumental Enrichment (IE), based on the work of Israeli psychologist Reuven Feuerstein, whose programme of intervention is based on the views that: (1) thinking skills can be taught and learned and that these skills are transferable and usable in all areas of life; and (2) intelligence is modifiable and not fixed. The aims of the IE programmes are to sharpen critical thinking, to develop independent learning, and to help students to ‘learn how to learn’.
Read More : Secondary Education: The Key Concepts (Routledge Key Guides)