International Journal of Technology and Design Education 7: 161-180, 1997. 1997

International Journal of Technology and Design Education 7: 161-180, 1997. © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.


Learning Technological Concepts and Developing Intellectual Skills
SCOTT D. JOHNSON
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA


ABSTRACT: The increasing complexity of work and social life demands that people possess conceptual understanding and intellectual skills in order to gain the desired level of compe­tence. Unfortunately, the development of high level cognitive skills is a complex task that has not been sufficiently addressed in education. This chapter discusses the nature of intel­lectual skills and identifies numerous problems that educators face when they attempt to emphasize these skills in their curriculum. Through a comparison of the characteristics of formal and informal learning environments, the author identifies four elements of informal learning that guide the creation of high level intellectual skills. Incorporating the four elements of informal learning in formal instruction can lead to robust opportunities for students to gain conceptual understanding and develop their intellectual skills.
Keywords: intellectual skills, technology education, technological concepts, informal learning.


INTRODUCTION
There is little doubt that possessing conceptual understanding and intel­lectual skills are important aspects of our daily lives. The ability to learn by thinking conceptually, critically, and creatively is a fundamental com­petency for the workplace (Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, 1991). The importance of learning in the workplace is due partly to the increasing complexity of work and social life. To deal with the com­plexity, many people have become specialists in a particular technology or process. Along with the need for specialized knowledge and skills, spe­cialists need to interact in teams to solve problems that extend beyond the boundaries of their area of specialization. This type of interactive problem solving demands effective social and communication skills along with critical and creative problem solving abilities. The speed at which tech­nology changes also influences the importance of learning. As technologies are developed and diffused into the workplace, new knowledge and skills are needed to install, operate, and maintain equipment and to manage the processes used to control the technologies. These changes demand that we have the ability to learn in order to gain the understanding and skill needed to adapt to the workplace changes.
Although the need for intellectual skills is of major importance, educa­tors have had difficulty developing them. As discussed by both McCormick and Jones in their chapters in this book, there has been limited empirical study of curricular and instructional issues surrounding the development of intellectual skills. McCormick and Jones both agree that this problem

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is a major dilemma facing all educators, especially in the technical fields that provide workplace education and training. Besides the lack of research in this area, educators are beginning to question the very nature of practice in schools. For example, the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress study “suggest that current forms of schooling are doing a poor job of preparing individuals for even the basics of adult life, let alone the increasingly complex demands of the workplace” (Balfanz, 1991, p. 357). We cannot continue to design instruction only around learning theories that result in telling students what to remember and what to do and then punishing or rewarding them for their performance. This common approach to instruction will get students to memorize things and perform certain tasks but it will not lead to conceptual understanding, will not help them think, nor enhance their ability to learn on their own. Part of the problem is that education has been driven by assessment practices and philosophies that emphasize the importance of knowledge gain rather than knowledge application. Efforts to increase students’ factual knowledge seems to impede the development of intellectual skills (Balfanz, 1991).
We need to design instruction using learning theories that explain how intellectual skills are developed. Through these appropriate learning theories, our students will learn to think conceptually, critically, and creatively when analysing situations, developing solutions to problems, and learning from their experiences. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss formal educa­tion’s difficulty in developing intellectual skills and to present recom­mendations that will enhance instruction and lead to educational changes in this area. The recommendations for change will be derived from thoughts about how we learn informally and from the numerous instructional inno­vations that have been developed recently.


KEY ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL SKILL
Conceptual and operational definitions are needed before addressing the dif­ficulty of developing intellectual skills. At the most basic level, intellectual skills are those mental operations that enable us to acquire new knowl­edge, apply that knowledge in both familiar and unique situations, and control the mental processing that is used to acquire and use knowledge. While there are many taxonomies that describe intellectual skills, Marzano et al. (1988) provide a comprehensive framework. Through a synthesis of recent research, Marzano and colleagues identified the primary dimen­sions of thinking; thinking skills, thinking processes, critical and creative thinking, and metacognition. It is important to note that this taxonomy of thinking skills is not based on empirical evidence. Rather, the dimensions of thinking were developed, as are most taxonomies of intellectual skills, by relying on common sense and expert opinion (Balfanz, 1991). More study is needed to provide empirical evidence of the intellectual skills needed to satisfy the demands of work and daily life.

Focusing Skills	Analyzing Skills
1. Defining problems	11. Identifying attributes and components
2. Setting goals	Identifying relationships and patterns Identifying main ideas
Information Gathering Skills	14. Identifying errors
3. Observing
4. Formulating questions	Generating Skills 15. Inferring
Remembering Skills	16. Predicting
5. Encoding	17. Elaborating
6. Recalling
	Integrating Skills
Organizing Skills	18. Summarizing
7. Comparing	19. Restructuring
8. Classifying
9. Ordering	Evaluating Skills
10. Representing	Establishing criteria Verifying

Fig. 1. Core thinking skills (Marzano et al., 1988, p. 69).

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