170	Frameworks for Thinking

Classification by:		Values:	Practical illustrations
•	elements of reasoning	• belief in reason	for teachers:
•	standards of critical	and rationality	• some teaching
	thinking		strategies outlined
•	intellectual abilities
	and intellectual traits

Jewell’s reasoning taxonomy for gifted children

Description and intended use

In a web-posted conference paper, Jewell (1996) outlines a reasoning taxonomy for gifted education. This is presented, largely from a philosophical perspective, in response to a perceived need to understand how gifted students think and reason. Jewell sees his taxonomy being applied to text-based and other classroom activities which have been designed to provide a foundation for advanced reasoning (to determine what the activities are trying to achieve and how best to match them to student needs).

Jewell considers the nature v. nurture debate and argues that giftedness manifests as learned behaviour. Following Lipman, he identifies the types of behaviour which may be characteristic of giftedness as:

•creative thinking

•logical / rational / critical thinking

•caring thinking (interpersonal skills and moral behaviour).

The paper focuses on critical thinking, but Jewell argues that creative, critical and caring thinking are not mutually exclusive and should be regarded as complementary aspects of human behaviour. He accepts Ennis’ definition of critical thinking as ‘reasonable and reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do’ (Ennis, 1985, p. 45). It has the characteristics of being purposeful, ordering information in order to produce a result and providing reasons for adopting a belief or course of action.

Jewell’s taxonomy or ‘overview of reasoning objectives, strategies and habits available to the advanced thinker’ (Jewell, 1996) is summarised in table 4.6.

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Table 4.6. Jewell’s reasoning taxonomy for gifted children

Section A - the objectives of reasoning

To discover how things work in order:

1.to plan

2.to problem-solve

3.to decide

4.to recommend

5.to communicate

Section B - reasoning strategies

1.Community of Inquiry (presented by Jewell as a five-point code)

2.Model construction

3.Argument construction

4.Considering the evidence

5.Moral reasoning

Section C - reasoning dispositions/attitudes/habits

Adopting metacognition as a habit, which involves:

1.questioning own position

2.seeking and offering justification for views

3.constructing or adopting alternative models

4.monitoring own assumptions and thinking habits

5.changing one’s mind for good reasons

6.empathising with the beliefs, values and thinking processes of other people

The exceptionally competent reasoner is seen as a self-directed, selfdisciplined, self-monitoring, and self-corrective thinker. Jewell identifies the components of thinking as: reasoning; purposeful thinking; ordering information; producing results; and adopting a belief or course of action. He claims that such a list helps teachers to foster reasoning strategies.

Jewell argues that to enable gifted students to develop a disposition for reasoning and mental self-management, a qualitatively different curriculum is required. A school-wide environment should value open-mindedness, objective thinking, impartiality, intellectual integrity and independent judgment.

172 Frameworks for Thinking

Evaluation

This reasoning taxonomy is also described by Jewell as an overview, and it is not a taxonomy in the strict sense of being organised at each level by a single principle. It is therefore more appropriate to call it an overview, framework or model.

If compared, for example, to Sternberg’s (2001) theory of giftedness as developing expertise, which explores the relationship between abilities and expertise, Jewell’s model is limited in scope. However, he deliberately limits his focus to the reasoning involved in critical thinking, and has succeeded in providing a simple framework in which there are no major omissions. While Jewell does not break down reasoning into detailed categories in terms of logical structure, he does identify the main functions of reasoning. Although he is not fully consistent in his use of terminology within each section of the taxonomy, a comparison of his model with that of Ennis (1987) reveals a concise coverage of the field of critical thinking and the omission of only a few dispositions, such as seeking to be well-informed, precise and relevant.

The structure of the framework is a logical one, in that using strategies to achieve the purposes of reasoning helps students develop the dispositions or habits of mind which in turn facilitate the ongoing process of enquiry. The inclusion of purposes is a useful feature, which is taken for granted in many of the taxonomies we have evaluated.

Although it is presented as a taxonomy for gifted children, there is no reason why its use should be limited to that field. It is essentially an overview of the nature and purposes of reasoning, an activity in which people engage both as individuals and in groups.

Jewell’s view of giftedness accords with the increasing acceptance that talents are not automatically transformed into high performances, but are dependent on specific environmental factors (Howe et al., 1998).

Enquiry and understanding are presented as the superordinate goals of reasoning. Jewell’s phrase ‘to discover how things work’ can be interpreted as covering human behaviour and social interaction, but rather unfortunately suggests a mechanistic model which does not sit well with the view that good reasoning depends on the three Cs of critical, creative and caring thinking. This view is grounded in Lipman’s work (Lipman, 1995) and is consistent with Renzulli’s

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definition of giftedness in terms of high intelligence, creativity and task commitment (Renzulli, 1975; 1986). Jewell’s emphasis on reasoning strategies and reasoning dispositions accords with mainstream theoretical and research orientations in the fields of critical thinking and gifted education. For example, Neber and Schommer-Aikins’ study of self-regulated learning in highly gifted students (2002) indicates the importance of exploration and discovery activities to determine motivational and epistemological prerequisites for self-regulatory strategies.

This taxonomy of reasoning is intended to help teachers understand the claims made for texts and classroom practices intended to advance thinking skills. The first question to be asked is whether the claims relate to reasoning: if not, the framework does not apply. We have no information as to whether educationists have found practical uses for the taxonomy, but its economy and clear descriptions and explanations are commendable.

Summary: Jewell

					Relevance for
Purpose and structure			Some key features		teachers and learning
Main purpose(s):			Terminology:		Intended audience:
•	to help teachers		•	clear	•	teachers
	understand		•	simple	•	designers of
	a	how gifted students	•	not fully		instruction
				consistent
		think and reason
	b	claims made for
		published materials
Domains addressed:			Presentation:		Contexts:
•	cognitive		•	understandable by	•	education
•	affective			teachers and learners	•	citizenship
•	conative		•	economical
Broad categories covered:			Theory base:		Pedagogical stance:
•	self-engagement		•	Ennis	•	Lipman’s
•	reflective thinking		•	Lipman		Community of
•	productive thinking					Enquiry