Cognitive acceleration or the ability to think or higher order thinking skills is a strategy based on the philosophy of Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, whose methods were first adopted in the UK in the 1960’s. Higher-order thinking skills include the ability to analyse and make connections, to reason, solve problems and think creatively. Now, more than any other time it is the combination of these skills which will promote self-determination, self motivation, self advocacy and lead to Enterprise and Innovation in all that the individual wishes for their future life.

In more recent times these theories have not figured in our Teacher Training curriculum or in Further or Higher Education or in our community programmes.
Maybe these will be used and should be used more?

Piaget identified two periods of rapid brain development that need to be utilised if people are to attain higher-order thinking skills.
The first ‘critical window’ occurs when a child is at the age of 5, when children are able to understand such concepts as ratio and time sequence.
The second, commences around the age of 11 years and continues to be perfected until the age of 15, taking children from the concrete to the abstract.

The bad news is that unless you take advantage of Piaget’s critical windows, your ability to engage in higher-order thinking is irretrievably lost.
After the age of 19, the agility of your intellect goes into inexorable decline.

So, the most important thing to do is to train the mind to process information and tackle concepts while it can. You can continue to acquire knowledge, but unless you have developed higher-order thinking skills, it will not be able to apply it as effectively.

What do we do to enhance our clients and students progress in these areas?

There are number of stages which we can address:
- Introduce the higher-order thinking skills as early as possible in our programmes such as those for School Leavers, Modern Apprentices, those with multi-barriers to employability and Job Seekers
- Learning to Learn must feature prominently in all introductory sessions
- Motivational programmes such as the Pacific Institute programmes, PX2 and Steps enforce the concepts of higher-order thinking
- Use of the Bridges to Employability Soft Skills Assessment Framework can facilitate the embedding of higher-order thinking and promote the use with employers, clients and tutors

Once the client has recognised the importance of higher-order thinking skills we witness accelerated progress in all areas of their life, from career progression to personal development.

For more than 20 years I have heard people discuss the enhancement of communications for their contracts by using new technology, multi-media and film - why has this never really been achieved?
• Because of the price of making and distributing film?
• Because of the lack of expertise in these techniques?
• Because it is too difficult?

We have been using film with all our programmes both for clients and for funders in a variety of ways for a number of years now. Film is a major tool for use with clients in Community and Economic Development and what is important here is the ability to secure a production company who can understand the processes, the clients and the range of what we deliver in employability.

We have developed a relationship with Enterprise Screen Productions, a sister company (www.enterprisescreen.co.uk), which is working very well and is giving us considerable options and benefits for our clients and funders .

Examples of this include:
CVs on film – a short 30 second working life stories for people who find it difficult to tell their work history on paper. This is a tool which can be sent to employers as a file attachment or by as a single line link.
Case Studies - we can follow the progress of our clients and actually see the ‘distance travelled’ in their programmes.
Promotional Films – for our company, on-line clips showing a variety of our courses and projects.
Dissemination - of good practice, current progress, shared experiences and role models.
Presentations – to use at presentations with Powerpoint at conferences or seminars.
On Line – we have examples of all our work with clients, staff, partners and funders on short films on our web site.

Visual examples and case studies are the way forward to record, excite and stimulate the wider audiences for our programmes.