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ContactSoledad A Ulep, Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development,University of the Philippines, Vidal A. Tan Hall, Quirino Avenue, Diliman,Quezon City, Philippines 1101, Tel: 928-2621, Fax: 928-2625, E-mail:director@ismed.upd.edu.phList of Projects by Country40. Thinking Skills Development for MaximizedCognitive Performance Programme (TSD-MCP)This Philippines project reflects the findings of research studies that haveconsistently demonstrated poor performance by secondary schoolstudents on tests that measure critical thinking skills. Teachers requiresupport through specialized training and resource materials to improvestudent performance on such tests.The 'Thinking Skills Development for Maximised Cognitive PerformanceProgramme' (TSD-MCP) of the Bureau of Secondary Education,Department of Education, Culture and Sports, aimed to train teachers toteach thinking skills and skills transfer, with the objective of improvingboth the cognitive and academic performance of secondary schoolstudents. The project began in 1994 and finished in 1998. It workedwith teachers of first year students in 6 selected public and privatesecondary schools.The programme developed 30 teacher-aided structured lessons for eachof the 17 critical thinking skills to be used in pilot testing with studentsfrom the six schools. Two instructional schemes were evaluated on apre- and post-test design. The first scheme used a direct, separate subjectapproach with the students being taught how to develop their criticalthinking skills through structured lessons using De Bono’s perceptualtools. The second scheme used an integrated approach, with the teacherdeveloping critical thinking skills by using thinking tools in lessons in anunstructured, informal manner.A 10-day training programme was conducted for teachers, principals, andschool administrators. Training focused on the use of the direct andintegrated approaches and on the data-gathering instruments. Resultsdemonstrated that the programme was effective in improving the criticalthinking skills of students, with the direct and deliberate teachingapproach proving to be more effective than the integrated approach.The project concluded that teachers require a significant amount oftraining to prepare them for teaching critical thinking as a specificsubject, and that such a subject would add to an already crowdedcurriculum.64 © Snapshots of Primary and Secondary Education in Asia-Pacific