The Essential Processes of Learning

I came across a reference to Stanley Pogrow in the Marshall Memo today. I hadn't heard his name before, but have of course studied Higher-Order-Thinking-Skills and Socratic questioning method of teaching. Pogrow's 1987 article about research into his HOTS approach details four essential thinking skills: metacognition, inference, decontextualization, and synthesis. I hadn't realized there was a technology component embedded into this HOTS approach, but it seems that he advocates using computer simulations to provoke problem-solving thinking around the scenarios which are presented.