Saturday, April 16, 2011

GOD IS A REAL GOOD GOD

HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS
By Dr. Leonardo Delizo, PhD., MSBA, SLH – JHS


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The concept of higher order thinking skills became a major educational agenda item with the 1956 publication of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives.

The simplest thinking skills are learning facts and recall, while higher order skills include critical thinking, analysis and problem solving.

Including higher order thinking skills (HOTS) in learning outcomes is a very common feature of standards based education reform Advocates of traditional education object to elevating HOTS above direct instruction of basic skills. Many forms of education reform, such as inquiry-based science, reform mathematics and whole language emphasize HOTS to solve problems and learn, sometimes deliberately omitting direct instruction of traditional methods, facts or knowledge. Critics of standards based assessments which use open-response items which require higher order analysis and writing instead of multiple choice questions point out that this style of testing is even more difficult for students who are behind academically. Indeed, while minorities may lag by 10 to 25 points on standardized percentile rankings, the failure rates of minorites are two to four times the best scoring groups on tests like the WASL. It is debated whether it is correct to raise the importance of teaching process over content.


THINKING OUT LOUD


Most of us don't think about thinking - we just do it. But with all the new emphasis on accountability and increased student achievement, educators, parents, and legislators have been thinking more about thinking, and thinking about how we want our teachers to teach our students to think. 

As children move from elementary to middle to high school, the ability to think in more than one way becomes more and more important. As children move up in grade level, teachers ask them to do more and more things with the information that is stored in their brains. They may ask students to write a new ending for a book they've been reading, or they may ask why a certain character in the story behaved in a particular way. If they're studying sound in science, students might be asked to design and construct a new kind of musical instrument. They may be asked to think of some ways to keep whales from coming extinct. Perhaps they will be asked to compare and contrast Julius Caesar and Adolph Hitler, or to talk about the lessons Nazism holds for events in Bosnia today. 

These kinds of thinking require what is called "Higher Order Thinking" or "HOT" for short. Some or all of these kinds of Higher Order Thinking may be easy for some students, but difficult for others. But here's the good news: 1.) Higher Order Thinking, like most skills, can be learned; and 2.) with practice, a student's - and an adult's - Higher Order Thinking skill level can increase. 

What can parents and teachers do to help children increase their HOT skills? The first step to increasing one's skill level is to know what Higher Order Thinking is, so we recommend that teachers and parents talk frequently with children about HOT. It is also important for adults to model for children what HOT looks like by "thinking out loud" - tell your thinking process to children when you are using HOT.

Quick Facts About HOT
  • No one thinks perfectly or poorly all the time.
  • Memorizing something is not the same as thinking about it.
  • You can memorize something without understanding it.
  • Thinking is done in both words and pictures.
  • There are three main types of intelligence and thinking: analytical, creative and practical.
  • All three intelligences and ways of thinking are useful in our everyday lives.
  • You can improve your thinking skills by understanding the processes involved in thinking.
  • Metacognition-thinking about thinking-is part of higher order thinking.
What's HOT?

In a nutshell, Higher Order Thinking is thinking on a higher level than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way the it was told to you. When a person memorizes and gives back the information without having to think about it, we call it rote memory. That's because it's much like a robot; it does what it's programmed to do, but it doesn't think for itself. Higher Order Thinking, or HOT for short, takes thinking to higher levels than just restating the facts. HOT requires that we do something with the facts. We must understand them, connect them to each other, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.

To understand a group of facts, we must understand the conceptual "family" to which this group of facts belongs. A concept is an idea around which a group of ideas may revolve. A concept is something that helps us organize our thinking. It's a mental representation of a group of facts or ideas that somehow belong together. For example, football, basketball, tennis, swimming, boxing, soccer, or archery all fit our concept of sports. In addition, we might also group these sports to create two other concepts: team sports, such as football, basketball, and soccer; and individual sports, such as tennis, swimming, boxing, and archery.

Concepts can represent objects, activities, or living things. They may also represent properties such as color, texture, and size (for example, blue, smooth, and tiny), things that are abstract (for example, faith, hope, and charity), and relations (for example, brighter than and faster than). Concepts come in a variety of forms, including concrete, abstract, verbal, nonverbal, and process.

A. Concrete or abstract. Concrete concepts are those that we can see, touch, hear, taste, or smell. Dogs, chairs, telephones and hamburgers are examples of concrete concepts. Abstract concepts can be used and thought about, but we cannot use our senses to recognize them as we can with concrete concepts. In order to understand abstract concepts, we either have to experience them or compare them to something else we already know. Imagination, friendship, freedom, and jealousy are examples of abstract concepts. As you can imagine, concrete concepts are easier to understand than abstract ones because we can actually see or touch concrete concepts. However, as students move up in school, they need to be able to deal with more and more abstract concepts. Not only are abstract concepts harder for students to learn, but they are also harder for teachers to teach!

B. Verbal or Non-verbal. Verbal concepts are those that use language to explain them. Verbal concepts are described by using words. Examples are concepts of love, democracy, or politeness. A concept may be both abstract and verbal (for example, democracy). Non-verbal concepts are those that lend themselves to be best understood by being pictured or visualized. Examples are concepts of a circle, proportions, or evaporation.
Many times both verbal and non-verbal concepts can be used to explain something. Sometimes a person may prefer one over the other. It is a good idea to try to think about a concept both by picturing it and by putting it into words. This will give you a more thorough understanding of the concept.

C. Process. Process concepts are those that explain how things happen or work. They often include a number of steps that a person must understand in order to master the concept as a whole. Photosynthesis is an example of a process concept in science. The photosynthesis process has certain steps that must take place in a certain order. Math and science courses use process concepts a lot.

Schemas

When a student is exposed to a new concept, it is important to connect the new concept to concepts he already knows. He can do this by classifying, categorizing, recognizing patterns, and chaining. It's like finding all the "relatives" of that concept and making a family tree for the concept. For example, if a second grader is studying Thanksgiving, a larger concept Thanksgiving belongs to could be Holidays, and a larger concept Holidays could belong to is Celebrations. Other Holidays include Christmas, Hanukkah, and the Fourth of July. These are all celebrations of some kind. It is good to also think about what is not a Holiday, so students will know where to "draw the line" in the larger concept of Celebrations. For example, weddings and birthdays are generally considered celebrations, but for most of us, they do not become national holidays!

Chaining is connecting concepts together that have some common thread. Dr. Mel Levine calls this horizontal threading. A student needs to do a lot of horizontal threading so his concepts will be connected to similar concepts. In order to do this, he needs to look through his memory for things that seem related to the new information. An example of chaining or threading is finding common concepts or themes in history. If a student is discussing what is going on in Kosovo, for example, he might ask himself what the Civil War, the Holocaust, and Bosnia have in common with the current events in Kosovo.

Schema is a pattern or arrangement of knowledge that a person already has stored in his brain that helps him understand new information. For example, a student may have a definite image in his mind of what a reptile looks like by the information that he has been told about reptiles, by pictures that he has been shown, and by what he has read. When he encounters a new creature that he has never seen before, but it has all of the qualities that he has stored in his brain about reptiles, then he can infer or draw the conclusion that it probably is a reptile.

Some schema is also linked to rules and predictable patterns that we have learned. For example, students can develop schemata for the tests a certain teacher gives, because she always gives the same type of test. This helps a student to know how to study for the test because he knows the kinds of questions the teacher is going to ask. Schema does not always follow a pattern or a rule, however, due to exceptions or irregularities. For example, sometimes students have just mastered a spelling rule or a rule in grammar when the teacher throws an exception at them! In any case, using schema or patterns is a good way to make helpful predictions.

Visualizing

Not all of the thinking that goes on in our brains is done in words. Sometimes we can form visual images or pictures in our minds that are just as meaningful to us as words. Have you ever tried to give directions to someone about how to get from one place to another? When many of us do this, we are able to see a map or visual in our minds that helps us give these directions. When you are reading a really good book, are you visualizing in your mind what the setting and the characters look like? Are you running your own movie camera? When you are asked the difference between a square and a trapezoid, do you see in your mind what each one looks like? If you can do these things, then you have the ability to use good visual imagery or cognitive maps. Both are useful in higher order thinking and are especially helpful to students in subjects like literature, geography, biology, and math.

Solving Problems

Not a day goes by that we don't have to solve problems. From the moment a person gets up in the morning and decides what to eat for breakfast, what to wear to work or to school, or how to explain to the teacher why he didn't get his homework done or to his boss why his monthly report isn't finished, he is solving problems. Problems can affect many aspects of our life, including social, personal, health, and, of course, school.

Being able to problem solve in school is extremely important. What to write for an essay, how to solve a problem in math, choosing the correct materials for a science experiment, or even deciding who to sit next to at lunch can all be significant problems that a student must solve.

How a student goes about solving his problems is important in terms of how successful the results will be. Problems need to be worked through systematically and logically in order to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Being the first one to finish is not always the way to win in the game of problem solving.

When problem solving, it is important to remember the steps we need to take. First, define the problem and give it definite edges by drawing a mental box around it. Be creative and think up lots of alternative strategies or solutions. Try out solutions without worrying about making mistakes. Mistakes are learning opportunities - we learn what doesn't work!

Thomas Edison was asked once how he kept from getting discouraged when he had made so many mistakes before he perfected his idea of the light bulb. He had tried over 2,000 ways before one worked. Edison responded that he had not made 2,000 mistakes. He had had over 2,000 learning experiences that moved him closer to the answer!

Vocabulary Terms

Abstract concepts - Concepts whose critical features are intangible - you can't touch them. For example, democracy is abstract (intangible) while chair is concrete (tangible).

Analytical intelligence - Intelligence that involves thinking that evaluates, dissects, critiques and judges. For example, "Compare and contrast Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Critique the accomplishments of each and judge which one was the better leader for our country and why."

Brainstorming - Freely thinking up lots of ideas or solutions to a problem; part of the problem solving process.

Concept - A category of related ideas, facts, steps in a process, or items.

Concrete concepts - Concepts whose critical features are tangible and have sensory identity - we can see, taste, smell and/or touch them. For example, chocolate candy bars, furniture, eggs, cars.

Convergent thinking - Thinking that generates specific facts or ideas in a specific category, such as who the first president of the United States or the product of 7 X 9.

Creative intelligence - The type of intelligence that thinks up new ideas of high quality and value. For example, the light bulb, CDs, and calculators are products of creative thinking.

Critical thinking - Thinking that involves evaluating or judging ideas, concepts, people, etc., and forming your own opinion about them.

Divergent thinking - Thinking that diverges (detours) off of a specific "path" when relating ideas and making connections; thinking that extends in different directions from a common point; sometimes called "free flight of ideas."

Metacognition - Thinking about thinking; knowing how you think; monitoring, reflecting on, and regulating your own thinking.

Nonverbal concepts - Concepts that are better represented visually, such as a hexagon or trapezoid.

Practical intelligence - Intelligence that involves thinking with regard to effective use or application in daily life. For example, what lessons does Nazism hold for Bosnia and Kosovo today?

Process concepts - Concepts that explain how things happen or work, such as evaporation in science or how legislation gets passed in Congress.

Schema - Clusters or "families" of information about specific objects, situations or people.

Successful intelligence - Mental self-management. Using a combination of analytical, practical, and creative thinking on a regular basis.

Verbal concepts - Concepts that are best explained with words, such as love and hate.


How to Develop Learner’s Higher-Order Thinking Skills

A particular higher-order thinking skill does not apply only one science process skill but rather a combination of all of these processes to develop a very unique of learning which may retain on the learner forever. Here are some higher-order thinking skills that every teacher should apply on his teaching.
  1. Interpreting data is a thinking skill wherein learner can be able to interpret the data. Of course, a learner can observe, measure and record his data, but can he able to interpret these obtained data? The learner shall tabulate his data in a table with columns and rows or put it in a graph for easy interpretation. Graph is classified into several types such as line graph, bar graph, and pictograph and pie graph. Most learners prefer to use a table than a graph. However, you can use both of them in presenting your data.
  2. Making hypothesis is a thinking skill wherein learner can be able to formulate his own hypothesis based on what he observed or inferred.  Again, learner observes and infers, but can he hypothesize correctly using all scientific theories learned and based on his previous knowledge or experience? Most learners state their hypothesis in a negative form whether he accepts or rejects it after experimentation.
  3. Investigating is a thinking skill wherein learner has skills and abilities to investigate things. The learner can do an activity or experiment, but can he investigate properly? Any problem that needs a possible solution also needs a thorough investigation. He can make an experimental study to come up with a valid conclusion.
  4. Designing a project or making model is a thinking skill wherein learner can make a project or model based on the theories, principles and laws learned in his entire period of education. Some learners know the concepts but cannot able to make even one project or model due to lack of skills in doing it. He may use low cost or recycled materials such scratch papers, used tin cans and bottles, plastics, plant parts or even waste of animals in order  to produce a valuable project or model.
  5. Defining terms operationally is a thinking skill wherein learner can give the meaning of certain terms in his own words and how he understands it. Learners can read, speak, listen and write well, but can he define familiar and unfamiliar things in his own understanding and words?  Most learners memorize some terms given in the textbooks, magazine articles, web contents and other printed materials. Learners can develop this thinking skill by reading the text first then avoid looking the text for a while instead use you own words to tell something about what you had read.
  6. Making comic strips is a thinking skill which applies to all subject areas wherein learner can draw something using any kind of medium based on what he had learned then color them and finally, put typical conversations over the fictitious characters that you had just created. A clear narration on every chapter of the comics is very important to lead the reader on the real story. Using this technique, most learners can develop their interest to arts and enhance effective writing skills.
  7. Demonstrating or role playing is a thinking skill wherein each learner demonstrates or plays his corresponding role in a particular individual or group activity. This technique utilizes the learner’s understanding on certain concepts based on what he shows in front of the class.
These are some thinking skills which every teacher should take into consideration in their daily teaching and learning situations.  If you want well-presented lessons and can be retained on learner’s mind forever, try to apply these thinking skills in your classroom teaching.

Using Technology to Promote Higher Order Thinking Skills

I. Research
II. Higher Order Thinking Skills

  • Bloom's Taxonomy



III. Asking open-ended questions which promote HOTS
Examples:
IV. Simulations and other computer tools
V. Tools to present, communicate, and share results

VI. General Lesson Plan Collections

APPLYING BLOOM’S TAXONOMY TO TEACHING AND TESTING

Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking Skills

When working with special needs students, it is helpful to recognize certain attributes about the kind of learning tasks we are giving children to do. We typically assign reading, followed by some discussion, and end up with some form of evaluation. Let me suggest a "model" that more closely reflects information about how we all organize information and ideas. 

Many years ago, Dr. Benjamin Bloom proposed a theoretical ranking of the levels of thinking that people use. At the simple and basic level, Bloom suggested, people operate at a very "concrete" level of knowledge. Moving beyond that, people are able to "comprehend" what the facts are about and to some extent, they are able to manipulate those ideas by comparing or contrasting or even retelling events in their own words.

At the next level of complexity of thought, individuals are able to "apply" what they have learned from facts and comprehension. This level of thinking permits them to demonstrate knowledge, solve or apply what they know to new and related situations. Moving beyond "application," the next level of thinking allows people to "analyze" what they know. At this level, typically they can classify, categorize, discriminate or detect information. 

The two highest levels of cognitive thought, according to Bloom, are synthesis and evaluation. In "synthesis," the individual is able to put ideas together, propose plans, form solutions, and create new information. In the "evaluation" stage, the thinker is able to make choices, select, evaluate and make judgments about information and situations.


How To Apply Bloom’s Taxonomy To Improve Teaching and Testing

We typically start very young children out with simple tasks of "naming" or telling. We ask them to tell us how old they are. They are taught to count and sing simple rhymes. These are very concrete forms of knowledge. We are not particularly interested in whether they truly "comprehend" the concept of counting up, as getting more, or counting down, as getting less. Many special needs students have considerable difficulty moving very far beyond this concrete level of processing information, and they typically run into great frustration when asked to carry out higher levels of thinking on academic tasks, such as "compare and contrast," or when they are asked to "classify" animals into the correct phylum or species. Their information base can be very concrete, and they are most successful in doing tasks that accommodate their way of handling information. For them, the true-false test, the matching tests, and the "fill-in-the-blank" tests are likely to be more "user friendly." 

Generalizing is frequently a noticeable deficit in learning disabled students, as well of in several other areas of special needs. While the average child without handicapping neurobehavioral difficulties is usually able to learn facts and generalize them to new situations, the special needs students must be taught explicitly how the "known" is related to the "new" situation. Thus, we are confronted squarely with the consequent failure of the whole language approach to the teaching of reading. Whole language is based on the assumption that children who are exposed frequently to good literature and some elements of phonics can generalize their day to day experiences in learning that is not sequentially organized and explicitly taught. The resulting leaps in numbers of older students entering special education for failure in reading skills is mute testimony to the poor fit between learner and curriculum. 

Learning disabled students, and other students with limitations in their cognitive development or communication skills, need very carefully developed curriculum and appropriate testing. Lessons should be started at a very concrete level, and initial questions should be concrete and based on facts (true-false, yes-no, name this sound, state this number fact). Drill-type teaching is a very essential component that lays solid foundations of information on which future learning can be built. It is important here to urge balance in the use of drill – it should never be the sole basis for any form of learning! It is a tool to help when repetition is essential for reaching mastery.

After reaching a fair level of mastery in a limited set of facts, whether in phonics or beginning math, or any subject, students should be moved "up" the level of difficulty on Bloom’s taxonomy wherever possible. Children should be asked, as often as possible, to retell information in their own words. Allow them to make comparisons on what is similar from one object to another. Help them to notice attributes that are different so they can contrast the differences. Show them how to estimate. Use many concrete examples that reinforce their strength, but always try to help them stretch their boundaries at the same time.

For some students, the skills required of them at the "comprehension" level may be as complex as they are able to master. That does not mean you should ignore opportunities to demonstrate to them other ways that people use and apply information. For some children, you will notice that in academic areas, they are quite limited in moving beyond "comprehension" or "knowledge" kinds of thinking. However, you will be amazed to see how readily they can solve a problem with a toy, in a challenging situation or working with some artistic media. We are certainly fearfully and wonderfully made, and we must never impose our preconceived notions of how much our children can achieve. 

When we test at the "comprehension" level, we should be moving beyond simple "multiple choice" questions and/or true-false information. Such facts can be useful if we are only seeking to create "talking heads" who have all the right words, but who lack understanding. Our responsibility is to teach and train up children in understanding, which God promises to those who ask. Thus, our testing should move the child along toward higher levels of thinking skills, such as asking them to extend what they have learned. Can they illustrate the concepts they have just learned either in art and/or in writing? We can ask them to explain how the lesson in "silent /e/" is different from the "short vowel" rules we have used. Or, we might have them explain how the causes of a particular event in history are different from the causes of an event many years before. This kind of testing will strengthen their thinking, and it will promote longer retention of what they learn.

At the next level, we find that we are reaching the place where activity and application make our use of information "real" to us. Edgar Dale in the 1950’s studied what kinds of information people remember the most and for the longest period of time. He concluded that when students "do the real thing," "simulate" the real thing, or teach others what they have learned, the retention rate is about 90% of what was taught. You can see on Bloom’s taxonomy that "application" is a higher order thinking skill than simple recall or telling. To apply, the student must truly have facts correct and be able to relate them to each other and to what they already know. The complex working of the mind that allows this kind of "integration" to occur permits the learner to reach higher levels of accomplishment. Teaching parents should be asking the student to solve problems by using learned information, constructing projects or posters, writing plays or acting out mini-plays, making original portfolios or building models in order to help them with applying new learning. Testing should be less involved with pencil and paper tests with short answers, and more directed towards essays, hands-on projects or presentations, or having the student writing his or her own test, to see how well they can target key concepts. Outlining helps students with such thinking levels, as well as using graphic organizers, such as "spider webs," to lay out information in a manner that reflects the organization of the material in the mind.

The last three levels of higher level thinking are rather fluid, and there seems less of a simple discernible line among the thinking attributes here. Obviously, higher order thought demands higher difficulty levels of testing. At this point, many special education students with learning disabilities will have great difficulty carrying out assignments or assessments. These students will require more externally supplied supports, or scaffolding. The teacher will need to provide explicit explanations of the organization of the teaching materials or texts. Highlighting by the instructor assists students in paying attention to the appropriate content. 

Students can generate flash cards to drill themselves on the materials. The use of the flash cards should not be limited, however, to simple "word" and "definition" usage. Where possible, the teacher/parent should be requiring students to manipulate the information in several ways that teach higher order thinking. For example, have the students organize the cards into categories of dates, places, important men, important women, and so on. Likewise, have them create a large-scale timeline and place the cards in the correct order. These activities stimulate higher order skills while forcing a review of basic knowledge and learning skills. Flash cards can also be used to help plan a writing activity. Unlike computer-based cut and paste activity, the manual activity increases the use of visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile learning that is so essential for special learners. 

These are just a few of the ideas that can be implemented in working with Bloom’s taxonomy of thinking skills. I hope you have acquired a basic perspective that will assist you in planning future instruction and assessment that more closely meets the individual needs of your special student. These principles work well for ALL students, so I hope you are able to apply them yourself! Happy teaching!

BLOOM’S TAXONOMY
from most concrete to most abstract levels

For details refer to Benjamin S. Bloom, Bertram B. Mesia, and David R. Krathwohl, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (two vols: The Affective Domain & The Cognitive Domain) (New York: David McKay, 1964).

Knowledge
Recall of something encountered before but without having to change it, use it or understand it; facts.

Comprehension
Understanding the knowledge that has been acquired without needing to relate it to other information.

Application
Use of a learned concept to resolve some situation or solve a new problem in an appropriate way.

Analysis
Taking something learned apart into separate components for purposes of thinking about the parts and how they fit together.

Synthesis
Generating or creating something different by assembling or connecting ideas in a way that makes a whole.

Evaluation
Looking at the particular value of materials, information or methods in characterizing the whole.

Sources: Wikepedia, Alice Thomas, M.Ed. and Glenda Thorne, Ph.D.