Teaching Higher Order Thinking Skills

Teaching Higher Order Thinking Skills

The Bloom’s Taxonomy is Ideal to take learning in institutions to the next level. Similarly, the levels of learning in Bloom’s Taxonomy include knowledge, application and problem solving (analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating) (LSUcas, 20012). The first level is knowledge, and it involves students recalling the information they learned in the previous class or discussion groups. As a teacher, I will ask my students to define certain terms, methods, and principles. For example, students should be able to define the term “inflation.” However, I will also ask them to memorize facts or concepts, and this will involve extensive learning activities. For example, at the end of the lesson students should be able to list four causes of inflation.

After recalling, students should be able to comprehend the message. When a student can comprehend a message, then it means that he/she can explain the concept to someone else. Also, to make the students understand, it will be necessary to ask them to restate the information in their own words. In doing so, I will be building the foundation of the knowing process. After the students have understood, it would be easy for them to know how the various concepts thought in class work. For example, at the end of the lesson, students should be able to explain five objectives of monetary policy.

Second, the application involves the ability of the students to use what they had learned to solve a problem. As a teacher, my students should be able to connect and computer problems, and demonstrate procedures. Similarly, students should be in a position to transfer some of the abstract ideas they know into practical situations. For example, students should be able to use Excel to calculate the variance, standard deviation and mean of the population of a country given the values. Third, analyzing involves breaking the knowledge into separate components. The breaking down of information will help a student to know how and why something works. However, it is necessary to illustrate the relationship of one component to another. For example, a student should be able to relate the causes of inflation to the objectives of the monetary policy. Students can also determine the relevance of the information. For example, they should be able to determine how the inflation concept can explain the depreciation of a country’s currency.

Fourth, synthesizing involve students bringing together ideas they gathered to form new solutions.  The extensive activities involve here is for students to organize the idea, plan, construct and also create some of them. The organization of a student’s essay should be outstanding. For example, at the end of the lesson, a student should be able to write a research paper describing her/his project (inflation in developing countries). The student should also be able to construct a flow chart that highlights the various cause of inflation in developing countries.

Lastly, evaluation involves using certain criteria to assess the quality of the ideas developed. The students should be able to recommend a solution to the problem, criticize the proposals given and give judgment to the merits of the ideas. At the end of the lesson, students should be able to select the most appropriate solution to the causes of inflation from the list given. Also, they should be able to write a critique of the research proposal and also provide the relevant suggestions for the future research.

Technologies are relevant to any learning institution. Therefore, for a lesson to involve more cognitive process, it is necessary to use technology. Cognitive techniques are used mainly to enhance or create new products. However, for this case I will use vidra technology. It will enable me to establish a presentation for my students on my iPad. According to LSUcas (2012), vidra is a type of a video editing tool that enables an individual produce a video from some of the slides he/she has created. I will record my voice using the iPad’s microphone, and the application will animate my slides hence I can share it in YouTube (www.teachonline.asu.edu). Therefore, my students will be able to view my videos from YouTube and learn the concept. Similarly, I will create my own contents or stories and share my video with the various social media.

 

 

References

LSUcas. (2012, September 25). Bloom’s Taxonomy  [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qfp3x_qx5IM

Objective Builder. Retrieved from http://www.teachonline.asu.edu/objectives-builder.

 

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