Promoting Higher-Order Thinking

1. Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Toward a More Comprehensive Comprehension Curriculum Peter Dewitz; pdewitz@cstone.net

2. Toward a Conceptual Understanding of HOT • What are the characteristics of High Order-Thinking? • Describe some examples of High Order Thinking. • Consider some non examples of Higher Order Thinking. • Apply these ideas to the comprehension of Papa's Parrott

3. Sources of a Higher Order Thinking Curriculum • Education and Learning to Think, L. Resnick, 1987 • Teaching for Thinking, R. Sternberg & L. Spear-Swerling, 1996 • A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing, L. Anderson et al., 2001(B.Bloom the sequel)

4. Characteristics of Higher Order Thinking - Resnick • Involves nuanced judgment and interpretation • Construct new formulation of issues • Imposing meaning, find structure in apparent disorder • Is complex and total path to understanding is not visible

5. Characteristics of Higher Order Thinking - Resnick • It is non-algorithmic - the path or course of thinking can’t be spelled out in advance • It yields multiple solutions and involves multiple criteria • Demands self-regulation and is effortful

6. Social Requirements of High Order Thinking • Higher Order Thinking develops when living in a community that values and practices such thinking • Accepts uncertainty • Accepts and rewards social risks • Questions authority - challenge the authority of the text and the teacher

7. What HOT is not: According to Resnick • Following known paths and routes to understanding • Believing that the meaning in text is apparent or “literal” • Working to replicate the meaning of others - graphic organizer can lead to a conformity of thinking

8. Problems in Resnick’s Formulation • What Resnick means by reading comprehension includes many attributes of Higher Order Thinking • Employing a broad set of knowledge • Building coherence among elements in a text • Making inferences, elaborations • Monitoring the constructive process • Is reading comprehension HOT?

9. A Reading Example of High Order Thinking - Resnick • Reciprocal Teaching • Self-questioning • Generating inferences* • Seeking clarification • Summarizing • Making prediction • Conducted in a safe supportive setting

10. Teaching for Thinking: Sternberg, Spear-Swerling • Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence • Critical-analytic thinking - analyzing, judging, comparing, contrasting, examining • Creative thinking - discovering, producing, imagining, supposing • Practical thinking - practicing, using applying, implementing

11. Characteristics of Thinking: Sternberg, Spear-Swerling • Analytical, creative and practical thinking are all thinking - no hierarchy is implied • Each of the three types of thinking has implications for reading comprehension and instruction

12. Examples of Thinking: Sternberg, Spear-Swerling • Analytic: Comparing and contrasting two character within a piece of literature or comparing and contrasting two pieces of literature • Creative: Constructing an alterative interpretation of a character’s motivation -going beyond the given • Practical: Applying character traits and motives beyond the text to life - elaboration

13. Steps, if there are any, in High Order Thinking • Deciding what is the problem or how to approach the text - allows for and encourages multiple interpretations • Defining the problem [the interpretation] • The issue or theme that seems to be most important to the author may not be to the reader • Realizing that problems [interpretations] are ill-structured - completing a graphic organizer may not lead to new insight

14. Steps, if there are any, in High Order Thinking • Solutions, understandings, arise when problems are considered in light of real life contexts. • Realizing what information [prior knowledge] will be necessary to reach some interpretations • Solutions to problems [interpretations] depend on the context in which the texts are discussed. • Realizing there is no one correct interpretation and the thinking process is complicated and messy.

15. Social Requirements of Triarchic Theory • Acknowledgements that there are no right answers. • Teachers and students are both learners. • The discussion is the end not just the means to the end. • The creation of the solution [interpretation] is a critical part of the process of higher order thinking.

16. A Taxonomy: Learning, Teaching and Assessing • Knowledge Dimension - Factual, conceptual, procedural, metacognitive • Cognitive Process Dimension - Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create • We can bring different kinds of knowledge to bear to create outcomes in the different Cognitive Process Dimensions

17. The Taxonomy

18. The Taxonomy: When does Higher Begin • Remember - not here • Understand - possibly here because it includes inferences and interpretations • Apply - possibly here because students carry out a task and it can be new and creative • Analyze - definitely here because attributing motives or point of view raises the level of an instructional experience

19. The Taxonomy: When does Higher Begin • Evaluate - definitely here because the reader can evaluate the themes and the methods of the writer. • Create - definitely here because we may want the learner to use the same rhetorical devices in his or her own writings.

20. Apply to Papa’s Parrot • Knowledge - • factual and conceptual - narrative structure or genre • conceptual knowledge of parent - child/adolescent relationships • Cognitive Process • Understand - infer and interpret feelings and insights Harry and his father gain about each other • Analysis - attribute the role of the parrot to the process of self-discovery • Evaluate the author’s rhetorical techniques

21. Papa's Parrot: Applying Higher Order Thinking • Strategy instruction develops the “required inferences” • Strategies - self-questioning, clarifying, monitoring, summarizing - promote these inferences. • Higher Order Thinking develops insights or interpretations that go beyond the required inferences • Higher Order Thinking is the disposition to develop these interpretations

22. Required Inferences Harry’s feelings for his father Mr. Tillian’s feelings toward Harry Causes of Harry’s change in behavior Mr. Tillian’s new feelings. What Harry learns about Mr.. Tillian and how HOT Inferences Is Harry’s reaction to the parrot realistic? Why does the author use animals to bring meaning to peoples lives? Is the growing distance between parents and young adolescents inevitable? Papa's Parrot

23. More HOT with Cynthia Rylant • Why doesn’t Mr. Tillian simply tell Harry about how much he misses him? (Evaluation) • Why does the relationship not change at home? (Evaluate) • Compare the role of the animals in two or more of Rylant’s short stories. (Evaluate) • Create a short story in which an animal helps people grow or attain some insight in some way.(Create)