Higher Order Thinking Skills

Abstract:

Higher order thinking skills should be an integral part of teaching and learning especially at the higher education level. Thinking skills lessons should be a part of the curriculum if students are to think and solve problems individually; cooperatively and creatively, teachers on the other hand must be conversant with relevant techniques needed in teaching higher order thinking. An in-depth review of literature reveals that teachers are faced with the problem of how to prepare and teach higher order skills in design and technology education. The paper is a library based work; and data was collected from textbooks, journal articles and internet search. The paper critically examined existing practices in the teaching of higher order thinking in design and technology education. Some of the key features mentioned were the use of concept, inferences, visualization, and schemas, among others. Recommendations were made regarding the deveopent of HOTS. Specifically, instruction must be designed to reflect; conceptual, technical, aesthetics, constructional and marketing areas, in order for students to develop creatively. However, there is no one way to reaching a particular goal, therefore this paper exposes one of the various ways in which lessons can be deigned to bring about higher order thinking, the implication of this is that teachers would have a pool of teaching-learning resources to choose from for their lessons.

3. HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS FOR DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATIONThe premise that supports teaching and learning of higher order thinking skills is no longer an issue for contention (Heong, Yunos, et al., 2011). Hence the issue lies with how best to teach this highly needed skill (HOTS). In a study conducted by Anderson et al. (2001), former students of Bloom, they reviewed Bloom’s taxonomy of higher order thinking, and came up with a six step taxonomy which includes; remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating process. These six steps they propose promote the development of higher order thinking skills, but emphasis was placed on analyzing, evaluating and creating. They suggested that educators and teachers should teach analysis by using approaches that integrates– differentiating, organizing, attributing (to break into constituent parts) and determine how the parts relate to one another and also to an overall structure and purpose (Yunos et al., 2010; Zohar & Dori, 2003).Furthermore, Anderson et al. (2001), also stated that teaching students to learn to develop evaluation techniques should comprise of activities that includes: co-ordinating, detecting, monitoring, testing, critiquing or judging. These they experimented and came to an infallible conclusion that exposing students to these kind of activities would provoke the mind into recognizing patterns, distinguishing patterns, exposing the problem in totality and help students to critically weigh all information and thus create workable solutions (Anderson et al., 2001; Krathwohl, 2002)The problem or draw back with this approach would be that it only linearly enumerates the components needed for the development of higher order thinking skills without necessarily relating the strategies needed to fuse and integrate these components for developing lessons that would foster or develop higher order thinking skills in students. According to Thomas and Thorne. (2009), higher order thinking skills may seem easy for some students, but prove difficult for others, but the fact that it can be learned and can be developed by a person’s practice is justifiable. They further stated that higher order thinking skills is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was said. It involves doing something new with the facts, understanding them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorise them, manipulate them and put them together in a new or novel way.Design and technology education according to Ministry of Education (2006), is that aspect of technical and vocational education that is project based and anchors on design actions and

the application of knowledge and process skills. Hence process in this context means that students should be able to produce creatively, technology based products. This therefore implies that design and technology education requires a higher level of thinking skills. David (2008); Robinson et al. (1999) argues that a national consensus for creative and cultural education is needed in order to unlock the potential of every student, thus he proposed that HOTS should be viewed as having the following features and in doing so, teach students to understand and integrate these features in design and technology education;•Using imagination•Pursuing purposes•Being original •Being of value.

According to Robinson et al. (1999), higher order thinking is a function of one’s imagination- the ability to creatively design what has not yet become fact or knowledge. This he opined is a fundamental tool in developing higher order thinking. His views may hold a stronger meaning than it appears to have, in the sense that every technological input or discovery in the world today was first created from imagination and not knowledge.Furthermore, Heong, Yunos, et al. (2011), reveals that there is research evidence supporting the teaching and learning of higher order skills, due to the low level of thinking skills among technical and vocational education students. This was determined when they assessed students on the rubric standards of Marzano thinking skills. Thus they suggested that models, strategies, techniques and activities, model lesson plans, use of integrated approach as well as the use of a self-instructional approach be used in the teaching and learning of higher order thinking skills. They opined that the self-instructional approach should be used on the ground that it caters for individual differences of learners and support students to study at their own pace. However, the problem with this approach according to King et al. (2011) is that it does not offer support to students engaged in higher order thinking activates (scaffolding), instead they suggested that lessons involving higher order thinking skills require particular clarity of communication to reduce ambiguities and confusion, and improve students attitudes about thinking tasks.

In order words, to learn something, students must first understand its meaning and we make meaning by connecting new ideas to ones we already have. The term schema is simply a pattern or arrangement of knowledge that an individual has already stored in the brain that helps them understand new information. Integrating this into higher order thinking lessons would help students to infer about a particular thing based on the information they have gathered previously.•Metaphors, Similes and Analogies: Metaphors, Similes and Analogies are ways to explain the abstract or unfamiliar by showing how the abstract or unfamiliar shares characteristics with a particular object, idea or concept.•Visualization: not all thinking is done or carried out with words or writing, sometimes a person may form visual images as pictures in the mind that are equally as meaningful as or more meaningful than words. Visualization is a very useful instrument for developing higher order thinking skills, hence students should be taught to visualize in order developing enormously, the desired thinking skillthat teachers long for.•Inference: to infer simply means to draw conclusion, to conclude from presenting evidence.it is reaching conclusion from a set of facts.The above features when properly integrated into lessons helps teachers to structure the teaching and learning process to one that supports the development of higher order thinking.

4. STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING HIGHER ORDER THINKING IN DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATIONThe following are some of the strategies that could be used in enhancing higher order thinking in the classroom, these should be seen as some of the few ways in which HOTS can be effectively taught, as there are many ways to reach a particular goal, these thus, are some of the ways to reach this goal of integrating HOTS in classroom lessons, the list should not be seen as being too exhaustive, but rather as a place to begin with:4.1 Take the mystery away and teach the concept of concepts Teachers should teach student about higher order thinking, what it entails, its benefits as well as strategies. This enables learners to be aware of and understand their own higher order thinking strengths and challenges and be better prepared to tackling these challenges.4.2 Teach concept of concepts In teaching a particular lesson, teachers should identify the main concepts and teach them critically. Teachers should also make sure that students understand the critical features that define a particular concept and how hey differ from other concepts. In doing so, students are developing their analytical ability which is a major component of higher order thinking.

 4.3 Name and categorize concepts:

Students should be alerted when new and key concepts are being introduced into the lesson. Also teachers should guide students in categorizing these concepts to determine which each one is – concrete, abstract, verbal, nonverbal or process. Doing this enables students to develop the skill of aligning their thinking in such a way that goes beyond mere understanding or memorizing of the concept

4.4 Move from concrete to abstract and backTeaching from concrete to abstract and back to concrete can be very helpful for students. When teaching abstract concepts, the use of concrete materials can be used to reinforce learning for both young and old alike. If a student is able to state an abstract concept in terms of everyday practical applications, then that student has understood the concept and can always make useful inferences and applications from what has been learnt to solving new problems.4.5 Teach inference and connect conceptsInferring is making useful conclusion by presenting evidence or facts. This is important as it helps students develop the ability to make logical conclusions upon examining the presented information, evidence or fact. Also teachers should lead students through the process of connecting concepts to other concepts. For example, if the concept is “Tools,” a larger concept to which Tools belongs may be “Construction,” and an even larger (more inclusive) concept could be “Manufacturing.”. This sort of thinking and connecting activity enables students to learn how to connect concepts to what they already know, and  create a web of knowledge that aids them deeper understanding and clarity.4.6 Teach question-answer relationships Question-answer relationships teach students to label the type of question being asked and this knowledge helps them in formulating answers. Raphel (1985) as cited in Thomas and Thorne . (2009) identified two major categories of question-answer relationship (1) questions where answers can be gotten from documented facts in text (book question) and (2) questions that require one’s own experience (head question). This enables students to be aware of the relationship between textual information and prior knowledge aiding them in determining what strategy to utilize when seeking answers to questions.

.CONCLUSION

The paper reviewed some of the existing practices, thoughts and concepts about higher order thinking. For a long time, a lot exposition has been on the importance of higher order thinking skills has been emphasized in teaching and learning process, as well as what it constitutes. But scarely in the literature are the startegies or ways in which teachers can actually utilize to teach HOTS in the Technical and Vocational Education classrooms. This exposition paper therefore adds to the literature, relating several strategies that teachers can adopt in teaching their students for the development of higher order thinking skills. Higher order thinking skills lessons in design and technology education should focus on activities that covers the key areas as suggested by David (2008) and should be systematically planned for, and taught to students, by integrating brainstorming activities, using co-operative learning as well as other suggested strategies for teaching HOTS as stated in the paper. Then the desired results educators and teachers seek would be gradually achieved, and students who can creatively develop new insights and workable solutions in design in technology education would begin to emerge increasingly and steadily.

Recommendation:

The following recommendations are made to give teachers invaluable resource in designing and teaching for the development of higher order thinking skills;•Design lessons should be taught building on the five basic foundations (conceptual, technical, aesthetics, constructional and marketing areas) of creative design decisions as students insights are broadened and opened when they are taught to think in relation to these five areas.•Teach students to keep track of their thinking, engaging in a purposive and conscious evaluation of thinking is in itself a higher level of thinking as students will be able to critically engage in analysis, evaluating and creating something new and insightful when they do.•Use instructional teaching methods such as problem based learning to engage students in higher order thinking,•Engage students in brainstorming activities to teach them idea and solution generation