Developing Higher Order Thinking

Robert Fisher

Robert Fisher

Developing thinking and learning

This seminar will focus on:

•developing higher order thinking skills

•dialogic teaching and learning

•the development of qualifications in Scotland to support the Curriculum for Excellence programme.

Robert Fisher

What is the purpose of education?

Education …

‘has for its purpose not the imparting of particular knowledge but the strengthening of mental faculties’

(Kant)

… to cultivate the mind and develop characterRobert Fisher

Why teach for thinking?

‘If thinking is how we make sense of experience then helping our children

to become better thinkers will help them to get more out of learning

and more out of life.’

Fisher, R. (2008) Teaching Thinking Continuum

Thinking to Learn (Highland Council)

Robert Fisher

What are thinking skills?

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence is not an act, but a habit’ (Aristotle)

A thinking skill is:

• a mental process learnt through practice

• how we apply intelligence to a problem

• our capacity to make judgements

What is good thinking?

Thinking Skills• Knowledge• Understanding - Information • Application processing• Analysis - Critical thinking• Synthesis - Creative thinking• Evaluation Bloom (1956) Fisher/Logan (Highland LEA)

• Remembering• Understanding• Applying• Analysing and evaluating• Creating

(SQA)

Robert Fisher

Dimensions of thinking

These dimensions of thinking at literal, strategic, and conceptual levels :

•information processing•critical thinking •creative thinking •comparative (evaluative) thinking

through self-reflection, dialogue and writing, characterise research.

Robert Fisher

What is higher order thinking?

• Intellectually challenging, requires effort

• Complex and multi-variable

• Open, uncertain, not routine or algorithmic

• Seeks meaning, conceptual understanding

• Evaluative, involving criteria for judgement

• Metacognitive, involves self-regulationRobert Fisher

Robert Fisher

Models of dialogue

• Speaking and listening – engaging in talk

• Discussion groups – sharing views, ideas

• Community of Enquiry – seeking understanding via questioning, explaining, hypothesising, reasoning, and evaluation of concepts and claims to truth and knowledge

- within a self-regulating democratic setting.

Robert Fisher

Teachers and students as researchers

Thinking teachers and students enhance teaching and learning by research through:

•questioning, problem posing •studying multiple sources of information •applying higher order thinking•extending thinking through dialogue •reviewing processes and outcomes

How do we build research into the curriculum?

Robert Fisher