Extending

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Extending Refining Higher Level Thinking
Activities
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After all, children like your Tommy are our
future. Thats why Im moving to France.
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Higher Order Thinking Blooms Revised Taxonomy
Create
produce original ideas or detailed plans Evaluate
identifying problems,
judging, comparison with reasoning Analyze
breaking a task into parts show how
the parts relate to each other Apply

following a procedure to complete a
task Understand make connections to new
learning, give examples, predict, find
patterns Remember
show how they retrieve from
memory
http//social.chass.ncsu.edu/slatta/hi216/learni
ng/bloom.htm http//www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thin
king/Bloom/blooms.htm http//fic.engr.utexas.edu/
files/HigherOrderThinkingSkills(FIC).pdf
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Match the Activity

• Find another book with a friendly theme.
• Draw a flow chart of the digestive system.
• How are the characters in these 2 stories
  similar?
• What are the advantages disadvantages of this
  game?

Understand Make a connections, give examples,
predict, find patterns Understand determining
the meaning of instructional messages 1.   Interpr
eting, Exemplifying, Classifying, Summarizing,
Inferring, Comparing, Explaining  
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Match the Activity

• Write 2 different dramatic skits about the
• term buyer beware.
• Design a cartoon character who saves water.
• Write a new ending to Little Red Riding Hood.
• Design unusual puppets for this story.

Create Produce original ideas or detailed plans
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Match the Activity

• Compare and contrast these toys.
• Find as many common links between
• these events as you can.
• What if Little Red Riding Hood carried a cell
  phone?
• What outcomes is this advertisement trying to
  achieve?

Analyze Breaking a task into parts show how
the parts relate to the other
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What level of thinking are you engaging students
in?
http//www.hotchalk.com/mydesk/index.php/editorial
/41-data-driven-decision-making/118-student-higher
-level-thinking
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Is higher level thinking activities only for
high level achievers?
http//www.informaworld.com/smpp/contentcontenta
785041879dball
The findings show that by the end of each of the
4 programs, students with high academic
achievements gained higher thinking scores than
their peers with low academic achievements.
However, students of both subgroups made
considerable progress with respect to their
initial score. In one of the 4 studies the net
gain of low achievers was significantly higher
than for high achievers. Our findings strongly
suggest that teachers should encourage students
of all academic levels to engage in tasks that
involve higher order thinking skills.
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Increasing Higher Order Thinking Skills RESEARCH
SAYS..
Is it better to teach these skills directly or to
create situations whereby students learn them
inferentially through being placed in
circumstances which call for them to apply these
skills? How much classroom time is required in
order for thinking skills instruction to be
effective, i.e., for students to master
higher-order skills and be able to transfer them
to other learning contexts? Is successful
thinking skills instruction partly a matter of
establishing a certain classroom climate, one
that is open and conducive to "thinking for
oneself"?
Research says thinking skills need to be taught
directly before they are applied to the content
areas
It takes an extensive amount of time to produce
resultsat least 35 minutes a day, four days a
week, for several months, for true thinking
skills development to occur
Students need to feel free to explore and express
opinions, to examine alternative positions on
controversial topics, and to justify beliefs
about what is true and good, while participating
in an orderly classroom discourse
http//www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/6/cu11.html
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How do you teach thinking?
critical thinking thinking skills (1)
thinking disposition (attitude) (2)
understanding (knowledge)

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Reading Using questions is only one way to
increase higher level thinking skills. Literature
is a great springboard for expanding children's
thinking. The following is a list of skills and
concepts that help children develop their
higher-level thinking. With each skill or
concept is an activity suggestion you can use to
expand and extend thinking. Expanded thinking
enhances comprehension. http//literacyconnec
tions.com/Schiller.php http//www.britishcouncil.o
rg/kids-stories-goldilocks.htm READ AND HEAR
STORY ON-LINE

• Evaluating
• Read or tell the story of Goldilocks and the
  Three Bears (traditional). Ask children their
  opinion as to whether is was okay or not okay for
  Goldilocks to go into the house when no one was
  home. This story is also available in Spanish
• Read The Little Red Hen (traditional). Ask
  children how they feel about the Little Red Hen
  not sharing her bread. Was it okay?

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Writing Is another way to increase higher level
thinking skills. Research suggests that writing
improves thinking because it requires an
individual to make his or her ideas explicit and
to evaluate writing may provide opportunity for
students to think through arguments and use
higher-order thinking skills to respond to
complex problems In the upper grades, writing
relies on higher-order thinking functions.
Assignments often require students to generate
original and creative ideas. Many writing
assignments demand critical thinking skills such
as evaluating opposing arguments and drawing
conclusions.
http//academic.pgcc.edu/wpeirce/MCCCTR/usingwrit
ing.doc
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What kind if writing activities demand critical
thinking?
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Choose a H.O.T.S, a topic of your own, and create
a task/product
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• VARIOUS INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES ENHANCE THINKING
  SKILLS
• REDIRECTION/PROBING/REINFORCEMENT. Known to
  increase students' content knowledge, these
  techniques also enhance the development of
  critical and creative thinking skills (Cotton
  1988 Pearson 1982 Robinson 1987 Tenenbaum
  1986).
• ASKING HIGHER-ORDER QUESTIONS (Baum 1990 Cotton
  1988 Herrnstein, et al. 1986 Matthews 1989
  Robinson 1987 Sternberg and Bhana 1986).
• LENGTHENING WAIT-TIME, i.e., the amount of time
  the teacher is willing to wait for a student to
  respond after posing a question (Cotton 1988
  Hudgins and Edelman 1986 Pogrow 1988).

http//www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/6/cu11.html
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Probing questions Clarification When they are
vague or have not given enough information, seek
to further understand them by asking for
clarification. What
exactly did you mean by 'XXX'?
What, specifically, will you do next
week? Could you tell
me more about YY? Purpose Sometimes they say
things where the purpose of why they said it is
not clear. Ask them to justify their statement or
dig for underlying causes.
Why did you say that?
What were you thinking about when you
said XX? http//changingminds.org/techniques/quest
ioning/probing_questions.htm