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Teaching Strategies That Enhance Higher-Order Thinking

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55 views3 pages

Teaching Strategies That Enhance Higher-Order Thinking

Uploaded by

Jennifer R. Juatco
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DIVISION ROLLOUT

SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR JHS ENGLISH TEACHER TRAINING


9-12 May 2017

TEACHING STRATEGIES THAT ENHANCE HIGHER-ORDER THINKING


One of the main 21st century components that teachers want their students to use are higher-
order thinking skills. This is when students use complex ways to think about what they are learning.

Higher-order thinking takes thinking to a whole new level. Students using it are understanding higher
levels rather than just memorizing math facts. They would have to understand the facts, infer them,
and connect them to other concepts.

Here are 10 teaching strategies to enhance higher-order thinking skills in your students.

1. Teaching Strategies to Help Determine I can do this in my class by….


What Higher-Order Thinking is
Help students understand what higher-order
thinking is. Explain to them what it is and why they
need it. Help them understand their own strengths
and challenges. You can do this by showing them
how they can ask themselves good questions. That
leads us to the next strategy.
2. Encourage Questioning I can do this in my class by….
A classroom where students feel free to ask
questions without any negative reactions from
their peers or their teachers is a classroom where
students feel free to be creative. Encourage
students to ask questions, and if for some reason
you can’t get to their question during class time,
then show them how they can answer it
themselves, or have them save the question until
the following day.
3. Connect Concepts I can do this in my class by….
Lead students through the process of how to
connect one concept to another. By doing this you
are teaching them to connect what they already
know with what they are learning. This level of
thinking will help students learn to make
connections whenever it is possible, which will
help them gain even more understanding. For
example, let’s say that the concept they are
learning is “Chinese New Year.” An even broader
concept would be “Holidays,” and if you take it
one step further it can be “Celebrations.” Each
small concept can be connected to a bigger,
broader concept.
4. Teach Students to Infer I can do this in my class by….
Teach students to make inferences by giving them
“Real-world” examples. You can start by giving
students a picture of a people standing in line at a
soup kitchen. Ask them to look at the picture and
focus on the details. Then, ask them to make
inferences based on what they see in the picture.
Another way to teach young students about how
to infer is to teach an easy concept like weather.
Ask students to put on their raincoat and boots,
then ask them to infer what they think the
weather looks like outside.

5. Use Graphic Organizers I can do this in my class by….


Graphic organizers provide students with a nice way
to frame their thoughts in an organized manner. By
drawing diagrams or mind maps, students are able to
better connect concepts and see their relationships.
This will help students develop a habit of connecting
concepts.

6. Teach Problem-Solving Strategies I can do this in my class by….


Teach students to use a step-by-step method for
solving problems. This way of higher order thinking
will help them solve problems faster and easier.
Encourage students to use alternative methods to
solve problems as well as offer them different
problem-solving methods.

7. Encourage Creative Thinking I can do this in my class by….


Creative thinking is when students invent, imagine,
and design what they are thinking. Using your
creative senses help students process and
understand information better. Research shows that
when students utilize creative higher order thinking
skills, it indeed increases their understanding.
Encourage students to think “Outside of the box.”

8. Use Mind Movies I can do this in my class by….


When concepts that are being learned are hard,
encourage students to create a movie in their mind.
Teach them to close their eyes and picture it like a
movie playing. This way of higher order thinking will
truly help them understand in a powerful, unique
way.

9. Teach Students to Elaborate Their Answers I can do this in my class by….


Higher-order thinking requires students to really
understand a concept not repeat it or memorize it.
Encourage students to elaborate their answers and
talk about what they are learning. Ask parents to
reinforce this at home, as well by asking the right
questions that make students explain their answers
in more detail, or to answer their child’s question
with a more detailed response.

10. Teach QARs I can do this in my class by….


Question-Answer-Relationships, or QARs, teach
students to label the type of question that is being
asked, then use that information to help them
formulate an answer. Students must decipher if the
answer can be found in a text or on the Internet, or if
they must rely on their own prior knowledge to
answer it. This strategy has been found to be
effective for higher-order thinking because students
become more aware of the relationship between the
information in a text and their prior knowledge,
which helps them decipher which strategy to use
when they need to seek an answer.

Source:

Cox, Janelle. “Teaching Strategies That Enhance Higher-order Thinking.” TeachHub.com K-12 Teachers
Alliance., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2016. < http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-enhance-higher-
order-thinking>.

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