2.4 Higher Order Thinking Skills
Candidates model and facilitate the effective use of digital tools and resources to support and enhance higher order thinking skills (e.g., analyze, evaluate, and create); processes (e.g., problem-solving, decision-making); and mental habits of mind (e.g., critical thinking, creative thinking, metacognition, self-regulation, and reflection). (PSC 2.4/ISTE 2d)
Artifact:
Big Businesses Unit
Reflection:
The Big Businesses unit was designed for fifth grade curriculum and integrated the English Language Arts Common Core, Social Studies, and National Education Technology Standards for students. Throughout this unit, students learned how entrepreneurs took risks at the Turn of the Century and established frameworks for big businesses today. Students participated in an online simulation of building own ice cream truck business to develop an understanding of the equilibrium point and relationships between supply and demand. The final project required students to create political cartoons to demonstrate the relationship between economic concepts and their connections to the historical events in American history.
The purpose of designing this unit was to model ways to integrate technology tools and resources to support higher order thinking skills, processes, and mental habits of mind and facilitate such learning in a classroom. For instance, building own ice cream truck business and learning on mistakes about the ways to improve its outcomes were tasks that exercised a variety of the habits of mind: persistence, management of impulsivity, thinking flexibly, striving for accuracy, taking responsible risks, and thinking and communicating with clarity and precision (Costa, 2008). Completion of this task taught students how to be flexible in their opinions, listen to ideas of others, and evaluate factual information. As a result, they were able to critically think about their thinking and improve the learning outcomes. Observing students working in collaborative groups during this task showed how their behaviors and decision-making processes changed based on opinions of every team member. Students strived to achieve best results on the task while suppressing their own impulsive desires to interrupt or force own ideas on the group.
The essential question of the unit required higher order thinking skills from students. They were not able to answer the question by simply reading textbooks and online resources or google it. They had to analyze every resource, synthesize the ideas to develop a deep understanding of the topic, and then evaluate it against current events in economy. According to the Bloom’s Taxonomy, such process skills fall into higher dimensions of the cognitive process and the area of meta-cognition (Huitt, 2011).
As the final product, students were to create a cartoon that would reflect complex relationships between economic concepts and represent a status of current businesses. The depth of knowledge necessary for a successful completion of the task was aligned to the Depth of Knowledge level 4 (DOK 4) and promoted extended thinking (Webb, 2009). Students were faced with real-world problems, learned by discovering, and presented their learning in diverse forms.
Most of the tasks in this unit were design for group work, allowing students to communicate, collaborate, and revise thinking with peers. Adding milestones that would be completed by individual students could be an improvement for this lesson. Students still could work in groups, but they would report individually to allow the teacher to progress monitor learning of every student in each step of the process. In addition, fifth grade students would be capable to collaborate with the teacher on creating specific criteria for the rubric. It would require higher order thinking processes and impact their engagement in the learning process.
References
Costa, A. (2008). Learning and leading with habits of mind. Available at http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108008/chapters/Describing-the-Habits-of-Mind.aspx
Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational psychology interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.html
Mississippi Sate University. (2009). Webb’s Depth of Knowledge guide. Career and technical education definitions. Retrieved from http://www.aps.edu/rda/documents/resources/Webbs_DOK_Guide.pdf
The Big Businesses unit was designed for fifth grade curriculum and integrated the English Language Arts Common Core, Social Studies, and National Education Technology Standards for students. Throughout this unit, students learned how entrepreneurs took risks at the Turn of the Century and established frameworks for big businesses today. Students participated in an online simulation of building own ice cream truck business to develop an understanding of the equilibrium point and relationships between supply and demand. The final project required students to create political cartoons to demonstrate the relationship between economic concepts and their connections to the historical events in American history.
The purpose of designing this unit was to model ways to integrate technology tools and resources to support higher order thinking skills, processes, and mental habits of mind and facilitate such learning in a classroom. For instance, building own ice cream truck business and learning on mistakes about the ways to improve its outcomes were tasks that exercised a variety of the habits of mind: persistence, management of impulsivity, thinking flexibly, striving for accuracy, taking responsible risks, and thinking and communicating with clarity and precision (Costa, 2008). Completion of this task taught students how to be flexible in their opinions, listen to ideas of others, and evaluate factual information. As a result, they were able to critically think about their thinking and improve the learning outcomes. Observing students working in collaborative groups during this task showed how their behaviors and decision-making processes changed based on opinions of every team member. Students strived to achieve best results on the task while suppressing their own impulsive desires to interrupt or force own ideas on the group.
The essential question of the unit required higher order thinking skills from students. They were not able to answer the question by simply reading textbooks and online resources or google it. They had to analyze every resource, synthesize the ideas to develop a deep understanding of the topic, and then evaluate it against current events in economy. According to the Bloom’s Taxonomy, such process skills fall into higher dimensions of the cognitive process and the area of meta-cognition (Huitt, 2011).
As the final product, students were to create a cartoon that would reflect complex relationships between economic concepts and represent a status of current businesses. The depth of knowledge necessary for a successful completion of the task was aligned to the Depth of Knowledge level 4 (DOK 4) and promoted extended thinking (Webb, 2009). Students were faced with real-world problems, learned by discovering, and presented their learning in diverse forms.
Most of the tasks in this unit were design for group work, allowing students to communicate, collaborate, and revise thinking with peers. Adding milestones that would be completed by individual students could be an improvement for this lesson. Students still could work in groups, but they would report individually to allow the teacher to progress monitor learning of every student in each step of the process. In addition, fifth grade students would be capable to collaborate with the teacher on creating specific criteria for the rubric. It would require higher order thinking processes and impact their engagement in the learning process.
References
Costa, A. (2008). Learning and leading with habits of mind. Available at http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108008/chapters/Describing-the-Habits-of-Mind.aspx
Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational psychology interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.html
Mississippi Sate University. (2009). Webb’s Depth of Knowledge guide. Career and technical education definitions. Retrieved from http://www.aps.edu/rda/documents/resources/Webbs_DOK_Guide.pdf